Mui Ne: sunrise yoga, interesting sea creatures, a shell rainbow, fairy streams and sand dunes...

Mui Ne is a beach side fishing village in Vietnam, spread out along one main road that runs parallel to the shore. We hadn't booked our accommodation before arriving, and long story short, we ended up giving in to the moto taxis that were pestering us and showing us pictures of a resort, but it actually worked out! Our room was rather meh, but the resort itself was great, with a nice palm tree ringed pool, and beach front access. Not. Too. Shabby.

I woke up early in the mornings to head down to the beach to do some yoga. I haven't had much luck finding classes, so I've been trying to do my own thing as much as possible. And sunrise yoga on the beach? Awesome! I missed the actual sun rising on the first day, but on the second day, my goodness! Just as I was starting my sun salutations, there it was, a giant hot pink orb rising over the land. As I saluted the rising sun, fishermen were hauling in their nets, and sorting through the catch. Fish and other unidentifiable creatures flipping and flopping in the sand. One woman had made a separate little pool for a few choice creatures -- I'm not sure if these were headed back to sea or to market. The pile of picked-over discards was a little sad... so many jellyfish. I wish I knew the system; I would gladly have helped return the discards to the sea!

The morning's low tide is also a great time for shell searching, and I found a full rainbow. Black, purple, maroon, bubblegum pink, ochre, even chartreuse and green. Amazing!

The Fairy Stream is a shallow, sandy riverbed that you walk along barefoot, past incredible, natural sculptures of sand to a small waterfall. Lots of entrepreneurial children will "lead" you, expecting to be paid for their services of walking in front of you, so we told them that we're going to hike alone. We'll show you the way! they insist, but since the path is the river... I think we can manage.

We rented some old, creaky, terrible bicycles to ride out to the red sand dunes. But having generated a bit of a sweat getting there, I was breaded within minutes from the driving sand... but what a neat place! It's a mini desert! Hills and mountains of rich, red sand with gorgeous patterns on the wind-blown surfaces. A fun place to attempt a 'crazy carpet' run!