Go Back
Mui Ne
Mui Ne is a coastal fishing town in South Central Vietnam. Tourism has developed in the area from the Phan Thiet city center to Mui Ne, which has more than a hundred beach resorts, as well as restaurants, bars, shops and cafes. The area is known for nice beaches, sand dunes, windsurfing and golf. I've only spent 3 days in Mui Ne but as it's a relatively small area and that was enough to cover the main activities there. It's particularly a popular vacation spot for many people living in Saigon as it's only about 5 hours away by bus and even quicker by car.
There are two areas with sand dunes in Mui Ne. One is known as the red dunes and one as the white dunes. At the red dunes there are people renting out "crazy carpets" which I know from tobogganing in Canada. You can slide down the dunes with these. It's quite entertaining. The red dunes provided a nice backdrop for the sunset. The white dunes seemed to span over a larger area and a popular activity there was to go for an ATV ride. Below are also some photos from the Fairy Stream which is actually not at either the main red dune or white dune sites but has features of both sand colours mixed together next to a small stream and some cool looking formations.
Mui Ne has a long stretch of beach with over a hundred resorts along it. Many people stay on these resorts and spend lots of their time at the beach. There are restaurants and bars along the beach as well as sport rental companies mainly kitesurfing. You'll see many people kitesurfing here. The con of this however is that it's quite windy and if you aren't looking to kitesurf it's not necessarily the most pleasant to be at the beach when it's extremely windy.
The scene of all the little fishing boats is one not to miss. You can see the way that local fisherman here work and catch fish. There are probably thousands of little blue boats many with Vietnam flags attached to them. Along the beach is an area where the fisherman process all of the fish they catch.
You'll find most of the Vietnamese staple dishes here. In particular I had a good papaya salad and bbq at my accomodation. I cooked the bbq at my time on a little charcoal grill as is common in Vietnam in many places. I also had a good Bo Ne which is like a banh mi (Vietnamese sub) filled with egg, thin slices of beef, sausage, pate, lettuce, tomato and onion.
Ham Tien is the area basically between Phan Thiet and Mui Ne where all of the resorts are. This is where most tourists stay and where the best beaches are. Aside from the beachfront resorts there are plenty of hostels and other accomodation types slightly further inland. This is where I'd recommend to stay. For a more local experience in a city/ town you could consider Phan Thiet or Mui Ne town itself. With a population of over 300,000 Phan Thiet is a considerably larger city than Mui Ne. Mui Ne is more of a town with 25,000 people. As the area is relatively small it's fairly easy to travel around and explore different areas in a relatively short amount of time. You can find day tours that visit the dunes, the Fairy Stream and the harbour. I stayed at a hostel/ hotel called Mui Ne Hills Backpackers. They do have private rooms as well as the dorms and offer basically all the tourist services you need as well as arrange fun activities like trivia nights, pool contests and volleyball. I enjoyed my stay here back in 2020.
