To finish off the Southeast Asia portion of our trip, we wanted to go to a beach and relax. After doing a bit a research, I learned that a great kiteboarding spot was only a few hours away and just south of Ho Chi Minh City. This turned our relaxing beach time into something a bit more exciting.
When we left Can Tho in the morning, we didn’t know if we could even get to Mui Ne that day or not. We only had bus tickets as far as Ho Chi Min. Once in Ho Chi Min, there were no English signs and it seemed like nobody spoke English. After wandering around most of the terminal and asking many people, an old lady came over and showed us the correct ticket counter. We pointed on a map to where we wanted to go and luckily we had just enough money to buy tickets for the last bus of the day leaving in 20 minutes. After bit more confusion as to where to wait or which bus was ours (the station was incredibly busy), we were finally on a bus and somewhat confident that it was going in the right general direction. 7 hours and two rest stops later, we arrived in Mui Ne only a few minutes walk from our hotel!
The hotel was far from the kiteboarding area because of beach erosion so the next day we moved a few kilometers down the beach to the main area. Next, we waked down the beach and found a place to rent gear. An hour later I was finally out on the water!
The hotel we moved to was surprisingly nice. For only $30USD/night we had a very nice room with an ocean view, a pool, live music every night and even full breakfast every morning. We could really enjoy the hotel amenities because kiteboarding doesn’t usually start till around 11 each day once the wind picks up. I took full advantage and was on the water as much as possible:
Sara also joined in and took lessons for two days. She progressed all the way to starting to get up on the board! Very impressive.
We wanted to stay longer but we had a flight to catch and the wind forecast wasn’t great, so we headed back to Ho Chi Min for our final two days in Vietnam.
Kite beach
Joe's Cafe & Garden Resort
Joe's Cafe & Garden Resort
Will ripping it up
Sara with her instructor, Fu
Sara getting a lesson
The resort looks beautiful! I was nervous enough watching you kiteboarding alone in DB, glad I wasn’t watching you among so many others!
It was tough at first being so close to so many people since I learned on an empty beach, but I quickly learned how to avoid most of them!