Mui Ne

It was a 5 hours busdrive from Nha Trang to Mui Ne, half the way to Saigon. This area is completely different from Nha Trang which was green and fertile right to the mountain tops. First we came to an area with "stoney" mountains and hills and no much people living there and almost no vegetation, only bushes and stones. Later it became even dryer with cactuses and sand and scattered wide Ficus trees. The soil was dry and lack of water made this area not very usefull for any agriculture so it seemed the biggest business here was graveyards that covered very big areas. It was Buddhist cemeteries with graves like small houses and also Catholic cemeteries not very unlike the other.
When we approached the seaside there were big sanddunes like small mountains and along the seaside it was kilomtere after kilometer with beaches and almost no people except for some fishermen.
Mui Ne is only a road/street by the seaside with a lot of small Hotels and restaurants. The beach is not so broad as in Nha Trang and the Coconut trees are just some few meters from the sea. It's just like I imagined it with a few coconuts floating on the waves. To make it perfect we bought a coconut and drank the juice trough a straw.
We lived in a Bungalow less than 10 m from the sea but maybe 2.5 m higher. It was quite windy and the Coconut palms were swaying in the wind and the big waves constantly hammering against the shore. I like the sound of the waves and the wind in the Coconut trees but my friend was a little bit afraid talking about Tsunamis....of course we would be in trouble if a Tsunami came but I tried to tell her that it was not very likely even though it was an earthquake with fear of Tsunami in Indonesia just a few days ago and not very far away.
I was sitting outside the bungalow in the dark; a big Coconut tree above me and I could see the white tops of the waves as they hit the shore....looking up I saw the crown of the Coconut tree with nuts and the stars around. Listening to the "eternal" sound of the waves makes your mind and soul to relax. Even the wind is strong and the night is late, it's warm and I don't need more clothes than necessary to be decent.
Now I understand why some writers and painters found places like this to do their work; it gives peace of mind and new inspiration.
For a frozen soul from the Arctic region this is like Paradise...if you close your eyes for other problems because nothing and nowhere is perfect in this world, but it's close to it. There is always a backside and that's maybe a consolation for you frozen inhabitants of the north that have to stay there.