Phan Thiet and Mui Ne

This little guy thought we were very interesting

We took our first train journey of our round the world adventure aboard the Phan Thiet Express as dawn broke across Ho Chi Minh City on Friday morning.  The experience of getting tickets was not as simple as one might have thought.

Most advice we received about booking train tickets in Vietnam was not to try and do it ourselves.  Too regularly, this seems to be the advice dished out to all tourists, for fear that we will be ripped off, overcharged, or that the tickets themselves would not even exist.  In retrospect, for buying tickets from the train station, it probably could have been one of the easier things we have had to do on our own.  However, I say this in retrospect.

We picked one of an apparent two choices.  Ms Anh, one of Mum's former Ho Chi Minh City/USQ graduates, who comes from Phan Thiet, offered to buy us the tickets, and there was an agency that could print the tickets in Hanoi, send them to Ho Chi Minh City, and then have them delivered to us in District 2.  Given the ridiculous logistics, Ms Anh won - but only came out about 10c cheaper per ticket.  

In the end, while we were at the station, there was plenty of English signage, and I am sure that we would not have had too many problems buying the tickets for ourselves, when armed with the actual price.

Comfortable seats on the Phan Thiet Express
 (with power outlets)

Number 9 bus leaves from the Phan Thiet Station 
and stops regularly along the beachfront all the way to Mui Ne

Of course, buying the tickets was just the start of the weekend.  Phan Thiet is a popular destination because of its proximity to a giant (and comparatively newly constructed) reclining Buddha, beautiful White and Red sand dunes, the Fairy Spring/Canyon, its seafood options and markets and its beachside location, perfect for kite surfing on the south-east coast.

We were picked up at 4.30am on Saturday morning by a revitalised US jeep and a group of other tourists.  

Sunrise at the White Dunes

With little communication from our driver, our jeep was off, flying northwards towards the smaller town of Mui Ne, with the beach somewhere off to our right, invisible in the darkness.  We screamed past other jeeps packed up with tourists, our driver was apparently keen to be there first.  It probably took us a little under an hour to get to the White Sand Dunes where we had to pay the entrance fee (despite paying for the tour), luckily, we had fair warning on this from a guidebook - it's certainly worth other travellers trying to confirm these sorts of details at the time of booking, so that there's no nastiness.

Meandering through the White Dunes

With few instructions, we had no idea where it would be best to see the sunrise, so we had to make it up for ourselves.  Opting to move away from the noisy 4x4's many used to explore the dunes, we found ourselves a nice place, all to ourselves, with others less keen to walk far from the dropoff point. The white dunes were definitely worth a visit, even if you have visited sane dunes elsewhere.

Kat awaiting the sunrise

Our second visit was to the Red Dunes.  Much closer to town and more popular with tourists and locals alike for that reason.  

Many more locals (and touts) at the Red Sand Dunes

Apparently the sands' colour change with the seasons, which I think is pretty incredible.  For the record, I think they're red at the moment, Kat yellow. You can sandboard at the Red Dunes if it takes your fancy. As the ride down is rather short we left it for others to enjoy, although it was interesting to see an elderly lady doing it herself, to convince us how much fun it could be.  Although the dunes appeared tame, Kat's 2011 temporary blinding-after-a-sand-board-stacking-experience in Peru is still fresh in her mind. If you had to choose between the dunes, Kat would opt for the White Sand Dunes.

Anything and everything a fisherman can unload

Our jeep also took us to a fishing village where the catch is shelled, gutted, traded or all three right there on the beach, before being thrown on the back of a motorbike and driven off to it final destination - even if the motorbike needs to drive up the cement embankment overlooking the beach.

Fishing village (with escaping motorbike, 
racing up the concrete embankment)

We were taken by the Fairy Spring, our next stop on this journey of the coast.  This is an innocuous little stream that is only 1 or 2 cm deep and you can walk up it.  While at first it just seems like a little tourist trap, after you turn a few corners, you are faced with an amazing scene of red sand combined with exposed limestone stretching away in front. It was certainly worth the minuscule entry fee. There is also a cafe that looked quite nice and you could easily spend some restful time here.

The Fairy Spring

Unfortunately Kat became sick following the tour (which finished about 11am) and spent a rather miserable 6 hours lying down in our hotel room. We had been sharing food so we had to put it down to a smoothie she had consumed the evening before. Luckily our hotel (Hai Yen Family Hotel, booked through Agoda) was very comfortable and before long Kat felt ready to jump in the sea and then spend some time in the pool. 

View from our room

There we met a large Vietnamese family that were very keen to take photos of us (some surreptitiously, and others more conspicuously) - they had rented a van to bring the whole lot of them to Phan Thiet for the weekend.

HCMC family on a weekend in Phan Thiet

Costs for things that matter:

• $US32.80 (656 000VND) for 2 return tickets HCMC-Phan Thiet
• $US5 for a xe om driver to take me to meet Ms Anh and home again
• $US21 per night - Hai Yen Family Hotel

The rest of the weekend we spent beached, eating or reading. As it turns out, I'm better at these things than I am at buying train tickets!

The Red Dunes of Mui Ne