The ups and downs of living at Da Nang beach

Yesterday, for reasons I didn't really fully understand, I found myself just stressed out in the middle of the day and I decided to do something that I very rarely do and go for a walk on the beach. The weather was actually quite perfect for this because it was overcast, looked like it could possibly rain, but it didn't rain.

I normally complain that there are too many people here, and there are, but on a day like this a lot of people get scared away from the beach and therefore I was able to walk almost completely uninhibited. There was a few times that some rude people who for some reason feel as though they are the only people in the world decide to walk side-by-side completely blocking the way, but not too many to discourage me out of being there.

I came to the realization during this walk that as busy as it already is, the commercialization and rapid expansion of tourism here is going to make it MUCH more busy than it already is. There are a lot of massive buildings like this one that are under construction all up and down the beach area.

Most of these projects are not complete but once they are, we are going to find ourselves with hundreds, perhaps thousands of new hotel rooms. This could work out good for the consumer because competition will keep prices low - they are at an all time high right now - but also the already normally quite crowded beaches are going to become moreso.

Many of these structures were corporate walkaways such as the monstrous building that is to the left of the Four Points in the picture above. That was meant to be a gigantic Holiday Inn and the sign on it, if you get close, says "Coming in 2024" and it is completely faded because when work got shut down during Covid in 2020 and 2021, they just never came back.

There are plenty of other builds though and I honestly don't get the allure. The beach here isn't bad or anything, but it really isn't that special. Also, all of the hotels are on the other side of a 6-8 lane very busy street so in order to even go to the beach you have to go though a rather harrowing gauntlet introduction to Vietnam traffic. There are no overpasses and only one of all the hotels in this area have made any sort of walkway to get across the road safely.

But before I end up sounding like a serial complainer I will say that there are things I like about this beach. For one, the people in charge keep this part of the city very clean for the most part. There is a veritable army of people constantly wandering around and tending to the gardens, picking up trash, sweeping up sand and other debris, as well as enforcing policies that keep the sales reps off the sand and annoying vacationers. Parking is enforced to some degree too which is good because if they didn't the boardwalk would just be filled with motorbikes either driving to get away from the street or parking there endlessly and completely uncaring about how they are actually ruining the entire point of the boardwalk.

I was there one day when the army turned up with huge trucks and just confiscated all the motorbikes. It didn't matter if you were going to move it or not. The army took your bike and that was that. That day lives on with a bit of infamy to this day because people stopped screwing around and breaking the rules for a while after that but I think they will have to do another sweep soon because people are starting to forget.

Another thing that I do like about this beach is that there are rules. I have been to other parts of the world such as in Thailand where the entire beach is just ruined because it becomes a place for jetskis and they are all over the place making noise and making the sea dangerous. Ever been hit by a speeding jetski? most of the time you only get to go through that one time.

Here the jetskis are licensed and are used for lifeguard situations and the para-sailing, which I don't really care for and think it is a blemish on the landscape but at least they are kind of keeping it at a minimum.

Another good thing about the beach in Da Nang is that it is one of the only places in the entire city that has any sort of peace and quiet. The restaurants are heavily regulated and can't just blast music all the time and where they can operate at all is very restricted. There are some beach discos but only in a certain part of the beach. If you don't like that sort of thing (I don't) just don't go to that part of it.

I don't often come down here because I don't really rate it. But yesterday I went on a walk for over an hour and it really set my mind at ease. I guess I got a bit of exercise too because my legs kind of hurt from walking on sand at a slight angle for that amount of time.

When Da Nang becomes a lot busier, and I believe it will, I think that my opinion about this might change. During peak hours such as at sunset there are tens of thousands of people on that beach all at once. I could do without that.

During the day though, Asians don't really like suntans so if you are willing to brave the sun yourself, you can kind of have some peace and quiet.