Savages Asia Adventure: I've Finally Reached Vietnam!

12th to 18th November - Ho Chi Minh City & Mui Ne

Tired and disorientated our bus dropped us off in the epicentre of Ho Chi Minh, the second largest city and Vietnam, with lights glowing everywhere and people all sat around on little stools sharing food, i instantly got a great vibe from the street and couldn’t wait to explore. The people spewed out onto the streets at night time and it was exactly what i was expecting from Vietnam. Straight away we were mobbed by a taxi driver, pushy, but nothing out of the ordinary, we decided to take a risk and go with him along with having the meter running. Anybody thats visited out here will tell you thats a mistake, we had no idea where our hotel was and i should of got wifi or a simcard before making any moves. Our new driver went around the city for a good 15 minutes with what, at the time, looked like a direct route, he completely fooled us! Turns out the hotel was only a two minute walk from where the bus dropped us off! Fair enough to the guy, if tourists are daft enough to fall for it, who’s to blame him?

This was Bens last night on our Asia adventure, he had been here since the beginning and it began dawning on us that our group of six would soon become five. With this on the mind we headed out for a couple of quiet drinks, trying different places and generally walking the hustling streets. It was nice and relaxed, another great place for people watching, and before long we headed back for an early night. In the morning we moved hotel as our numbers were changing, Ben followed for some breakfast at a little cafe before a taxi was ordered and we reluctantly said our goodbyes. We knew we would see him in only a matter of weeks but it definitely felt different without him. High spirits soon returned and we began walking the streets looking in shops and generally exploring before grabbing a few coffees and playing cards. The next couple of days in Ho Chi Minh followed a very similar suit but yet it was great! Being able to sit around on the busy streets and watch the world go by without being overly hassled.

With one more full day i re-motivated most of the team to come and visit the war museum based just on the outside of town, there are memorials and museums scattered around the entire country as a reminder to the war that happened here. The war museum was incredibly graphic and details which at times left me feeling both shocked and sickened by what had happened here. There was even American tanks, helicopters and planes that had been left here from the war shown on exhibition at the front, a plaque explained how many of each had been used during the war and the numbers often reached much higher than i was expecting. On our way around the museum i saw a room titled “Agent Orange”, i’d previously heard about what this bioweapon had been used for and that it still damaged Vietnam and surrounding countries to this day, however after walking through a gallery filled with huge portraits of the men, women and children that were hit by the gas i realised how much worse it actually was, it was catastrophic. The gas had even been used across farming land to destroy crops and children were still being born with defects. That was more than enough horror for one day and after debating the war we all headed back to the busy streets.

We jumped onto our bus the next morning and headed up to Mui Ne, a small town that was known for its red sand dunes. We had missed out on a desert during our time in India so we decided this would suffice. With our bags dropped off with instantly hired scooters for the day and with sunset quickly approaching we shot off up the road to a little lay by overlooking the sea. The scene was an array of boats gently moving with the waves and the sun dropped slowing over the horizon after lighting the entire area in a deep orange glow. Definitely a worthwhile sunset to see. That night, whilst we had transport we decided to attempt photographing the stars at Mui Ne’s sand dunes. We blasted down the deserted roads and pulled up somewhere at the side of the road, with very little idea of which direction we should head we simply walking onto the sand and heading forwards. After 15 or so minutes we arrived at some much larger dunes and began setting up camp for the few hours we stayed. The vision of stars was unfortunately not great, however, it was still loads of fun experimenting with the camera and generally exploring at night time.

Awaking really early has never been our groups strong point but sure enough we arose and opted to begin with the nearby fairy pool walk, something i thought would be good to just pass some time. It surprisingly entertaining! You got to walk down this very slow paced stream with no shoes on and great scenery, we kept stopping to play in the diluted clay which was acting more like quick sand. With a bit of climbing fallen trees and sitting at some chairs that appeared very out of place, we decided to head back and bike onwards to the sand dunes we visited the night before. On our arrival we were bombarded by kids selling these sheets of plastic used to 'surf' down the dunes, we decided it would be fun and with a little bit of money thrown their way we were off into the desert. We started on the biggest dune within sight and soon realised the sand was far too soft and we literally just got covered head to toe! I ended up looking like the guy from 72 Hours. We managed to get the technique down and eventually got some distance and speed on these things.
Our time in Mui Ne was quite short but we made the most of it, the only bizarre thing about the area was that most of the eateries were owned by Russians and in turn, this was mostly the cuisine that was on offer! The food definitely wasn't good for the few days. At one point i ordered a sweet and sour, it arrived covered in cucumber and rather than the traditional red sauce it was see-through and white... Not for me thanks. Vietnam so far had been brilliant, we we're looking forward to continuing our journey up the country.