Our next and final stop in Vietnam is the famous China Beach of Danang. But first, our guides Le Tien and Cuong have to drop us off at the hotel where we will stay in – the Blue Sea Hotel. It is a smallish hotel just behind the main road along China Beach. The hotel isn’t really anything to write home about but it was clean and decent and it was near the beach.
There was actually no room at the hotel but it seems Le Tien knows someone there, he managed to get us a room. The immediate area of the hotel feels more residential than commercial. Just further down the road are several more places to stay but since we already have a room, it didn’t really matter anymore.
After a short rest from the motorcycle ride from the Marble Mountains. We changed to our swimming attire and made off to the beach. Since the hotel is just a stone’s throw away from the beach itself, there was already some sand coming from the beach. This is because the locals would just walk from the beach and straight back into their homes. How convenient.
China Beach was actually a rest and recreation place for the US soldiers back in the Vietnam War. In fact it is possible for you to visit some of the old war bunkers used back then. The actual spot is still a further distance down the beach. It seems though that there are big plans for this stretch of beach.
There is a new highway separating us from the beach itself. It seems like this was a newly constructed highway and even the promenade fronting the beach is quite new. There were already quite a lot of people at the beach since it was already late afternoon. In fact, now I realized why they called it China Beach. There werw so many people that it feels like the whole of China was there.
Of course, I was exaggerating, but the number of people at the beach were enough to ruin my mood for the beach, so I just wanted to content myself with taking photos. There were a couple of old ladies who were motioning us and asking us whether we wanted to seat by the beach. We agreed and they basically just led us over to “their” spot on the beach where the seats were. We ordered some drinks and watched as the people pass by.
Vast majority of the beach goers were Vietnamese, in fact we were probably the only foreigners at that time. The beach looked like any other beach scene I’ve been to. Reclining seats, umbrellas and vendors hawking drinks. The beach at Danang City is a very long stretch of beach, so, many as the people were there was actually enough beach to go around with. My friend went in for a dip and since I didn’t really feel like swimming, I guarded our stuff.
My friend eventually came back irritated as well because of the huge number of people swimming there. but what can we do? We just spent the rest of the time just people watching. At around six in the evening, there was a horn that sounded and people started leaving the beach. Maybe it was a shark alarm. I was wondering what was going on and realized that the beach was closed! Of all the beaches I’ve been to, this was the first one that actually “closes”. It was just so bizzarre for me.
With nothing else to do, we likewise packed up and left the beach to look for dinner. We chanced upon this restaurant along the highway selling Vietnamese food and we decided to give it a try. It was an open air kind of restaurant. We ordered a couple of dishes and ate the night away. There wasn’t really much stuff to do around that area, which was strange since it was supposed to be a tourist spot. We walked back to the hotel knowing that this would be our last day in Vietnam.
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