Baron Adventures: Destination Singapore & More: Vietnam Part I... Mui Ne

Time has flown by and we are woefully behind in blog posts! So much is happening... all too fast! Our first extended stay guest, my mom, Wendy, arrived in mid January. While Singapore is a great destination in itself, we wanted to take my mom somewhere special as well, and thus we decided to plan a family trip to Vietnam for a full week over the Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) holiday in mid February.

This was the first trip that I can honestly say I was nervous about. All of the others have just made me feel excited leading up to them- but something about being gone for a week, in a third world country that was once at war with the United States, with my 2 year old and my mom... all just made me really anxious- I wonder why! We used all of the knowledge we gained from our other trips to plan this trip as best we could to ensure we had a great time, and I am so happy to report that we had a truly amazing time in Vietnam- and my anxiety was rewarded with a great trip!

Vietnam was truly a learning experience- even in the planning phase. I had no idea that Vietnam was so huge! It has 2000+ miles of coast line, a really diverse climate since it's a long skinny country, and is packed full of 89 million people! We decided to head for southern Vietnam (where it's still warm in the winter unlike Hanoi) and spend half of our trip relaxing at a beach area called Mui Ne and the other half in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

Upon first arrival into Vietnam, we were seriously shocked by how nice the airport was- very clean and modern (NOTHING like Bali- ugh), and how enormously expensive our visas were! I have to wonder if there is a special American tax to enter Vietnam. I would not be surprised. Our driver picked us up and we began our 5 hour journey to Mui Ne. After a few tries at figuring out the wacky conversion rate of Vietnamese Dong vs. American Dollars (20,000VD to $1), we were on our way.

While there were many things to see on the way to Mui Ne looking out the window, no descriptions can do justice to our awe of the motorbike situation in Vietnam. Oh My God. I thought Phuket, Bangkok and Bali had a lot of motorbikes. No. They don’t. Everyone in Vietnam rides a motorbike. Through the course of our time, we played an ongoing game of “find the most ridiculous thing you can on a motorbike”… some of the best contenders were: A baby riding in a high chair, a man with 50 helium balloons, a woman breastfeeding her infant, a person with a giant, round metal table, huge billowing bags of recyclables, 7 foot long logs for fire wood… the list could really go on and on.

Adults on motorbikes all wear helmets- usually the “cool” kind of motorcycle helmet you would see in the states that probably offers zero protection in an actual crash… kids for some reason don’t wear helmets. Wild.

Helmets may be optional, but everyone wears a mask over their face to protect themselves from the pollution. Masks are a big business with kiosks selling them everywhere you go and people use it as a fashion accessory- choosing cartoon character versions for their kids, and cute designs for themselves. All of the women on motorbikes wear sweatshirts, long pants, hats, masks, gloves and special Vietnamese toe socks with their flip flops or sandals. It was 90-100F in Vietnam. The reason these women endure all of these clothes while it’s sweltering outside? Fear of the sun and getting sun damage, or darker skin. Additionally, it’s just plain dirty riding through the streets of Vietnam, and women want to keep themselves covered up and clean. It has nothing to do with religion, it’s about their bodycare rituals. For me, since I work on Johnson’s Body Care in Asia, this was a really interesting experience.

On the roads, the main road rules are “honk” to tell people you are coming and the bigger vehicle gets the right of way. We beeped our way past many a motorbike, narrowly missing throngs of bikers, and then would nearly be mowed down ourselves as huge buses passed by our car honking loudly so we’d move out of the way. Believe it or not, we got used to it pretty quickly. The roads themselves were pretty decent- no major potholes or anything and we even traveled on expressways at some points.

We finally arrived in Mui Ne and were thrilled with our resort- Pandamus Resort & Spa. It was a bit out of the way from the main drag of Mui Ne, but the grounds were immaculate, the beach was beautiful, there was a huge pool, koi ponds, playground, great food and hilarious cover bands. What more could you ask for? Our rooms had a view of the pool and the ocean. Not bad. Kite surfing is a huge recreation in Mui Ne because the afternoons are quite windy. Kite surfing is what it sounds like- basically a mix of surfing and flying a kite- so the person literally flies up in the air over waves. It looked like SO much fun. Apparently this sport is very popular in Australia and some parts of Asia, but I had never even heard of it.

I said our beach was beautiful, and it was, but one of the disturbing things about Mui Ne was in fact the beaches. Rob and I ran on the beach a few times and found that once you left our immediate hotel grounds, the trash on the beaches was horrifying. It literally looked like a dump in some points where the tides hit the beach particularly hard. From food wrappers to clothes to tires to bottles and just “rubble”… it was a mess. We later learned that our beach at the hotel is cleaned 3-5x per day because of how much trash washes up there! I am not really a very green person, but seeing how devastating the trash build-up in Vietnam is, I have to say I’m suddenly a bit of a reformed person.

The clientele at the resort was a bit surprising to us, even though we had read about this dynamic… nearly every other guest was Russian, with the exception of a few Chinese families. Even some of the restaurants and stores have things written in Vietnamese and Russian, vs. English. I guess our surprise at this dynamic belies has little we really knew about Vietnam before going there! Besides being somewhat close geographically (basically nothing is close to Russia so Vietnam isn’t too far all things considered), Russia and China have had close bonds with Vietnam for many years because the of the communist government and philosophies the government shared. Russia supported a lot of the reconstruction of Vietnam after the “American War” (more on that later. We didn’t end up making any friends at the resort- language was a pretty significant barrier… but loved hanging out with Avery in the pool where she swam without her swim vest for the very first time! Not bad for 28 months old!

The town of Mui Ne was reminiscent of some of the more chaotic beach towns I’ve visited in my life- the main drag is filled with hotels, restaurants and shops selling all kinds of stuff you probably don’t need. One odd thing we saw was tons and tons of crocodile skin items- from belts and wallets to rugs and stuffed beasts big and small. We learned that there are many crocodile farms in Vietnam (i.e. they are not being poached in the wild and they are not running rampant around Vietnam- phew!).
Our time in Mui Ne flew by quickly, and before we knew it, we were headed back to Ho Chi Minh City for the next leg of our journey. Overall thoughts on Mui Ne- great spot beach getaway. We might have stayed a bit closer to the town if we hadn’t had Avery with us, but couldn’t have wished for more with a kiddo with us. Stay tuned for Part II of Vietnam trip…