Vietnam - Days 4 & 5 - Coco Beach | Main | Vietnam - Day 7 - Coco Beach and the trip back to Sai Gon
Wednesday - Boxing Day to be exact..
At home they are running the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, and Rob who is here from Ballarat (the only other Australian family in the resort) said that Melbourne has had a lot of rain, well there hasn't been rain here in Mui Ne, rather the perfect weather has continued, today we got up at 7.30 and had a swim in the perfect sea before the day got too hot, I trod on a skate or something that shot out from under my foot, there is obviously plenty of marine life here as the fishing fleet is quite huge and they trawl right across the beach foreshore in the little blue boats in the morning before the wind and waves come.
This photo is so cheezy!
After another enormous breakfast we decided to brave the Xi Om's - this is the local cheap way to travel on the back of a scooter, so after a little negotiation we organised for two bikes to drive us around all day for 15,000 dong (about 90c Australian) we rode down to Phan Tiet, passed the local fish sauce factory (the major local industry) they initially took us to the big supermarket and department store, which was interesting but not really what we were after, so then we got them to take us to a more traditional market (where everyone else shops for fresh fish, meat, fruit, vegetables, clothes, jewelry and pretty much anything else you can think of. I purchased the traditional red t-shirt with yellow star (XXL and it is still tight) and Eve got two strands of beautiful pearls and a pair of pearl earrings for $50.
They took us to the docks where the fisherman were pulling up and landing the daily catch, and we saw some fish sorting and sales, we then got them to take us to the Cham towers on the hill where we had a great view of the bay and back across Phan Tiet, the Cham's themselves were interesting being built in the 9th century.
Then we went back to Mui Ne and along to the fishing village about 12kms further down the road a really fantastic trip, having finished our trip we wanted to surprise our drivers a little so massively over paid them $10 US each - sorry if this spoils it for others but we felt they deserved it!
Posted by crispin at December 26, 2007 07:44 PM