Vietnam Beaches

The first beach was Mui Ne. It is a small white sand beach, about 4 hours north of HCMC. It is not very busy or popular because of the lack of amenities (massage parlours, night clubs, etc) and this is the reason that its the best place to relax. We were in Mui Ne for about 6 days, and only one day we actually left our beach-front hotel room. The days were spent reading in the hammock, swimming in the beach, reading on the beach, swimming inthe hammock, etc.

One day, we rented a motorbike and headed to the Fairy Stream and Red Sand Dunes. These are the 2 natural sightseeing places that Mui Ne is known for.
The Fairy Stream is a red sand stream that we hiked up with our local guides (3 kids). They were tons of fun, playing in the sand and water, and showing us whatever they could find.
The sand dunes were cool, but nothing really to do but look at them (like a mini-Sahara on the Vietnam coast). We paid some kids a couple of $ to let us use their plastic sleds and slide down the dunes. It was cool, but a bad idea because after we were not only incredibly hot, but also covered in red sand.

The next beach was Nha Trang. It is well known as the party beach in Vietnam, both with locals and foreigners. We went diving one day, the dive spots were pretty nice, good visibility and for $25 for 2 dives, is a BARGAIN! We also took a snorkeling trip one day which took us around the islands. Cool way to spend a day.
The funniest stories from Nha Trang are about guys (and girls) getting their stuff stolen. One group of four guys had four things stolen from them in one day.

The last town, which isn't really a beach town (but is within 10 min of a beach) is Hoi An. This is a cool riverside old french style village. The yellow colonial buildings look like something from a Van Goh painting. We planned on 3 days here, but ended up spending about 7. The beach is amazing as well, 30km of white sandy beach. We only spent 2 days on the beach though, because the town itself was so cool. We wasted most of the day sitting in a cafe, writing, reading or playing pool.

One sidetrip we took was to Mr. Phongs. He is an english speaker who takes people on tours of his small village about 15km out of town. It was probably the best tour we took. There were no other foreigners and when the locals saw us they were genuinely happy (and surprised). It was one of theonly places that people weren't trying to sell us stuff, they just wanted to interact with us. Great day. We hung out at a rice wine factory (house) and at his uncle's house (who is a decorated commie war veteran-Mr phong fought on the south side). We also got to go sit at a barbershop and hang out with old ladies on a tabacco farm.