No blow, no go.

Well, the wind gods were not kind to us at all.  As we walked to our kiteboarding lesson, my hat brim didn't even blow up, much less get blown off my head as it usually does.  There was literally no wind today, not a single kiteboarder out on the water, when there are usually dozens here in Mui Ne.  So we didn’t get to do our final lesson at all!  So much for my goal of being able to ride for a little bit by the end of the trip!  Oh well!

Instead, we swam at the beach, read books, ate some more Indian food, and took a nap before our loooooong day(s) of travel ahead.  We love Vietnam and look forward to coming back next year!

Gavin relaxing on the porch of our beachfront villa at Cham Villas. 

Beautiful bowls of flowers all over Cham Villas' gardens.

Vietnam traffic rules, or lack thereof

Today we lounged around the resort until our next session of kiteboarding at 11:30am.  We were both happy to note we hadn’t forgotten everything in our two day absence.  :)  After a quick review, my instructor Katya turned me loose by myself with the kite in the water!  It was much more fun doing body drags without her hanging on behind me, as the kite had more power to pull me!  :)  I got so excited I went WAY too far, and I guess Katya was waving at me to come to shore and I didn’t notice.  :)  I successfully maneuvered around another lesson and avoided getting tangled in their kite, and I also avoided crashing into the swim zone buoys.  :)  I am feeling pretty confident about controlling the kite so far, so Katya introduced me to the board.  I learned how to use the kite to pull me away from shore while also holding the board, and then how to use a power stroke to stand up on the board.  I was able to stand up a couple times, but not actually keep going and actually board.  She’s still hanging on to the back of my harness, so I couldn’t go anywhere anyway.  :)  We ended the lesson there, so I will try one more time tomorrow!

We ate a late lunch at the same Indian restaurant from a few days ago, then came back to the resort to read, rest, jump in the pool, and generally lounge.  We pretty much exhausted all the tourist sites of Mui Ne yesterday, so there is not much to do.  :)

We were still full from lunch, so we looked up a place to have drinks and appetizers on the oecan, and settled on Villa Aria, recommended by Lonely Planet.  The deck overlooking the ocean was lovely, but that’s the only good I can say about the restaurant.  Our appetizers were gross, and our drinks tasted watered down.  The staff completely ignored us - we were one of two people in the restaurant, and we had to go fetch them anytime we wanted something!  Luckily we weren’t super hungry.

Sukothai restaurant.

We headed back to Cham Villas to turn in.  Tomorrow is our last chance to kiteboard!

More kiteboarding

Today we lounged around the resort until our next session of kiteboarding at 11:30am.  We were both happy to note we hadn’t forgotten everything in our two day absence.  :)  After a quick review, my instructor Katya turned me loose by myself with the kite in the water!  It was much more fun doing body drags without her hanging on behind me, as the kite had more power to pull me!  :)  I got so excited I went WAY too far, and I guess Katya was waving at me to come to shore and I didn’t notice.  :)  I successfully maneuvered around another lesson and avoided getting tangled in their kite, and I also avoided crashing into the swim zone buoys.  :)  I am feeling pretty confident about controlling the kite so far, so Katya introduced me to the board.  I learned how to use the kite to pull me away from shore while also holding the board, and then how to use a power stroke to stand up on the board.  I was able to stand up a couple times, but not actually keep going and actually board.  She’s still hanging on to the back of my harness, so I couldn’t go anywhere anyway.  :)  We ended the lesson there, so I will try one more time tomorrow!

That's me in the helmet, walking the kite to shore with my instructor Katya
behind me.

Me and the kite, Katya carrying the board.

We ate a late lunch at the same Indian restaurant from a few days ago, then came back to the resort to read, rest, jump in the pool, and generally lounge.  We pretty much exhausted all the tourist sites of Mui Ne yesterday, so there is not much to do.  :)

We were still full from lunch, so we looked up a place to have drinks and appetizers on the oecan, and settled on Villa Aria, recommended by Lonely Planet.  The deck overlooking the ocean was lovely, but that’s the only good I can say about the restaurant.  Our appetizers were gross, and our drinks tasted watered down.  The staff completely ignored us - we were one of two people in the restaurant, and we had to go fetch them anytime we wanted something!  Luckily we weren’t super hungry.

Villa Aria.  Lovely place, abysmal food.

We headed back to Cham Villas to turn in.  Tomorrow is our last chance to kiteboard!

Sunset at Cham Villas.

Me at sunset.

Gavin told me to "look wistfully out into the ocean." I was just watching a
kite boarder.  :D

All the sights in one day.

Today Gavin was feeling better, but not “extreme sport” better, so we again canceled our kite surfing lesson.  Gavin went right back to sleep after breakfast, so I went and bought him some more bottled water (our first 6 liters had just run out), then I got a massage in the resort spa, which was more like a little outdoor pavilion with massage beds in it. :)  I had a nice massage with hot stones and really nice smelling oil, and it totally made me want a nap, so I joined Gavin for a bit.

Around lunch time, Gavin was feeling good enough to leave the resort after his nap.  So we shared a quick lunch and then our driver Tung picked us up for a private Vietnam War-era Jeep tour of several of the sights around Mui Ne.

Our driver Tung.  Also, not a single one of those gauges in the Jeep was working. :)

Gavin in the front for a bit.

And then we traded.  :)

We started at Fairy Stream, where we walked barefoot up a sandy bottomed stream through white and red sand formations.

Fairy stream.

Beautiful sandstone formations.

Gavin in Fairy Stream.

Me in Fairy Stream. 

I will admit to cheating and Photoshopping people out of several of the
previous photos.  :D There were actually a ton of tourists there. 

The source of Fairy Stream.

After Fairy Stream, we were supposed to go see the fishing village, but somebody waved us down and told our driver that police were up ahead, so our driver quickly turned around and said we had to go a different way.  When we asked him what we were doing that was illegal, :) he said that police will stop and give a ticket to the Jeep because it is too old.  Also probably because it doesn’t have seatbelts, and the only thing keeping you from falling out the side is a small strap.  :)

We continued on our way, then suddenly Tung had to pull over because the Jeep had overheated - he had a big bottle of water to pour into the radiator, but he had to wait until the Jeep had cooled down a bit before driving again.  He waved down another Jeep driver, who made his other passengers crunch over so we could fit in the car and get to the white sand dunes sooner, and Tung would just meet us there a bit later.

The white sand dunes are a field of sand dunes about 45 kilometers from Mui Ne.  The dune are is large enough that we had to pay an ATV driver to take us on a harrowing drive to the top of one of the dunes.   (harrowing because he was driving pretty fast on unstable sand…) At the top the wind was blowing fiercely and sandblasting of our legs.  We could see ATVs driving all over the dunes.  Near to us several ATVs went “diving” down the steep dune!  The ATV driver who picked us up took a not-so-thrilling way down, though.

ATVs all over the place at the white sand dunes, and people trying to
get you to rent those blue sleds to slide down the dunes.

Crazy windy.  We hardly took any pictures.

Our next stop was the red sand dunes, which were a smaller group of dunes than the white sand dunes, but they are a beautiful rusty red color.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of trash thrown all over the dunes, and hundreds of tourists around.  The original plan had been to watch the sunset there, but we were behind because of the detour around the police.

Red sand dunes. I also Photoshopped a bunch of people out of these
photos.  :)

Gavin and I at "almost" sunset at the red sand dunes.

Red dunes, blue sky, ridiculously windblown hair.

Couldn't get my hair in control for a selfie.  :)

Gavin in our Jeep at the red sand dunes.

Instead, we watched the sun set over the fishing village of Mui Ne.  We had seen it before in the daylight, but now we got to see it at night with all the boat lights twinkling.

Panorama of the fishing village. 

Fishing village.

Tung took us back to our hotel, and we got ready for dinner.  We headed over to El Latino, a MEXICAN restaurant in VIETNAM, to have dinner.  We had some surprisingly good fajitas and enchiladas.

El Latino.  A Mexican restaurant in Vietnam. Complete with sombreros.

Gavin and I after dinner.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to turn in.  Tomorrow we will try AGAIN to get into our kiteboarding lesson!  :)

Don't drink the water. Just don't.

Gavin was up all night shivering with fever and diarrhea, so we canceled our kite boarding lesson since he wasn’t feeling well, and can’t go far from a toilet, unfortunately.

So most of the day I spent reading by the beach, reading by the pool, walking to the pharmacy, where you can just tell them the prescription medicine you want and they will give it to you.  :)  (Gavin needed some antibiotics for his sick self.)

He “sort of’ rallied for dinner, so we walked the short distance to Sandals again, but didn’t get to sit close to the beach as those tables were all reserved.  As he still wasn’t feeling well, I had to do the buy one get one free cocktail all by myself.  :)

We went to bed early for obvious reasons, hoping for a better day tomorrow!

Other than tending to Gavin, this is what I spent most of
the day doing. (reading a book, actually.  :)  )

Kiteboarding Joys and Tribulations

Teeny crabs all over the beaches here.  His whole body including legs is
about the size of a silver dollar. 

Gavin relaxing at Cham Villas.  Ahhhhh....

Today was our big kiteboarding day with Surfpoint!  We didn’t get many photos because we were both busy with learning how to control the kite, but our first two hours were spent on the beach learning how to move the kite and how to keep it still.  Then we did the same standing in the water.  After the first two hours, we had some lunch at a delicious Indian restaurant nearby, and the we finally got to take our kites out into the water and practice water dragging, where we used the power of the kite to drag our bodies in the water, finally getting to the fun part, as the first two hours weren’t that fun, even though both of us had good instructors.  :)

Gavin learning how to control the kite on shore!

Unfortunately, at the end of my lesson the tides changed into pretty large waves, which I guess brought in a bunch of jellyfish. I got a couple minor stings on my legs, and then I felt one practically wrap itself around my wrist; I think it got stuck for a second in my rash guard.  So I came out with my whole wrist wrapped in several dozen stings.  Ick.  My surf instructor poured vinegar all over them to help nullify the toxin, and then we walked back to our hotel, where I scraped my skin with a credit card to take out the stingers and took a hot shower.

When walking around earlier, we had seen signs for a street food fair a few minutes walk from our resort, so we decided that would be a great place for dinner!  We were a bit surprised to discover this was not local Vietnamese street food; most of the vendors were expats/white people, selling everything from western/European food, to Asian style BBQ, cakes in an actual electric display cooler, to Mexican food.  It was mostly local restaurants who had booths at this street food fair.  We had some tasty empanadas from the Mexican restaurant, and some nice grilled pork and beef plus twice-twice-fried spring rolls at a Vietnamese place, and one of the BEST cocktails I have ever had, made with fresh Vietnamese herbs and gin.  We also had some rolled ice cream made from fresh mangoes and strawberries.

Gavin's delicious fancy cocktail complete with a lily petal.

Our amazing mixologist.  :) 

We found snake wine in a pharmacy near our resort.  Good for what ail's ya. :D

After our wandering dinner, we headed back to Cham Villas to turn in.  We’re looking forward to our next kiteboarding lessons tomorrow!

Just a lounge day

Tea at breakfast.

Very "stimulating" tea.

Today was mostly a chill day, as we were tired from all the travel yesterday.  We rented some motorbikes and hauled our laundry over to a local laundromat.  On the way back to our hotel we stopped and grabbed some water and stylish sunglasses for Gavin.  :)  Then we hung out by the pool to read, then had lunch at the beach restaurant at Cham Villas and had a truly surprisingly good chicken sandwich, and then we hung out in the beach loungers for a bit.

Fishing boats in Mui Ne.

Fishing boats in Mui Ne, and Gavin diddling on his phone.

Gavin's stylish new Ray Bans from a little shop in Mui Ne. 

Look closely... Do you think they are fakes? :D  (It says
"Rey Bais")

We had dinner at Sandals restaurant at the nearby Mia Resort.  I had some tasty poke and a delicious passionfruit mojito, and we enjoyed the ocean breezes of the beachfront restaurant.

Fancy cocktails at Sandals' happy hour.

The busy Mui Ne strip at night.

We turned in early, as we want to be well rested for our kiteboarding lesson tomorrow!

Soaking and stylin'

Today we left Ninh Binh, but not until 1:30, so Gavin and I had some time to do some exploring together, finally!  We took our motorbikes back to Trang An so he could do the same boat tour that I had done a few days before.  With him around, we actually got some better photos.  :)

The boat landing.

A view into the lake. 

Rowers waiting for passengers.

Rowboats. 

A rainy day for this ride!

At the first temple stop.

Boats at the first stop. 

At the second temple stop.

We kept wandering around trying to find our boat,
and finally found her under the bridge!

Our super stylish rain gear. 

A piece of scenery from Kong, Skull Island was randomly on our route.
I had no idea what it was on my first time through the tour; Gavin had
to explain it to me! 

At the last stop.

It started raining while we were waiting to board the boats, so we dashed across the street to buy some cheap rain gear; a full poncho and pants!

After the boat tour, we rode back to the hotel, took a car back to the airport, flew from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City.  On the shuttle bus to the plane, a little Vietnamese boy suddenly started singing The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round in perfect English, so I sang with him for a bit, nostalgic for being able to sing for my son, who is at Grandma’s.  :)

After that we had 4 hour car ride to Cham Villas in Mui Ne!  We arrived at around 12:30am, so we didn’t get to explore yet!  We’ll look forward to seeing it in daylight!