South to Saigon

Mui Ne is a coastal area lying five hours north of Ho Chi Minh City. Surprisingly there are more resorts here than there are anywhere else in Vietnam, most of these resorts have been built within the last five years. There is one long road dotted with beach side resorts and restaurants. If you want a very remote private holiday relaxing in nice resorts it's the place to come - you'll certainly be spoiled for choice. The resorts look a bit surreal in the sandy barren surroundings.... each entrance has a grand entrance, immaculately manicured green grass, huge shady trees and Disneyland type buildings.

We stayed for two nights and decided to move south towards Saigon. Although Mui Ne is beautiful, everything is spread out, most of the restaurants are swanky western ones or built to house tour groups. The absence of good local food and lack of a central hub made it feel like a place that was manufactured for tourism. Which is exactly what it is ... and what people pay good money to visit... so each to there own .... and now on to Saigon.

:: Typical lightpole in the city ::

It's hot hot hot in Saigon so it's hard to get enthusiastic about sightseeing. We arrived late in the evening and set about finding whatever accommodation hadn't been snapped up during the day. The first area we hit happened to be where the accommodation sharks hung out, after a while you realise they are all related to each other or working for the same cartel at least... in high humidity walking up flights of stairs to look at a room it can quickly try one's patience.

Besides that Ho Chi Minh City is a pleasant place to spend some time. After all the rushing around of the past month we've been uploading photos, catching up on the blog and enjoying lots of cable TV in the coolness of our room. Conveniently the cricket world cup is reaching it's climax so there have been a couple of late nights.

Our plan from here is to leave on Saturday for a trip in the Mekong Delta and make our way up by river into Cambodia early next week.

That's where we'll next pop up on the radar.