Kite until you drop

The wind has been blowing all week. I’m starting to believe that my “wherever you are, the wind should be gone” curse has also been blown away. I can’t remember being on the water for at least two hours a day for a whole week in 10 years of kiting. But that’s exactly what Mui Ne is.

I could really grow old here. Designing a few homepages on a deckchair on the beach in the morning. A few hours of kitesurfing in the afternoon. Go out for a good meal in the evening. Then a beer in the Wax Bar next door. A film to fall asleep to and off to bed. If this is what regularity looks like, I would probably never get bored of it.

Vietnam really impresses me. The split between surviving the American invasion, communism and Vietnam’s search for a superstar. Restaurants often charge in dollars. Vietnamese hospitality has been talked down to me by a number of travellers beforehand. I can’t confirm that at all. So far, almost all hosts have been very friendly. I only had the feeling of “give me all your money and get lost” in southern Thailand.

The last two days in Mui Ne we put the pedal to the metal. Jörg does a whopping four hours of training and ends up with his IKO licence. I think that in preparation for a few days in Switzerland in the summer, it can’t hurt to have something like a driving licence after 11 years of driving while black. I get a short course in emergency rescue, and after an assessment of my driving inability, I get a licence to kite for $20.

My fingers are numb from pulling the bar every evening. My knee yodelled like I’d been riding moguls for a whole week. I didn’t have any bad hits or crashes. It was just the mass of wave hoppers.

Jörg loses his board on one of his downwinders. I take this opportunity to realise that I should urgently learn the one-handed water start. Saving boards is much easier that way. Otherwise, I’m still stuck to the water even at 18 knots. It just doesn’t go up. Vegas 07 is a good kite, but it’s not much good for jumping. Who wants one? You can get it for 350€ including shipping from the beginning of June throughout Germany.