Phan Rang and the beautiful Mui Dinh Bay

Just before midnight (1h delay) we take the train that is supposed to take us to the town of Phan Rang, which is 630km away. Since the journey takes 11 hours, we book a sleeping compartment again. Unfortunately, this time we are not so lucky and have to share the 6-bed compartment with two coughing and cigarette-smelling French women, two Vietnamese women, a child, and a dog. The child and the dog are definitely too much, but what can we do. The animal-friendly Vietnamese family was already on the train and used the time to turn the compartment into a battlefield. It seems like they had a good meal and then fell into a deep sleep. Trash, bowls, bottles, leftovers, and stuff are lying everywhere. In between, the dog is running around. Great. They have marked their territory. Anyway, I manage to create a little space with my foot to enter the compartment, climb onto my bunk, take an allergy tablet (because of the dog), and try to sleep. Unfortunately, I can't sleep. The French women above us are coughing, the dog is whimpering, and one of the Vietnamese women is snoring. Anyway, lying down for 11 hours is still relaxing, and I'm sure I slept for a few hours.

When we arrive in Phan Rang, the weather is great. So off to the hotel (unfortunately, we have to take a taxi this time because there is no bus and it's too far to walk, but it only costs 3€) and then to the beach. Since we chose a city without tourism (we had enough of that in Hoi An), there is no public transport and without a scooter, we are lost. Unfortunately, the hotel doesn't have bicycles either. So we dig deep into our pockets and take a taxi to the beach for 1.70€. Man, we're decadent today. And to top it off, we eat at a restaurant right on the beach. The beach is almost empty, which we really like, and it's clean too. But we need shade, so we walk along the sea for a while to reach the umbrellas of a resort. Fortunately, hotels in Asia are always very relaxed and nobody wanted to chase us away or take money from us to use the sunbeds. Unfortunately, the water is not clean, so we decide to only stay for one night.

As the sun slowly sets, we walk the good 4km back to the city. Shower and look for food. There are no real restaurants in Phan Rang, so we end up in a plastic chair restaurant where no English is spoken. So we point to the food of the other guests and order that way. We also get two warm cans of beer poured into a plastic cup with ice cubes. What a treat. But it's cheap :-D

Back at the hotel, we plan our further journey and look for a train to Ho Chi Minh City for the next evening.

Since the hotel doesn't provide breakfast (there is not a single hotel in the whole city that offers breakfast), we eat at Lotteria, a Korean fast food chain. Then we hop on the scooter and go to the train station first to buy tickets for the journey to Ho Chi Minh City. After that, it's time to explore the surroundings. The city is really uninteresting. That's the disadvantage of visiting a place without tourism.

Our destination is Mui Dinh, a small bay with a beach that I read about on the internet. The more popular alternative would have been Vinh Hy, but when I see pictures on the internet of a bay with dozens of ships at anchor, I lose interest. And we definitely made the right choice!

So we head south and at the first opportunity, we leave the highway to use the small coastal roads. The dusty roads, some of which are only sand tracks, lead us through various villages and past huge fish farms. After about 20km, the road simply ends. We stand next to a small hut and 30m further, a quasi-new, two-lane road lined with palm trees suddenly begins. And there is sand in between. It's a strange scene because the area seems so deserted. Our theory is that a hotel or resort was once planned here and the construction work was abandoned for some reason. The road, including palm avenue and guardhouse, is already there, and the location right by the sea would be perfect. So we drive/push the scooter through the deep sand to reach the road and continue through the dune landscape. Until the road ends in a big dune. This is where it stops. But of course, we climb up the dune first to get an overview. It's not far to the main road, but we would never be able to cross the dunes with the heavy scooter.

So we turn around and take another turn. This is where it gets really cool when the road is half broken and there is a stream flowing over and under the asphalt, including a small waterfall. It looks so amazing with all the water in the desert, the road in the middle of nowhere that simply starts and ends in the sand. We are really amazed by the scene and feel like children, glad that we didn't take the main road. And we haven't encountered a single person. Only a goat crossed our path.

Since the mysterious road in the dune landscape unfortunately doesn't lead anywhere, we drive back to the village and from there get on the highway. Now it's not far to the bay. Since you can't reach the bay by scooter, we drive past it first. But from a viewpoint where you can overlook the sea and the coast, I can see the bay from the photos.

So we drive back a bit, park our scooter on the side of the road, and walk about 1.5km through the dunes. The wind is so strong that the sand hurts on the skin. We also ran out of water and could really use some shade. When we arrive at the bay, we luckily find both. There are only 4 young Vietnamese people hanging around in hammocks besides the owner of the beach bar, spending their day off here. That's exactly what we do too. Drink water and acclimate in the hammock in the shade. No tourists, no noise. Just wind, sea, and a few chickens.

Two of the Vietnamese speak good English and translate for us when we want to order food. There is no menu. We want to keep it simple and just have rice with chicken. But when they tell us that the old lady will go catch a chicken, we reconsider and have something vegetarian instead. The chicken would have been fresh for sure, but it doesn't have to be that fresh.

After we have fortified ourselves, we stroll along the beach and climb on the huge rock formation at the end of the bay. From there, we watch the sunset and observe the fisherman as he rows his round boat into the bay and checks the nets. What an idyllic scene and surprisingly, there is no trash lying around. That's very atypical for a beach used by locals and fishermen.

After the sun has set, we drive back to Phan Rang.

Kindly, we are allowed to use the shower of the hotel owners (we already checked out in the morning) and at around 10 pm, we take the train to Ho Chi Minh City.