Motorcyles, cable cars and a reclining Buddha.
Hello loved ones,
Hope all is well with you all.
This morning I am sitting in Joe’s Art Cafe in Mui Ne, the food here is pretty good (though very pricey but it has free WiFi, so here I am.) Sam is still sleeping away exhausted from yesterdays adventure. What happened yesterday you ask? hold your horses, I will get to all that in just a minute, but first:
So, we arrived in Mui Ne on Monday after a four hour bus trip. It is a strange sort of a place. A road runs parallel to the coast and for a stretch of about 10km. There are resorts/accommodation on the beachy side and tour places/restaurants and shops on the other. This makes it very difficult to get anywhere, so we have found about 150m bit that we like and just sort of hang round there.
But yesterday we went alot further afield. We had been wanting to see the famous 49m reclining Buddha, (you haven’t heard of it??) which is about 100km round trip – our first long motorcycling adventure. So two of us packed on top of a Honda Wave (with lots of first aid supplies) and headed off.
The ride was spectacular, large parts of it via the coast, though also quite smelly as Phan Thiet (a nearby town) makes a zillion litres of fish sauce a year. very smelly. We stopped to ask if we were going in the right direction several times and got stared at as we got more and more off the beaten track. We don’t speak Vietnamese, and they didn’t speak English, but saying “BUDDHA” then pretending to sleep and then pointing energetically seemed to be understood.
We got there in the end, and it is either a two hour walk or a two minute cable car ride to the top of the mountain where the Buddha is – we choose the cable car option. (Sam is apprehensive as we have seen what passes for health and safety regulations in Vietnam.)
The Buddha is breath taking, I am expecting it to be in a huge room, but as we make out way up a set of stone steps, it appears through the trees on the side of the mountain. It is massive, and very beautiful.
From where the cable car lets you out to the Buddha is about 250 steps. That we climb twice, as Sam has brought incense and we have nothing to light it with. So it is down the bottom of the stairs to buy ( a very dodgy) lighter. And then up again.
On our first trip up we have it all to ourselves practically, on the second time around a large Vietnamese family has made the trek and we are something of an oddity. Lonely Planet says that you should ask a person before you take a photo of them. Well one of the women on the top of that mountain had not been informed, because she kept taking photos of Sam and I, and then just me for about 10 minutes. She only stopped when I grabbed our camera and took one of her, and then she only stopped to come sit down next to me and compare photos.
We survived the cable car down, and the ride home, and collapsed into bed where we slept for about 3 and a 1/2 hours.
Sam will have more for you later with photographic evidence no doubt!
Take care.
Rose xoxoxo
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