Mui Ne: Villas, Seafood, Sand Dunes & Ostrich Rides!

Bus cost from HCMC: 5 usd

What: Weekend Getaway
Where: Mui Ne, Vietnam 
Why: Beach, adventure time and some peace and quiet away from HCMC.
Transportation: 5-hour bus ride from HCMC. We took a sleeping bus.  It was a good way to travel, as long as you weren't over 6 feet tall. I felt like I was in a spaceship!

Great room with a great view!

A 3-minute walk up from the beach we found a great villa on the hill called the Mui Ne Hills Guesthouse.  


TripAdvisor Review here.


On Saturday, we started the day off right with an ocean view breakfast, at the villa, which included eggs, toast and fruit. 
We rented a motorbike for the day and set off to explore Fairy Stream (aka Suoi Tien), a shallow river that flows between bamboo forests and sand dunes. Visitors can walk barefoot through the water to a small waterfall.

Fairy Stream BONUS: I rode an Ostrich! For only 2.50 usd- (video here).

At the Red Sand Dunes we were approached by kids renting plastic sleds however, we found walking and jumping up and down the dunes to be plenty of sandy fun for us. The dunes are a remarkable "must-see" in Mui Ne.

The remainder of our weekend was spent on the beach
walking, swimming and watching kite surfers (another sport I would love to learn!).

Photo courtesy of pervoliavilla.com

Mui Ne is all about the seafood! Boiled, grilled, BBQ, fried, however, you like it. On our trip we enjoyed squid, prawns, red snapper and grouper fish. Yummy!  

Fishing Harbor

Monkey See, Monkey Do

This weekend we made our way an hour and half outside HCMC by motorbike. We took a short ferry ride and continued driving through the quieter, less crowded Can Gio Mangrove forest to the beach. 

Cost of Ferry ride: 10,000 VND (0.50 USD) for 4 people.

Monkey enjoying a bag of peanuts he just stole from a small boy.

Monkey Island


On our way we stopped at Monkey Island. Animal lovers and kids alike will love this place.  Home to thousands of mischievous monkeys, also known as long-tailed masquades (Macaca fascicularis), a bunch of crocodiles and other wildlife. 

FYI: When visiting be sure to watch your food and drinks. Unlike zoos back in the states these social monkeys roam free at the park and enjoy stealing from people whether they are feeding them intentionally or not.


Cost of Monkey Island (Price does not include the optional boat tour): $5 USD total for 4 adults.

Can Gio Resort

Can Gio Resort

Just down the road from Monkey Island we stopped and checked in to the Can Gio Resort. We stayed in a Bungalow for 40 USD dollars a night, breakfast included. This resort is on the beach with a swimming pool, tennis court, badminton court, massage, steam room/sauna, karaoke, pool table and a restaurant.

We really enjoyed this place and found it hard to believe it was only a 3-star resort.

Can Gio Resort Website

In the morning the tide went WAY out.

BONUS: Across the street from the resort there was a seafood market. Not only did we get to pick out our super fresh seafood- once purchased the seller cooked the seafood for us right on the spot. Yummy!
Our dinner for 4 included:
1 kil or 2.20462262 pounds of octopus was 100,000 VND or $5 USD
1 kil or 2.20462262 pounds of Ghost Shrimp* was 300,000 VND or $15 USD.

*Ghost Shrimp: So good! They taste just like lobster and are similar in size but, without the claws.

Octopus

King Prawns 

Seafood Market

Vung Tau Weekend

View from Christ of Vung Tau overlooking Back Beach

Vũng Tàu is a city in southern Vietnam. Its population in 2005 was 240,000. The city area is 140 km² (54 square miles) including 13 urban wards and one village. It is the capital of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, and is the crude oil extraction center of Vietnam. It is also known as one of the most beautiful cities of tourism in Vietnam. Locating near Ho Chi Minh city and Binh Duong province, Vungtau associates with these two places to create a triangle of power economy all over the country.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Hydrofoil Ferry

Vung Tau is a popular weekend get-away for Saigon residents because it is only an hour and fifteen minute ferry ride, or two hour ride by taxi, away. For our trip we went with the hydrofoil ferry $6/person each way. Vietnam ferries are different from what I think of as a ferry back home in Seattle.  This ferry was more like speed boat, shaped like a bullet with 2 rows of airplane seats inside.

Once we made it to our destination it was a quick, easy taxi ride to Back Beach. After hiking on the beach, we checked into our hotel and made our way to the neighboring Beach Club for dinner and a night swim in their Infinity Pool. 

The next day we woke up early and made our way to the top of the Christ of Vung Tau, a GIANT statue of Jesus built by the Catholic Association in 1974 and it was completed in 1993. It is 32 metres (105 ft) high, standing on a 4 metres (13 ft) high platform, for a 36 metres (118 ft) total monument height with two outstretched arms spanning 18.3 metres (60 ft). There is a 133-step staircase inside the statue. After a few hours on the beach, walking and swimming we showered up, checked out of our hotel and went to the Vung Tau Lighthouse. Both the lighthouse and the Jesus lookouts gave us great views of the city.  Then we hiked back down in to town for lunch before catching our ferry back to HCM.

Christ of Vung Tau

Lighthouse

Hike Down the hill from the lighthouse to Vung Tau

Max's favorite statue he spotted from the lighthouse.