From Saigon to Mui Ne Beach

This was an interesting one, and Meka’s first experience of winging it while travelling, and both of our first experience of theft. I went looking for a sleeping bus from Saigon to Mui Ne, but they were all full, and I luckily managed to secure two seats on a normal seated A/C bus overnight. It was scheduled to arrive in Mui Ne at 11pm, but we got there more like 1am. The bus wasn’t planning on stopping at the beach strip I was fairly sure was the right one, so I had to convince the driver that yes we did actually want to get out here. Because we were in a hurry, I accidentally left my bag of wet clothes in the storage compartments under the bus. Dammit, those were some awesome shorts!! It’s 10 days later when I’m writing this and I still haven’t found a good replacement. Been rolling my light dune pants up like a really tragic stereotype.

We got out at the very end of the resort strip and started walking back looking for a place to stay. Meka goes through the things in her bag and finds that her wallet is missing. Then she finds that her glasses are missing. Prescription glasses, not sunglasses, I have no idea why anyone would want to steal those. She is understandably a bit pissed off. There was nothing open at this time of night. We found a couple of more than $50/night places, but a bit too much, and finally found a $30/night that was the best we could do. By this time we just want to collapse into bed so we take it.

This is the view in the morning:

While Meka slept in, I decided to sort us some new accommodation at a reasonable price. After walking up and down the whole strip, I settled on a guesthouse directly across the road from where we were staying – almost exactly the same inside the room, and only $9 with A/C.

In the afternoon I get the brilliant idea to ask the glasses-wearing receptionist at our previous hotel where we could go to get some glasses made. After a translated conversation with her daughter on a cellphone, she writes me out some Vietnamese directions to an optometrist. We jump on a motorcycle taxi and head down the road. On the way to wherever we were going, I spot a place that looks very positive. We jump off and go inside to chat with the guy. He is awesome, and fixes her right up with a pair of very good looking glasses for NZ$30, in just one hour. Holy crap!

New glasses

Even in the middle of nowhere, there’s an optometrist…

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