Barely fours hours from the chaos of Ho Chi Minh City, from the lost Graham Greenery of erstwhile Saigon, we arrive in a different world altogether. It’s dusk in the tiny fishing village of Mui Ne and everything is sheathed in a luminescent light. Colourful boats bob on the glistening water for miles and the sunset bathes the landscape in a harmony of peaches, pinks and blues. As dumbstruck tourists drink in the vision, it’s just another day for the fishermen going about their daily business — unmindful of the cameras, chatter (often in foreign tongues) and recurrent exclamations.

Nothing changes, and yet everything does, when we head back again to the beach next morning at the crack of dawn to witness a Mui Ne sunrise from the local fish market — its early morning chaos a surprising foil to the slow-moving sun on the horizon.

Every evening, the fishermen set out for a night of fishing, effectively surrendering themselves to the sea — their small boats are far too ill-equipped to handle bad weather or the rough, turgid seas — only to return to life and land at dawn, when their wives take over. The catch is sorted and sold to local restaurants and street food vendors in front of our eyes — the scene not that different from a trading floor on Wall Street. Fishnets heaving with seafood are sprawled across the beach, buckets overflowing with live fish are bartered, shells are strewn everywhere and raucous conversation fills the salty air.

Fortunately for us, respite (and quiet) is around the corner. The Fairy Stream mirrors the bucolic rhythm of Mui Ne. Tucked between the beach and the village centre, the gurgling stream is framed by limestone formations; the rocks, a freestyle, elemental expression of wind, water and earth. We wade through warm water, past thickets of trees, to reach a waterfall where several languorous hours disappear of their own accord, unnoticed.

Now hungry, we amble over to Mui Ne’s huge fruit market and find everything from litchis and mangoes to mangosteens and papayas at its many stalls. The pick of the lot? The fuchsia-coloured dragon fruit. We saw entire orchards on our way here from Ho Chi Minh City, and discover later that they taste much better here than anywhere else in Asia. And since food is to travel what a fishnet is to a fisherman — an indispensible tool of the trade without which one cannot hope to net the best catch in the sea — the dragon fruit turns out to be the first of our many delicious adventures in this southeastern corner of Vietnam. Nearly every day, we trawl the network of streets for freshly barbequed scallops with spring onion and peanuts drizzled with a lemon, sugar, and salt dressing.

The slow pace of life in Vietnam’s countryside calls for languid days, nay weeks, spent at its many isolated beaches. But our favourite here is the Hon Rom beach, a short drive from the village past the Red Sand Dunes — another unexpected spectacle of dunes by the beach!

It’s at the White Sand Dunes though, about 25km from Mui Ne, that we decide to go dune bashing on rented quad bikes, until fatigue forces us to rest awhile by a lotus pond nearby. And it is by its tranquil waters that we catch another of those Mui Ne sunsets one can never tire of. It’s a curtain call in technicolour.

TRAVEL LOG

Get there

The train from Ho Chi Minh City takes 4 hours to reach Phan Thiet, the closest city to Mui Ne. Tickets (reserved seating) are priced at $16.

Stay

The four-star Pandanus Resort is located away from the touristy village centre and has free shuttle buses and bikes on rent. The Red Sand Dunes are 2-minutes away on foot (₹4,500; pandanusresort.com).

Eat

Eateries at the village offer scrumptious seafood — expect grilled red snapper (₹300), clams and mussels (₹200) as also snakes, crocodiles and turtles on the menu.

BLinkTip

You can also play a round at the Tropical Minigolf course

( Savi Munjal blogs about her travels at >bruisedpassports.com )

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