South-East Asia

As our schedule allows only two weeks in Vietnam, we limited our trip to the South and decided to spend a couple of days on the beach, in Mui Ne, whose beaches stretch about 20km on the shore of the Chinese Sea. Being open to the ocean, the wind conditions here are favorable for all kinds of water sports, so there are lots of windsurfers and kite surfers around.

Besides, it means RAIN. You haven't seen it raining when you haven't seen it raining in Vietnam! You can see the rain closing in from the distance to you, coming like a wall. That means you run for cover ASAP, as you will be soaking within seconds. When you are inside a building, the rain drumming on the tin-roofed tops is deafening, while the streets are flooded. This doesn't stop motorcycles and cars from speeding - it actually seems they enjoy it, despite of the dangers for themselves and the annoyance for pedestrians. I had to abandon my plans for taking a course in kite-surfing due the unstable, either rainy, stormy or windless weather. So now we are caught in the rainy season, which means that much planning is obsolete as the weather may cross it.

Our countryside tour here had to be postponed for the rain once, and 15 minutes after we left in our second attempt, we were trapped in waterfalls in our half-open jeep, which later broke down after driving off-road and breaking the steering axis when touching ground. Fortunately, after 30 minutes standing in the rain, another tour operator's jeep with some free seats passed and picked us up. There are some Sahara-like sand dunes in the area, up to 50 meters high, romantically set behind a lake covered with Lotos flowers. You can skirt down them on a plastic foil, which goes as quick as a sleigh on snow.