5th April 2010
Kitesurfing was another of the activites we were keen to try when we came travelling and where better than the kitesurfing capital of Vietnam, Mui Ne.
Mui Ne Beach is a popular tropical beach. Strong sea breezes make it very popular for kitesurfing and windsurfing and with an average temperature of 27°C, and a hot and dry climate for most of the year, so you can see that it’s quite a nice place to hang around for a while.
We had booked with the longest running operator on the beach, Windchimes, simply because Karen’s son Mark had used them while he was here and Karen said he was very happy.
As we made our way along the sandy beach to the Windchimes place (it’s a hard commute for some) there were already kitesurfers on the water.
When we arrived, the owner Trang introduced us to our Austrian trainer who would take us through the initial stages as a group. We would then split and change to one on one tuition in the water.
The first lesson of the day was to learn about the “wind window”. This is basically the area of sky the kite will fly in and dependent on the direction of the wind.
After the theory came the practical. We were both given training kites to practice with, which are just like normal kites with two strings for controlling left and right. This is not as easy as it sounds or looks. I felt really sorry for my beach boy who was continually having to relaunch my kite. I nearly hit him with it a few times too.
Apparently the trick is to relax and move the bar back and forth rather than grasp it and pull it towards you. You are supposed to control the kite, not the other way around.
An hour on the training kites and we were deemed ready enough to have a go with a small kite. Still on dry land, we were attached to the kite via a harness around our waist. If the small kite had been difficult, this was twice as hard. Not only were you fighting all your insticts not to pull the bar towards you, but you were also being pulled along the sand on your bum when the wind did catch the kite. I started to get really frustrated. At this point our instructor decided we had had enough for one day.
We were disappointed we hadn’t even got onto the the water, but in hindsight that was probably naivity on our part.
We spend the rest of the morning relaxing and reading on the beach which was a lovely change. Then after some lunch we returned to Windchimes and borrowed a training kite. This time was better, but still a case of the kite controlling me. Trang appeared and gave me some pointers, especially in terms of controlling the height of the kite.
Two days of using muscles that had been dormant for seven months left us with a few aches, especially in the neck and shoulder region. Luckily, here in Mui Ne every third shop is a massage place, and very cheap. So, off we headed, me for a hot stone massage which I had always wanted to try but could never justify the cost at home, and Ed for a back massage. This was a new experience for him as he’s never had a massage before. I had to explain that in the UK the masseuse doesn’t normally stand on the bed to reach your shoulders!
An hour later we emerged oiled and relaxed, all for about £15. Expensive for Vietnam, but we’ve noticed that here. Deciding to spoil ourselves even more, we went in a for a cocktail at Happy Hour in a nearby bar before a Vietnamese dinner and a walk back along the beach to the hotel.
