Bad girl, I know. I haven’t written for over 3 weeks and its like having not done your homework on Sunday night…

So! Arrived in MuiNé around lunchtime and checked into the hotel. Nice, with a swimming pool right on what would have been a beach if the sea was not doing a remarkable tsunami impression for the first 2 days we were in MuiNé (the walls of our room would shake each time a wave crashed against the sea wall… imagination would run riot in the middle of the night: convinced we would be swept out to sea).

The weather dictated that we do nothing for the first day or so – lots of red wine, Shithead, reading, watching HBO and BBC World (catching up on all the natural disasters we’ve missed). On our third day the storm quietened down long enough for us to hire a bike to see the sand dunes MuiNé is famous for (famous for dunes and wind surfers. Saw none of the latter, sadly…) Very odd scenery, like the Karoo or Namibia, in between tropical bits. On our last day in MuiNé we made a half-hearted attempt at finding a salt pan as well as breaking the bike (and I locked the key in the seat, which caused great excitement for about 10 minutes while a small boy tried – successfully – to retrieve it. Just goes to show how easy it is to nick things in a motorbike “boot”). Didn’t find the salt pan, so lay by the pool, minus tsunami-style waves, to slowly incinerate while waiting for the bus to Ho Chi Mihn City (HCMC) / SaiGon. (ouch ouch)

People definitely less aggressive, shouty and pokey the further south you go in Vietnam. Thank goodness.

PS that’s ouch ouch to getting burnt, not HCMC…

Whatever.