Arrived in Mui Ne and it was roasting, sweat dripping off our chins, hoping not to have to walk far with our rucksacks we tried the Sinh Tourist recommended hotel but for $65 a night we had to kindly decline. Leaving Kate with the bags I went on walkabouts to find accommodation more in our price range, with everywhere being extortionate it was more like a holiday resort town and it was also Vietnamese holiday time which didn’t help. Bored of walking we checked into the 1 and 10 guest house for $10 a night. It had a shared bathroom but it was clean and had a great location directly behind the bar (Not). We predicted not much sleep.
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| Strange name but worked out well |
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| What you see is what you get... |
It would only be a couple of days in Mui Ne so we explored in the afternoon with a walk down the beach with our first glimpse of the South China Sea. It was pretty nice, even if the beach wasn’t great. It was pretty entertaining watching the wind and kite surfers, it’s apparently the cheapest place on the planet to learn if that’s your thing.
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| Mui Ne Beach |
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| Local Fishing Boats-Look like half coconut's |
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| Some Kite-Surfing. Looks Tough!!! |
We managed to find a nice cheap Vietnamese restaurant where for once we had a meal each and we sampled our second Vietnamese beer, Saigon Export the Red Label. There was a poor shark trying to swim in a tiny tank near our table so averted our eyes. Another drink back at the hotel bar where this time we were surrounded by Cobras in jars and snake wine on the menu. Enough excitement for one day it was time to get under our pink mosquito net for a good night’s sleep before taking to the open road on a scooter the following day.
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| A great local spread |
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| Poor Little Bugger |
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| Bia Saigon Export-Red Label |
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| Freaking Out Now... |
BIA SAIGON EXPORT (RED LABEL), PALE LAGER, SOUTH VIETNAM, 4.9% ABV
Bia Saigon Export is funnily enough also brewed by SABECO or Saigon Beer Co.
The beer I sampled was served in a 355ml bottle. The South Vietnamese Beer is brewed with a mixture of malted barley and rice, and pours a bright yellow colour. It had a decent white frothy head and the aroma was very pleasant, clean with some citrus notes, quite fruity.
The initial taste was quite sweet followed by biscuit and fruit with a more herbal and hoppy aftertaste. It was well rounded and had a bit of a kick compared with its younger brother. It’s been a while but maybe a lager for grown-ups at last in South East Asia. A nice surprised.
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| Not the best pour of my life but nice head |
The next day hitting the road took a little longer than expected in the morning. The scooter rental place wanted to keep our driving licences; this meant no ID as the hotel already had our passports. He didn’t cave in so we headed back to the hotel to see if they could arrange a scooter as he didn’t need licences as he already had our passports in a carrier bag with 150 others. I am sure we will not be leaving Vietnam with a passport. Shortly afterwards a pretty cool scooter arrived and it was one of the scooter taxi drivers Moto’s which he was renting to us for the day. It was probably pretty good business at $9 a day and Mui Ne was mainly a one street town and getting fares probably wasn’t easy. Finally on the road and full with fuel at $1 a litre we hit the open road with the freedom to explore as we wished. We headed out along a scenic coastal road for 35km and visited the white sand dunes passing herds of cows along the way with Kate hanging off the back trying to take pictures. The area where the sand dunes were was pretty amazing and we weren’t expecting to see these in Vietnam we were more prepared for lush green rice paddy fields, but it is known as the ‘Sahara’ of Vietnam.
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| The Scooter Plan of Action |
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| The Herd time for a swift manouvre |
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| The Hell's Angels |
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| Long stretches of empty coastal road |
There was a lot going on at the site with activities including quad bikes, pony rides and ostrich riding. It was nice to see local families having a great time with guitars out, plenty of singing and lots of beers flowing. The sun was out in full force which made us feel like we were in the desert and the funniest thing happened whilst waiting to walk out onto the dunes. Kate and I had just been talking about how dangerous quad bikes can be when an old guy jumped on one and crashed directly into a tree within 3 seconds. This was only funny because he didn’t hurt himself! We stuck to renting a sheet of plastic which would apparently be a sand sledge. Off we went hiking up onto the dunes it was hard work climbing the steep slopes. It was a good job we had pumps with us as in flip flops we would have burnt our feet off. Once on the sand dunes it was just us and one other family so it was nice and peaceful and the scenery was breathtaking. Psyched up for our sledging no matter how much we tried we were sliding nowhere, not even an inch. Pardon my French but these sledges were so shit it was funny. The family said that it may have been due to the heat that day as they had been before and it had worked. It was funny giving it a go though but it did mean that we would not be sliding back to base.
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| The Crash Aftermath |
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| 'Sahara' of Vietnam |
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| Climbing the White Sand Dunes-Knackered |
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| Ready for Plastic Sledging |
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| I am going nowhere & what is with my hair? |
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| Absolute Pants!!! |
White sand dunes done and it was time to get back to the scooter. Houston we had a problem, we couldn’t open the bike seat to get our helmets out. The locals were laughing at us and snatched the keys out of my hand to show me how easy it was to open. It was pretty amusing when five of them still couldn’t do it. I eventually managed to open it and with a salute off we went. Gasping for a drink we stopped at a cafe on the side of the road. They gave us a menu, sat us down but then decided that we couldn’t have anything, very weird. So off we popped back towards town.
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| Ha Ha! Not that clever then... |
The scenery really was beautiful and it was surprisingly dry giving you a feeling as though you were on Planet Mars with the red dirt. This was backed up when we passed the red sand dunes but not wanting to give sledging another go Kate videoed off the back of the bike.
With a map of things to see we headed down into the local fishing village where Kate was spat at by a child while the parents laughed (quite a strange day so far). It was time to get out of there. We stopped for some gorgeous local fried calamari and Kate dosed up on antibiotics from our second chemist in Vietnam, she just couldn’t shake the bug.
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| The Fishing Port |
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| The Spitting Arena |
Back on the road for the afternoon we visited the fairy stream and headed out to try and find the waterfall. We couldn’t find it but this wasn’t a disaster as we passed through some local rural villages that is always a treat as it gives you an insight into local life.
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| The Fairy Stream |
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| An awesome contraption. Baby seat for a Scooter... |
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| Heading north through Mui Ne |
Next we headed north trying to find the lighthouse but again couldn’t. I don’t know what was wrong with us today. Again it worked out great as we passed a local Brew House which I had read about called Hoavien Brauhaus. It was a Czech Brew House overlooking the ocean and even though it needed a lick of paint the larger and dark beer ‘Great’ and brewed directly to the tap. A great find great beer and great snaps for the blog.
HOAVIEN BRAUHAUS, MUI NE, EAST COAST VIETNAM
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| The SIGN we nearly missed |
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| Cool Car |
The Hoavien Brewhouse is located on the beach in Mui Ne. It opened on the 23rd of July 2008 and was decorated with wood and copper with a little sunshine, surf and ocean.
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| Not a bad place for a Brewhouse |
The Mui Ne site is one of three in Vietnam with the others being in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. They are the first and only restaurant that also serves the World Famous Pilsner Urquell draught beer in Vietnam-imported from the Czech Republic since 1995.
It is a popular site for Vietnamese and foreigners alike as well as beer loving people. It has great support from the Czech Embassy in Vietnam as well as the Pilsen Brewery.
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| The Traditional Beer Hall |
In the restaurant you can even pour your own beer at the table while enjoying a meal and can even take home and enjoy Hoavien beer with special types of 0.5 Lt, 1 Lt and 2 Lt holder’s.
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| Take-Out, Take-Home |
Hoavien have successfully built a brewery system inside the restaurant, applying Pilsen traditional brewery technology as well as using the help of the Beer & Malt Institute of the Czech Republic. Brass kettles are connected by a pipeline system to the brewery equipment. You get a view of each stage of the brewing process and they use malted grain from Bohemia and Saaz hop flowers from Zatec.
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| The Old Copper |
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| Pretty Open for Viewing |
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| I'll have a glass of the house brew please... |
We sampled the in house Hoavien Pilsner Lager and Dark Czech Lager.
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| Not sure so one of each will be fine |
HOAVIEN DRAUGHT BLONDE BEER, CZECH PILSNER, VIETNAM, 5.0% ABV (I THINK), 0.5 LT
The Hoavien Czech Pilsner had a rich malty taste with a hint of sweetness that balanced the high level of bitterness from the Saaz hops. It had a pleasant malty, biscuity, hoppy aroma. It was a bold lager as you would expect and very flavoursome as I recall. Definitely a Pilsner style of lager not ‘I would like to be a Pilsner lager when I grow up’ like most beers in South East Asia. Delivered exactly what it should. Quality...
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| The Hoavien Czech Pilsner |
HOAVIEN DRAUGHT DARK LAGER, CZECH STYLE, VIETNAM, ABV 5.0% (I THINK), 0.5 LT
The Hoavien Dark Lager is brewed with a selection of malts including some roasted malt. The Beer had a creamy malt, roasted grain, chocolate and coffee aroma that seemed to be balanced by floral hops.
The taste was strong with coffee but more caramel and chocolate. It was delicious and refreshing after being sat driving a scooter for a whole day. Medium bodied but very silky and smooth.
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| The Hoavien Dark Czech Lager |
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| Great Beer's |
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| Time to say good-bye and this is a venue sign |
It was just a perfect way to end another cracking day on a scooter. Some of our best days seem to be when we hit the open road. They really are highlights and we are so glad to take the plunge in Malaysia of giving them a go, it’s the best way to explore and pretty cheap if you’re on a budget.
Exhausted and with aching arses this left us with an evening chilling online and catching up with journals. Mui Ne was done and we looked forward to getting to Dalat the following day from the coast to the mountains. Our bus wasn’t until 1pm so it gave us time to pop out for bacon butties and to swing in hammocks before checking out, remembering to get our passports back.
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| Hammock Time before the Bus to Delat |
Back to the Sinh office we were again on the same mini bus with the same crazy driver as before, handing him our rucksacks through the window. Only 4 hours ahead which is a breeze nowadays we make the climb along the winding mountain roads into the central highlands of Vietnam. It was another blisteringly hot day and the AC was broken which made for a pretty uncomfortable journey as not everyone would open their windows. The highlight was stopping for some token prawn cracker crisps and the vast mountain scenery.
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| Pit-Stop on Route. It was cooler off the bus than on the bus |
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| Token Prawn Cracker Crisps |
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| Welcome to the Central Highlands of Vietnam |
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