Mui Ne: Rich Russian resorts and expensive water sports

This one needs to be prefaced by saying that I grew up around lots of beautiful beaches... and I currently live 300metres from the bech in Danang. which has a number of huge hotels, but also miles and miles of clean, empty beach with only a few deck chair rental people and a couple of drink stands. But no one harassing you or following you to buy things.

Apparently Mui Ne is a beautiful beach, with clean sand and calm safe water. My guide book mentions it very vaguely as a fishing village with the pervasive smell of their famous fish paste.

It is some sort if hell. I don't know how beautiful the beach is.... I walked for 45minutes without finding a way to get to said beach. Russian developers have bought all the land in the beach side of the road, and built expensive resorts. There is no way to access the beach, except by staying in these resorts. There are "cheaper"(but still expensive compared with any other town) hotels on the non beach side...... but then all you get to do is walk along the ugly road, being harassed by people trying to sell expansive beachy type clothes (most were more than I would pay for similar clothes in Australia, and crap looking quality).

note: I have been told it is possible to somehow get to the beach if I had kept walking further along the road.

What Can I see in Mui Ne?

Mui Ne's claim to fame is it's red and white sand dunes, These were pretty enough, although with a lot of rubbish. while walking on them you will be accosted by women and kids trying to rent you a board to ride down the sand dune with, so that looked a little fun. But if you have seen sand dunes anywhere else, I didn't find these ones particularly amazing or mind blowing. I wouldn't travel all the way there just for the dunes. But - some people might.

Also water sports. Mui ne seems to be a hub of kite surfing and various other water sports. However, I think cost is designed for the people staying at expensive resorts. One person I spoke with explained that it was $500 for a 5 day kite surfing course with 12 hours of lessons/board rental. And at $45 for an hour long surfing lesson, I have had a cheaper lesson on the sunshine coast in Australia!

If you like partying, Mui Ne might be the place to go. I only really saw local restaurants and expensive restaurants but not really bars that looked inviting. I think these might be hidden in the big hotels. As mentioned, I am not a big lets-go-party-and-get-drunk-and-hang-around-with-only-westerners when I travel sort of person. So that doesn't interest me either.

My other favourite site of Mui Ne was called fairy stream. After we checked in Thanh, my guide, asked if I would like to walk up fairy stream. And I thought, well that sounds lovely. It's, a stream. Not an exciting or at all particular beautiful stream. But, because it has a sign, and a nice name... masses of tourists were walking up it constantly. I think this is hilarious, if you build a sign... they will come.
Again, I have seen much nicer streams my whole life, but I spoke with some people from Europe who thought the stream was just lovely and perfect. I think they hadn't really ever seen a creek before. So, you might like it if you haven't seen a stream before. I don't know.

Would I personally go there?

no.
So, my advice, don't bother with Mui Ne, its main claim to fame are some red and sole white sand dunes, and they sure aren't anything to write home about. I think it is a hot spot for kite surfing and windboarding, but I know you can find plenty of much nicer places for that.

Although, it is the only place in Vietnam I have seen ostrich riding. Advertised with a giant sign reading: "enjoy a relaxing ostrich ride adventure." I just can't imagine that riding an ostrich is at all relaxing.