Go Go Lightly!

Breezes, bikinis, beers, boys, beach…

In early November, after Heather and I finished our month-long stint volunteering and living it up expat-style in Phnom Penh, Cambodia we decided to completely switch gears by heading to the coast of Vietnam for some fun in the sun.

Our destination: Mui Ne. AKA kitesurfing central in Southeast Asia. It was my goal, after approximately eight hours of lessons, to successfully attach a board to my feet, harness myself to a ten meter inflatable power kite and eventually use said apparatus to propel myself through the surf (and not to accidentally fly to Indonesia in the process). Heather, probably wisely, decided to forego this one of my adventures du jour and instead observe the circus act (with occasional mocking laughter) from the comfort and relative safety of a cushy beach lounger.

Anyway.

Besides the kites, we weren´t quite sure what to expect from Mui Ne (the Lonely Planet kind of glosses over the destination) so we had originally planned to spend only a few short days there. [Side note: we had decided to forego a longer visit to Vietnam in favor of more time in Laos at the suggestion of a number of acquaintances who had recently traveled to the region. In retrospect we think this was probably a huge mistake-- Laos is lovely but neither of us completely adored it.] Vietnam on the other hand… Both of us fell instantly and madly in love with the little slice of heaven on the coast known as Mui Ne… Enough so that on the morning of our planned departure instead of boarding the bus that was honking its horn impatiently outside our guest house, we groggily and hurriedly phoned our travel agent, two airlines and the bus company, shelled out extraordinary amounts of money to cancel, change and/or re-book tickets, cancelled our week in Tokyo and successfully extended our time in paradise by a mere three extra days. So worth it. In total we spent nine amazing days soaking up the rays, (attempting to) fly kites on the beach and enjoying the insanely high hot boy quotient as much as possible before having to jet to Peru to hike the Inca Trail. Such is life.

So what is so great about Mui Ne, you ask?

Exhibit I: The breezy, sunny, perfect beach.

White sand. Beautiful warm turquoise water. Waves lapping at our feet. Hundreds of gorgeous colorful kites flying gracefully over the water (and sometimes not so gracefully dive-bombing precariously close to our sunbathing heads)… And perhaps more importantly, hundreds of equally gorgeous boys attached to said kites.

Exhibit II: SANKARA. Restaurant. Bar. Kite school. Our home. Our love. Most perfect beach hangout ever.

Soon after our arrival we stumbled upon this oasis of perfection and the crew at Sankara instantly became our community. We happily spent 90% of our time lounging by the beautiful infinity pool, sunbathing on the beach with cocktails in hand, devouring delicious meals (often breakfast, lunch AND dinner) under the restaurant´s flowing white curtains, drinking too many Russian beers with the kite crew (all of us waiting impatiently for the wind to pick up) and enjoying cocktails at the illuminated beach bar or stumbling down to the raucous nightclub not-so-cleverly named DJ Station and dancing the night away with the amazing cast of characters who frequent Sankara.

EXHIBIT III: The Crew. xoxo

The lovely Ms. Helenita owns the divine Sankara, Greg is its cute chef and resident entertainer and the gorgeous Steve and Luna own and run Sankara Kitesurfing Academy (hi all!). Steve was my kite instructor, which meant we met at the kite school each morning around 10:00, possibly had a brief lesson on the beach, ordered iced coffees with the rest of the instructors and students, realized by mid-day the wind wasn´t going to cooperate, switched to beer and settled in for an afternoon in the sun.

Our crew also included Evelein the lovely and precocious 19-year old Dutch world traveler, Tony the cute British kite devotee, Shane (aka Silver Fox), the very handsome entymologist-turned-firefighter-turned-kite instructor from British Columbia and, last but not least, “Punk Paul”, the hot and very charming UK teacher/skateboarder/fellow beach bum.

Heather and I had a whirlwind romance with Sankara and Mui Ne… and possibly a boy or two… and will absolutely definitely without a doubt return some day (SOON) to continue the affair.

We spent our last night in Mui Ne with all of our partners in crime sharing several bottles of wine, enormous steaks, yummy sea scallop and truffle risotto and the Sankara specialty… an absolutely orgasmic cheesy potato gratin (sounds like perfect beach fare, right?) and then engaging in a raucous round of Jagermeister-fueled farewell minigolf (you lose, you shoot).

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

Missing Mui Ne.

Love and kisses,
J & H

This entry was posted on December 15, 2009 at 7:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.