Beach Bear

Righto - so after a week in Saigon, we were off again. This time we are going to a place called Moo Knee. Strange name for a place. Oh wait... apparently that is Moo Neigh... maybe there are cows and horses there??? Oh wait... Mama says she will type it for me... Mui Ne... (Actually Mũi Né with all the accents) Hmmm...

We are taking the train this time, our first train ride in Vietnam!! This is the train departure board... We are on the SPT2 leaving from Track 2. Saigon is at the end of the line and they really only have one North-South railway line in Vietnam. So it's not quite like the train stations back in Europe! That's Mama, by the way, loaded down on her front and back with backpacks.

Whoo-hooo!!! This is so cool!! I don't get to come out a lot on the bus and ferry rides - but a train ride is a different story.

We were early for the train - so it was pretty empty to start with. But it filled up later.

I wanted control of the camera on the train so that I could take some pictures out the window... I stared at Mama with my best little bear stare... and it worked!

Hmmm... but the train windows were very cloudy and scratched so pictures didn't turn out that well - phooie! Oh well...

We arrived in Mui Ne and went to our hotel... it wasn't on the beach but up in the sand dunes a bit. And ohhhh... what a resort!!!! It looks like a 5 Star place but it was only a 1 Star price! It was run by a Belgian guy so I tried to practice my French - "Bonjour Monsieur"...

And it has several pools!! As a little bear, I can't go into water... unless I am in my diving zip-lock bag...

But from the pool we had a great view out over the ocean... and eventually we saw big kites in the sky. Cool!!

A visit to the beach was in order... We walked though and didn't ride motor-bikes. I can't even reach the handle-bars!

Wow... what a beach!!! But those sure are weird looking kites. They look more like mini-parachutes. It was beary windy and the waves were super strong. Maybe their kites just get all bent out of shape?

Oh this is fun... we haven't been on a beach for sooooo long!

 

There's a lot to see and do on a beach too...

Oh hey... those aren't real kites! Those are kite-surfers!! Do you see??? The guy down at the bottom right of the picture - he is on a surf board with a harness attached to the big kite thing. The wind makes them zip across the water... if they are good at it! If they are not good at it, they just go plop in the water and their kite does a nose dive too.

Look at all the sand! This little stream was coming into the ocean - I could almost be in the desert somewhere...

I could be Lawrence of Arabia... except my name is not Lawrence.... Or... Alexander the Great!!!

Oh hey - there is black sand here too - that makes the beach look beary pretty.

Heh-heh... it almost looks like I am kite-surfing in the this picture! Except I would probably get blown away as I am just a feather-weight bear!

Hello - what's this?? There were all these holes in the beach with little piles of sand kicked out of them... I backed off a bit and settled down to wait.... and wait... and wait...

But finally I saw the culprit - it was a little whitish crab! He was super well camouflaged! I only saw him when he scurried across the sand and back into his hole.

Hmm... a red rock on a white beach - wonder where that came from... It looks like it dropped out of the sky... beary strange...

Oh - and here is an even prettier display of black sand on a white beach... It almost looks artistic!

We walked down the beach quite a ways and then stopped to have a rest. It's beary pretty here...

And then the humans wanted to play pool... Let me just say that pool and hot weather do not go together. Their hands were all sweaty and sticky from the heat and the pool cues were not sliding all that well. Not to mention there was no blue chalk cube... They were pretty pathetic pool players and eventually I had to get involved and line up some shots for them... Little bears do come in handy! Apparently the Vietnamese are avid pool players!