Perhaps I am taking my life for granted. From my balcony I can see the beach that people spend loads of money to come and visit and in the 2.5 years I have lived here I have NEVER gotten in the water. I very rarely even go down there and when I do it is either to be able to walk my dog in a straight line with minimal danger of being run over by a car, or because my friends want to go down there for beers.
There are a lot of reasons why I don't go down there but one of them is that beaches just in a general sense don't really do it for me anymore. I have lived at a tropical beach for 3/4 of the past 20 years and I guess you could say that I just don't appreciate it anymore.
To a lot of people, this is probably paradise but there is one thing that I have noticed in my time living in what is considered a beautiful place: People that live in beautiful places do not go and take advantage of the beautiful places, nor do the particularly consider it to be beautiful.
One thing that always chaps my ass about going down to the beach with friends is that as soon as you cross the street to the boardwalk, the price of everything doubles. My friends like to go there to drink beers near sunset but if we were to sit at chairs that are literally across the street at a bar over there, the cost of drinks is cut in half. I love having sand stuck in my shoes and all over my legs as much as the next guy, but this is just pure lunacy in my mind. It is particularly stupid because none of us ever get in the water, nor do we talk to anyone else that we weren't already meeting there. So why are we paying twice as much for the pleasure of sitting 50 meters closer to the beach?
I complain about this every time we go down to this place but somehow, it became a standard meeting point for our small group of friends. There are other pubs we could go to, some of which still have a view of the beach that cost a lot less, but for some people, I guess they think it is worth it.
I'll go ahead and say this about the beach in Da Nang as well as most of the other places that I have been in Vietnam: They aren't particularly special. Sure the sand is nice and in most places they do a decent job of cleaning up the rather insane levels of plastic waste that goes lying about, but the water looks the same as it would just about anywhere else in the world. Plus, if you enjoy surfing or boogie-boarding, these waves are damn near useless. Combine this with the fact that swimming is only allowed in certain approved areas that are inundated with tourists, and it just isn't very much fun. I'm not joking about this, if you go into the water more than knee-deep and you don't have a surfboard with you, the lifeguards are going to violently blow whistles at you until you move to the roped in areas they have designated.
I don't know about you, but I find no joy in paddling around in a tiny area with dozens of other strangers kicking and splashing around me. They don't even let you go out very far either. Once I get to about chest level, the roped in area ends and you are not allowed to go any further. I realize that this is to prevent drownings but at what expense? No one is allowed to have fun?
I continue to live in Da Nang not because of the beach - the beach is completely meaningless to me. I only stay here because I enjoy not moving around and don't know anyone anywhere else in this country that isn't in Da Nang. Moving is a hassle, particularly with a dog in tow.
I think my dog enjoys the beach considerably more than I do and when I do go down there, it is for her, not for me. I would much rather be on the roof of my building where I can also see the beach, and be in a swimming pool that is devoid of sand.
I guess you could say that I don't understand the allure of this beach or why it is that they continue to build thousands upon thousands of new hotel rooms. If I booked a vacation to here and this was the beach that I arrived at instead of the obviously photoshopped pictures they advertised, I would be pissed. Give me the mountains any day. Beaches are overrated.