Away from the city
During our Vietnam trip in 2011, we also made our way to Mũi Né, near Phan Thiết.
I remember visiting the beach, although many of the smaller details of that part of the trip have faded over the years.
Looking through the photographs again, I’m reminded how different the surroundings were from Ho Chi Minh City.
Instead of busy city streets and buildings, the pictures show the coast, stretches of sand and open views towards the sea.
Sand dunes and the coastline
Some of my photographs show the sand dunes near Mũi Né, with the sea visible in the distance.
It’s an interesting landscape to look back on. The dunes and the coastline appear together in the same collection of pictures, and the photographs capture the distinctive scenery of the area.
I can’t confidently identify the exact dunes from memory. They may be the Red Sand Dunes, but I would rather leave that uncertain than give them the wrong name.
Other pictures show the beach and the surrounding coastline.
The photographs preserve details that I would probably have forgotten entirely without them.
A place remembered through photographs
One of the pictures also contains a sign for Bốn Biển Resort.
I can’t say for certain whether this was where we stayed, but it is another small detail recovered from the album.
Unlike the Lunar New Year gathering or the view of the Mekong waterways, I don’t have one particular incident from Mũi Né that stands out in my memory.
What remains is the experience of visiting the coast together, and the photographs of the beaches and dunes.
It’s nice to have those images now, more than fifteen years later.
They remind me that not every part of a journey needs a dramatic story. Sometimes the photographs themselves are what keep a place in our memory.