How is this just outside Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)? Mui Ne, Vietnam: sand dunes and lovely beaches

Hi, we're Jordana and Grant from Shot in the Dark Travel. Come join us on our epic adventures around Southeast Asia. Get ready for an unforgettable journey to Muine just east of Ho Chi Minh City. We visit the breathtakingly beautiful sand dunes of Muine before showing you our amazing beachfront hotel and of course we couldn't resist indulging at some of Muine's vibrant bars and restaurants. Join us as we soak up the beauty, luxury and flavours of Muine. Hey guys, we have arrived in the lovely Muine. So Muine is a small beachy town on the southern coast of Vietnam. It's like a four-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh but we were coming the other way so we drove for about four hours from Dalat. So far it looks really nice, we've not been here long. We got here pretty late last night so we basically just went out for some food. We went out for a lovely kebab at Sinbad's. It was really tasty, definitely recommend it and we pretty much just got on early nights. We're up super early today so it's literally like quarter past four in the morning now. Jordan is still rushing to get ready because the jeep's coming to pick us up any minute now. So we've booked onto a jeep tour so we can see all the main sights of Muine in one go. Super excited. The first one is we need to be there for sunrise so that's why we're getting picked up at stupid o'clock in the morning and yeah let's hope it's worth it. Let's hope we get a good sunrise. So guys we're at our first destination, the Sahara Desert. I'm joking. We are at the White Sand Dunes in Muine and oh my god it is beautiful already. We're a bit out of breath because I don't know if you can hear but there's loads of people on ATVs but we decided to scrap that just because it was super expensive. Yeah when you get to the bottom your driver drops you off and then they basically tell you the default is everyone gets an ATV. It's a super long walk, you pretty much have to get one unless you're crazy and we'd heard from other people you can walk it and it's not too fast. We'll give it a go. It is crazy expensive and also they drive a little bit like maniacs. Sometimes we've seen them going crazy fast down the hills. We were just like don't fancy that we'll give it a walk. It's 4.30am. I'm not about driving an ATV with a madman right now. It's too early for that crap. Yeah and honestly I'd say give it a walk. Honestly I'd say give it a walk. I've just looked at my phone now. We've been walking for 13 minutes and we're right at the top. If you want to go on an ATV because you enjoy them, do it but don't be pressured into it because you really don't need to. It's not that bad and we've got here in time for sunset. It looks beautiful so yeah can't wait to have a look around. If you come for sunrise there is quite a lot of people here. It's pretty busy. There's ATVs driving around all over the shop. There's loads of people. If you come later in the day it's supposed to be a lot quieter but to be honest it's worth coming here just for the sunrise views. It looks amazing. The views are absolutely spectacular. I can see why this is one of the main tourist attractions in Mui Ne. It just looks incredible. 100% you need to come here. The one thing I'd say is, I don't know if you can see over my shoulder, there's like 200 people maybe on like one sand dune that all the ATVs seem to drop you off there and everyone stood there and sat in like quite a small area. We've just come to the next sand dune over like nearer to the sun and we've just got it all to ourselves. I say ourselves there's a little dog that's following us around but we've just got this whole massive sand dune just for me, Jordana and the cute little dog. So don't just sit with everyone else. Have a little walk off and go to the next one over and it just looks gorgeous and you've got it to yourself. So we've just got to the second stop on our tour. We've just arrived now and we're at the red sand dunes. It's not quite as big as the white sand dunes. It's right next to the road though so it's much easier to get to and yeah looks really cool doesn't it? Yeah, again very out of breath because the sand is very hard to move in because it's so soft but it's absolutely beautiful. It is a little bit of a shame there is a bit of rubbish at this one but if you just walk further down it's like untouched again so it is absolutely beautiful. You don't have to come to the red sand dunes or the white sand dunes as part of a tour. You can just get a taxi or you can get yourself if you're renting a bike but I would 100% say to come for sunrise. Not only were the views amazing, it is so hot. It's half past seven in the morning and I am absolutely sweating buckets. It's so warm. God knows how bad it'd be if you come in the afternoon or at lunchtime. If it's this hot at 7.30 I dread to think what it's like later in the day so get yourself here first thing, get it over with, see the views before it's too hot. We're at our third destination on the tour and we're at the local fishing village and I've never seen anything quite like this. I don't know if you can see behind me but all the blue fishing boats behind us. There must be so many boats out there. It's mad and true to it being called a fishing village, wow does it smell fishy. I feel like you can't quite see how many there are but there are literally hundreds. All the way over here on the horizon there are just literally hundreds and hundreds of fishing boats. So we are at our fourth destination which is the Fairy Stream. Jordana, what have you thought so far? I thought that I'm very very warm and this cold stream is really doing my tootsies some good and it is quite beautiful. I was sceptical, I thought oh I could have probably passed this one when I saw that it was in the itinerary but it's actually really cool. I've never seen anything like this before especially in Vietnam so it's pretty cool and like I said the water's pretty refreshing now after it's gotten really really hot. Yeah nice little relaxing end to the trip. So we've had a great trip today so thanks a lot for driving around us looking after us. So thank you so much. So we're back in our hotel room after the tour this morning. Me and Jordana both really enjoyed it and we definitely recommend doing the tour Ramuyne. It was really fun in the jeeps like the sights we saw were really nice. The sand dunes were genuinely like breathtaking so yeah really liked it. If you want to book the exact one we booked there are lots of companies that do basically identical tours but we booked with Johnny's tour because the reviews were just really good. We'll pop their details in the description section in case you want to get in touch with him. We paid $21 per person for the tour and that included pick up and drop off at our hotel and yeah we thought they were really good. The driver was super friendly really nice and also they were really responsive on whatsapp. So we only booked it the night before on the evening and went picking up at 4 30 in the morning the next day. So you know even though it was super late we just sent him a message on whatsapp and he sorted us straight out. So I can't recommend him enough. We are just going to go out and get some lunch now. So yeah bit of an exploring Ramuyne, get some lunch and then we'll come back to the hotel for a bit of a relax afterwards. So after a very hectic morning we're both a little bit tired. We started doing some editing, I fell asleep watching YouTube in my hand and Grant was falling asleep at the desk. So we decided to have an hour nap and now we're gonna get some lunch. We're not sure where to go yet but we heard that there's quite a few cool food courts so I think we're gonna maybe try and suss one of them out. Grant literally said that he was dying because he was so tired and the only thing that would revive him would be an ice cream. So hence Grant is now a lot happier now he's got ice cream. It's working. Like yeah death by tiredness is a real thing that can happen and the only cure is ice cream. So this Cornetto is sorting me out. It was being so grumpy so I was like just get a bloody ice cream. So we've come to this cool food court called Pit Stop. It's just on the main road right on the ocean front as you can see and there's loads of little places. So there's an Italian, there's a pancake place, there's a Mexican, there's loads of different places. There's a fish restaurant. Yeah fish restaurant and we've gone for Mexican. So Giordana has got some quesadillas which look lovely. They look delicious. And I think maybe my favourite bit of the whole Pit Stop is the little Dalat wine here. £40,000 for a glass of wine. How cheap is that? Thank you. Thanks. So £40,000 for a Dalat wine is cheaper than we saw the entire time we were in Dalat. I think it's the cheapest glass of wine we've had in Asia. Yeah because in Dalat it was £55 the cheapest one and that was like the 100 rooftops bar wasn't it? I was absolutely buzzing when we found £55 and now we've got one for £40 so I will be coming back here. So we've got a bit of a Mexican feast. So we've got our chicken quesadillas here. We've got our beef quesadillas here and then we've got like a Mexican shrimp salad and yeah it smells darn beautiful. So let's try. So look at all the cheese in there. All right so I'm going for the chicken one first. I'm gonna dip it in the hot sauce because I loves the hot sauce. A little bit of guac. That is so good. That hot sauce is beautiful. That is really good. All the spices are really really nice. Get that down there. Bit of guac. That is very very good. Was it pulled beef Grant? What you can't tell from the taste? Shredded or pulled? That's what I was gonna say. I was like oh it looks like pulled beef instead of like minced beef. Yeah it's shredded or pulled. Yeah it tastes good. Sorry for my sweaty face. We've just come back from lunch and it's about a 18 minute walk from our hotel. But we just thought we'd walk off that food. So very very warm. It's very hot outside. But yeah we thought we would just show you around our hotel room because we haven't showed you it yet and it is absolutely beautiful and the owners are so so nice. It's worth literally every penny. Even on booking.com it just doesn't do... The pictures don't do it justice. It's so beautiful. So I'm going to show you now. So this is the bedroom. So I just realized I've not actually told you what the hotel's called. It's called Serenity by the Sea and it was... How much was it Grant? About 1.2 million dong per night. Yeah so we knew with it being a coastal place it is a little bit more on the expensive side but we're super happy with this place. We've got like a little desk. A nice big bed. Lovely little curtains which are a really nice little added thing. But every detail just looks so nice. It's like that quite like little shabby chic really pretty like vintagey kind of look. But yeah massive TV. We've got a fridge. Little place for Grant to chill with a plan. Nice and strong air con and a really good fan. At night I was actually cold so that was good. And when I walked into this room I was like oh there's no storage. Well the storage is just around the corner. So we've got loads of storage here. Obviously because we have far too much stuff we've filled it to the brim. Haven't even unpacked it all yet. And then we have this lovely lovely bathroom. Super super clean. Nice big mirror. Yeah that's our room guys and we're gonna now go show you the outdoory bit and the pool. It looks literally so pretty and we look right out onto the sea. It's so so nice. The reason why we booked this not just because it looked nice was the location. It is just like at the end of the beach where all the bars and restaurants are. How nice is this hotel? So our room is just up here on the upstairs floor but just how gorgeous is everything? Like they've just decorated it so nicely. All looks amazing with the palm trees the lanterns, the flowers. It just looks gorgeous. And then this way is out to the sea and the beach and again it just it just looks great. It's a nice big pool area loads of room to sit down and right at the end of the pool is the beach and the sea. So yeah can't get any better than this. We've gone to the beach that's right outside our hotel and it's pretty small to be honest. It's long but it's very thin. You'll need to watch out on the beaches in Winé. The main beach which I forgot the name of and I'll put in the description that all the tourists stay at. The sand doesn't stay there all year round so the sand is dragged by the tides and seasonally migrates up and down the shore. So depending on what time of the year you come some places that advertise themselves as beachfront might not actually have sand on the beach it might just be like concrete. So definitely before you book if you're wanting beachfront access don't just go on thebooking.com or some photos saying it's on the beach. I would recommend getting in touch with the hotel and making sure that at the time you come that there is actually sand on the beach right now if that's what you want because I've never seen this before anywhere in the world where you think it's on a beach and then actually all the sand's disappeared a few months ago and it's just concrete. So luckily we've got some sand on our beach so it's nice but not everyone will be lucky so definitely remember to factor that in. After a really busy morning doing the sightseeing and then a super relaxed afternoon just chilling around the pool enjoying the sun just soaking it all in we are now going out to a couple of bars and then get some food. Sunset is heading our way so hopefully we can get to the bar just in time to watch sunset and have a few drinks. Standard beer and coffee combo that Grant always gets. It's going to catch on. It's really going to catch on. It's never going to catch on. I feel like it's a sophisticated man's vodka Red Bull. Yes, sophisticated. Yeah, that's what people think when they see that. So yeah, we're just having a really nice drink here at sunset on the beach and yeah, just relaxing taking it all in really. It's been such a lovely day. We are a bit on the tired side so we feel a bit delirious but in good spirits all in all. We have come to Swiss House. We're super excited. Jordana loves cheese so when she saw there was a cheese restaurant with lots of Swiss cheese we were straight definitely going to go there. The food has just arrived. I've gone for the raclette burger with raclette cheese in it. Jordana's gone for quite a small portion. The server seemed very confused when we did our order and wanted to double check we got it right and I think we now know why because we've accidentally ordered a starter for Jordana. But it's fine because I'm gonna share some of Grant's meal and if we're still hungry we'll order some more but it smells so good here. It's like the cheesiest smell I've ever smelt so this had better be really good. I'm very excited. Is the cheese good? That cheese is phenomenal. Wow, phenomenal. So I've got the raclette burger here and it is really tasty. It's basically a really nice soft tender beef burger with like the richest most flavoursome Swiss cheese all over and it is absolutely gorgeous. Sadly today is our last day in Mwini. We ended it with a really tasty Indian. Went to a restaurant called Goa. It was just near the hotel. Food was really nice. We're super happy with it and yeah it's just been a nice few days in Mwini. It's really surprised us. We thought it was quite a small like fishing village and actually there's a lot more going on than we thought. It reminded us a little bit of Thailand but on island there was beaches everywhere. There was a strip with loads of cool cafes, bars, restaurants and yeah we just had a really good time here. Yeah it was absolutely lovely being here. After the touristy like bits that you do like it's just all about the relaxing which is what we needed so we really really enjoyed it here. And we're pretty good to believe in this hotel as well. The Serenity by the Sea. John and his wife Thuy have really looked after us and it is a stunning hotel in a great location. We definitely recommend staying here if you're coming to Mwini. But yeah that's the end of this video and if you liked the video please like and subscribe and we'll see you in the next one.