A Slice of Paradise - Mui Ne, Vietnam - July 10, 2013

There's nothing going on in Mui Ne, a fishing village 5 hours east of Ho Chi Minh City. There's no amusement parks, no go-carts, no mega Walmart. There's nothing to do but relax, enjoy the beach, and savor awesome seafood.

Until a few years ago, this area was poor, according to a Vietnamese woman I met yesterday, but now it's become popular with residents of Ho Chi Minh, as well as foreigners. Still, since it doesn't have some of the bells and whistles, more tourists go to another beach a few hours away.

Mui Ne is the kind of place I wish Florida could be - lots of beaches and a lot less kitch. There is only one road that runs the length of the 15 miles or so of beaches, a road dotted by small hotels, stores, restaurants, and that's about it.

The last couple of days I've been swimming in the South China Sea or Phan Thiet Bay, to be exact. This is definitely a fishing village. The water is full of boats. At night, it appears from the lights a couple of miles off shore that a new village has magically sprung up out of the water, but it's just the fishermen hoping to land food, some of which I've had the pleasure to sample.

A couple of nights ago, I tried shrimp, but these weren't the tiny ones I'm used to eating. The waitress brought out some of the largest beauties I've even seen, still with their heads attached. Mmmm......Because of the location, you'd expect the seafood to be fresh. It's so fresh, in fact, that a lot of it is housed in tanks, which allows customers to select their own critters. Last night, I tried the sea bass.

Another aspect of Mui Ne I can't believe is the prices. In Florida, tourists should expect to pay $100 plus a night for a room and $20 plus for an entry. The prices in Mui Ne are comparable to Ho Chi Minh City. The shrimp cost less than $3, and I washed it down with 50-cent beer. My room on the beach went for $8 a night, and it was far from being a dive with AC, cable TV, hot water, and marble floors. Welcome to Southeast Asia.

I stay almost entirely in guest houses. Hotels have dozens of rooms. A guest house might have eight or nine. Hotels have a large staff. A guest house is often run by a family who lives in the facility. The person who checks you in might also make up your bed and cook dinner for guests. Hotels are, for the most part, impersonal. At guest houses, you might be invited to dinner and get to sample centipede-infused moonshine.

Mui Ne is a welcome contrast to the hustle and bustle of Ho Chi Minh City, a city of millions, a city that continues to experience explosive growth. Still, I quite enjoyed it. Now that I can cross the street.

My initial impression of Vietnam, compared to Laos and Cambodia, is that the country is definitely more developed and much stronger economically. With the high-end stores I saw in Ho Chi Minh City - Versace, Rolex, Mercedes - I could have been in Paris. The hygiene is also much better. So far, though, Cambodians are still friendlier, which is not to say I don't feel welcome here. Finally, there is much more regulation here. Remember, the lax motorcycle helmet laws in Cambodia - a 75-cent fine? Here, a Vietnamese man told me if you get caught without a helmet the police confiscate your motorcycle until you pay a hefty fine.

My mom is extremely mellow with my traveling, but years ago she told me if I have stories that might cause her to worry to save them for later. Now that the demon has passed I thought I'd share this tale.

As you'll recall, I visited the "killing caves" a couple of days before leaving Cambodia. By the way, afterward, I saw the most amazing bat flight of my life. About 5:30 p.m., millions of bats began pouring out of  a cave for their nightly search for food. I'm told there's a non-stop stream of bats for about 45 minutes.

After watching for a few minutes, we drove a couple of miles away and looked back. The army of bats undulated in a slithering motion across the sky, like a giant, black, flying snake. It reminded me of a swarm of locusts, all heading in unison in the same direction. I was amazed I could see the bats from so far away.

I digress.

On the way home, I felt a storm churning in my belly. It's a feeling all travelers dread. The question was not whether I'd be sick. The question was how long the storm would last and how long might it put me on my back.

In the middle of the night, the storm blew. Everything inside my gut wanted out, and there were only two exit routs, both of which were used with great frequency. By about 3 a.m., the storm finally subsided enough for me to get an hour or two of sleep.

After being bedridden in Nicaragua for almost a week, I'd learned my lesson with dehydration. The next morning I forced myself out of bed and labored to the store to buy three liters of water. Then, as I returned to my room, a thought crossed through my aching head, a thought that filled me with hope and put a smile on my face - I had one packet of powdered Gatorade left. My brother and sister-in-law did me such a favor by suggesting including it in my pack.

At first, I first I thought my illness was due to something I ate, but I also ran a fever and had a cough. I read over some of the common illnesses listed in my guidebook, but the closest thing I could come up with is the flu; however, I wouldn't have been able to get out of bed with the flu.

Oh, well. The next two or three days were rough, but I tried to get a lot of rest and drink a lot of water, so now I'm feeling much better and think I'm over it.

Getting sick overseas really sucks. Getting sick in Cambodia is even worse. From everything I've read, it's recommended that foreign travelers leave immediately, if seriously ill, and get to Bangkok, if humanly possible. Even the visitor's guide in Battambang indicated that tourists in an emergency should evacuate to Bangkok or Singapore. Had my situation been grave, Bangkok was less than an hour away.

I've witnessed firsthand some of the medical facilities in Cambodia. When I first arrived, I was walking through Kratie and saw several open-air clinics where people were receiving IVs. The floors were dirty. No workers were wearing gloves. The sheets weren't being changed when new patients arrived.

The journalist I met in Siem Reap told me the clinics are popular for people in the outlying areas who contract malaria and dengue fever. The journalist said he's seen the clinics run out of plastic IV bags and have to actually use bowls to administer IVs. He said I definitely wouldn't want to be hooked up to one.

I've been so lucky with my health traveling abroad the last three years. I guess I was due. That's all part of the price one my pay sometimes visiting foreign lands.

Still, my luck continues to hold with the weather. It's becoming a familiar story. Yesterday, a Vietnamese woman told me it rained non-stop last week for several days. I've experienced very little rain throughout my trip, even though this is the heart of monsoon season. I've probably come across less rain in Southeast Asia than I'd normally encounter in America.

I've written long enough. In a few hours, I'm heading north to the coastal city of Hoi An. As always, I'll be in touch.