I'm Only Sleeping

Well into the South of Viet Nam, odds were… the weather was going to improve. Alas, no. We get to a great aquatic type town, and it also rains a whole load… though not quite as much as we’d seen – and the air temperature was up too, so walking at night with just a shirt (and umbrella) was back on.

Our first evening time, we met a guy playing pool who was from the UK but now lived in Nam. He showed us the best (the only) of the seafront clubs – the Sailing Club. I recommend anyone check it out. Good drinks, good tunes and a great crowd, with the sea crashing in against a Golden (in the day at least) beach.

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Our first morning looked almost promising in that there was no rain and we’d booked up to go on a boat trip around the islands, also getting the chance to snorkel around some beautiful coral reefs. The sea was quite choppy, and our boat that was full mainly with Asian tourists. So it was left to Nick and I to jump first into the depths. I’ve never been a very strong swimmer and this was my first attempt at snorkeling. I think I managed to spend a total of about 20 seconds with my face submersed – several times the rough sea washing over my snorkel resulting in that extremely annoying mouthful of water followed quickly by choking on salt water! Horrible as you like for you - funny as anything for anyone watching. After seeing some reefs and then cutting my toes on them, I retired to the boat and took to jumping off the roof.

The boat got motoring again and we were on “Happy Hour”! The guides dished out the worst wine I’ve ever tasted while we got to eat, adversely, some of the best buffet sea food I’ve ever eaten. The chaps then promised a “boy band” would come play a concert for us. They certainly did – it was the crew belting out renditions of “Hotel Carifornria” and “Ob la di, Ob la da (Li goes on)” – awesome. As the afternoon progressed, and us few Westerners carried on drinking the awful wine (it got slightly better for some reason!?). Christine, our new Australian friend and mother to 2 on board, got a little too drunk (considering she had only had about half a bottle of Red) and entertained us as only a drunken Australian can do; as the rain began to fall once again.

After returning to the same restaurant as the night previous (for fresh Red Snapper and Tiger Prawns – excellent), we also had another seriously cool night at the Sailing club before jumping aboard our open ticket bus ride once more to the peaceful beach town of Mui Ne. Surely some good weather ahead…

2am, we de-board the bus, look toward the skies and see the moon and stars for the first time in Nam! Full of hope for a gloriously sunny day sand-boarding the dunes I went to sleep.

10am, I rushed to the window like a kid at Christmas waiting for Santa and Snow… RAIN!

The place we were staying was way better than our general accommodation. It’s own beach and bungalows… all for about 7quid between us. We sat deflated with nothing to do in a town with nothing but sand dunes.

Lucky for us, midday saw the skies ease and we were able to rent motorbikes to go check out the dunes. I think my bike had been crashed since all of the fairings were out of shape, the speedo, indicators, headlights and horn were all out of action too. But on the scale of things, it was still better than the majority of vehicles in a country that needs no license to drive. 25mins into the journey, I also discovered the fuel gauge had a fault… the hard way.

After finding some more fuel, we decided to burn around the coast and see the dunes. The “Sandboards” which I had imagined to be snowboards-but on sand, were just bits of plastic that you use like a toboggan.

After playing on the dunes for a while, we had a race against time to get home before dark… me having no lights of course.

At the end of the day, we pretty much conceded we weren't going to get any decent weather in 'Nam. Gump had it right on the mark. Our last hope was in the nations Capital - Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh city as it's now more popularly known.