The Next Time I Go Sledding Will Be With Snow

Renting plastic sheets from small children, trooping through desert-like conditions and sledding down white sand dunes = yes, yes and yes.

Yesterday, we went on our final motorbike tour to see the surrounding area of Mui Ne. Infamous for its sand dunes, I pictured Long Beach Island and other classy spots along the Jersey shore. I was not expecting gigantic stretches of never-ending sand dunes. Like I said, picture the desert.

The entire ride from our hotel to the sand dunes was positively picturesque, but as we reached our destination, I was blown away by the immense heat radiating off the dunes and the amount of sweat pouring down. We were immediately approached by a small child offering to rent us random sheets of blue plastic and their services as tour guide.

We accepted the sheets. Declined the tour guide. Hindsight is always 20/20 because we realized we probably could have used some help figuring out how to sled down the dunes. Not as easy as it sounds.

We trekked about 15 minutes and came upon a small slope we thought would be good practice. We sat down on our plastic sheets, attempted to push off, and quickly realized we were not moving. Apparently sand dune sledding is not so easy as snow sledding.

So off we trooped to an even steeper dune. It looked like a fool proof way to sled down at top speed. Then we realized how hard it would be to climb to the top. You couldn't just climb up like a steep hill but had to run up it in order to avoid falling backwards. With the wind whipping and trying to hold onto our blue plastic sheets, we found this so hilarious we had to stop numerous times to laugh hysterically (or maybe catch our breath).

We finally made it to the top and strategized the best way to hit top speed down the dune. Note: this was not the first time we wished we had allowed one of the kids to be our guide. Our first guess was to put our weight towards the middle. Jordan went first using this technique and inched her way down the sand dune. When she got to the bottom, she had to climb back up as I laughed. Then it was my turn to make my way slowly done the sand dune.

Since neither one of us could speed down and both laughed at each other making the trek back up the dune, we figured this time it was better to put the weight towards the front of the plastic sheet. It actually worked quite well but we ended up with loads of sand in our faces. I would have loved to try it again and reach a faster speed, but the thought of climbing the sand dune again was sickening.

So we returned back to our guides -- covered with sand and sweat but enormously happy with our experience. After all, there is nothing better than being the only two people for miles around trying to sled down some ginormous sand dunes.