Mui Ne Fishing Village

At the far northeastern end of the resort strip, past the dunes and the kite schools, the working fishing village of Mui Ne occupies a small harbour. The bay is filled with bright-painted boats — traditional Vietnamese round basket boats alongside larger motorised fishing vessels — and in the early morning, the catch is sorted and sold on the beach in a fast, chaotic market.

The smell is powerful and the activity is genuine — this is not a show for tourists. Fishermen return with the night's haul before dawn; by mid-morning the market is over and the boats are back on the water. The harbour area has a few seafood restaurants aimed at local workers rather than resort visitors, and the prices reflect this. A motorbike from central Mui Ne takes about fifteen minutes.

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The small round boats — called thuyền thúng in Vietnamese — are made by weaving bamboo into a basket shape, then sealing it with pitch. They are distinctly Vietnamese in design and may date back to the period of French colonial rule, when fishermen supposedly adopted the circular basket shape to avoid a French licensing tax on boats. The tax authorities reportedly did not know what to classify a round woven basket as.

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