Mui Ne: a Vietnamese fishing town, its resort strip, dunes and kitesurfing winds

Mui Ne is a traditional fishing town of about 25,000 people in southern Vietnam that has grown a resort strip along its bay, 220 km northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. This Wikivoyage guide explains the strip, the sand dunes and the winds that made it a kitesurfing town.

Beach front. Photo: User:Janneman, public domain.

Town and strip

The town became a ward of the city of Phan Thiet in 1999, and its coast has become a resort destination since the mid-1990s, when many people found the area during the solar eclipse of October 24, 1995. The guide says the name Mui Ne is often wrongly used for the whole resort area. Resorts line up like pearls for about 15 km along Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, shaded by coconut palms; the main stretch is called Ham Tien. Beach sand moves up and down the coast with the seasons, leaving some spots with only a concrete breakwater, though there is always a good beach somewhere along the strip, so the guide advises checking before booking, especially after the storm season. Many Russian tour groups stay here, and menus in English and Russian are common. In 2018, the guide says, the Prime Minister approved a plan to develop Mui Ne as a National Tourist Site of about 14,760 ha by 2025, with a focus on protecting the White Sand Dunes and shoreline dunes.

Getting there and around

Most foreigners arrive on "open tour" buses from Ho Chi Minh City, Da Lat or Nha Trang, or by a daily train to Phan Thiet that takes about 5 hours, the main hub just to the west. The strip is one long road: even street numbers are on the sea side and odd on the inland side. Public buses run between Phan Thiet and Mui Ne, and motorbike taxis and ordinary taxis are everywhere along the strip, as are rental motorbikes and bicycles. The guide warns that traffic rules are largely ignored and that coaches and jeeps carrying tourists to the dunes raise the risks.

What to see

• The Poshanu Cham Tower, a derelict remainder of the ancient Cham culture built in the 8th century, still used for religious and social gatherings, especially at the annual Kate festival.
• The fish sauce plants, where nuoc mam is made in big jars left for months in the sun.
• The Red Sand Dunes, about 50 hectares of open sand on a hillside, about 10 km from the strip.
• The fishing harbor, where in the dry season hundreds of colorful boats are moored in the bay; they move to the other side of the cape in the monsoon from May through October.
• The Fairy Stream, a little creek winding through bamboo and dunes, in places like a miniature Grand Canyon, shallow enough to walk barefoot.

The Fairy Stream. Photo: Jean-Marie Hullot, CC BY 3.0.

• The White Sand Dunes, about 45 km northeast of the strip, reached by 4WD or quad tours or by motorbike; the guide reminds visitors that driving without a Vietnamese licence is illegal.

Sand dunes. Photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0.

Water sports and warnings

Kitesurfing is the main activity, with strong winds nearly every day from November to March; the guide suggests beginners avoid the crowded part of the beach near some hotels and try quieter stretches. Swimming can be rough, with large waves and a strong rip tide. Mosquitoes are a big nuisance, so the guide recommends repellent and long sleeves in the evening, and sand flies on the beach can cause allergic reactions on the legs.

Sources

• Wikivoyage, "Mui Ne" (https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Mui_Ne), by its contributors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changed here: rewritten and condensed in hubnx's own words; prices, phone numbers, hours and hotel entries left out, with the guide's unverified rumor about road deaths; each photo under its own licence as credited in its caption.
• Wikivoyage contributors; rewritten in hubnx's own words.