Ever since Da Nang exploded in popularity in the past year, the rules of the beach have become pretty extreme for anyone that has a dog. In the past, it was already illegal to have your dog on the beach sand just like the signs said all along, but this wasn't enforced unless there were a ton of people there, which was rare. Nowadays, it is extremely crowded down there all the time, even in the dead heat of day.
This is when the police officer wanna-be security guards really step up their rounds and one of the first things they pick on is people trying to take their dog for a little bit of fun on the sand. They are pretty ridiculous actually and on my last trip down there I just decided to walk past them and their explanation of no dogs. I know they have no real authority, but I also don't really want to make any problems. I think I was such a hard head that day because I had made a promise to Nadi (my dog) and I was going to follow through on it.
Since then though, I have not taken her back or even had her on the walkway next to the beach because that just seems cruel to tempt her with her favorite place but not allow her to actually go there.
So I've been scouting nearby beach access in neighboring areas that are not popular with tourists or really anyone else and I think I found a good one.
This is the same ocean, but the access road is about 4km away from my house. This is obviously much farther than I could walk Nadi, she has only been on a continuous 4km walk a couple of times in her life. I have this reverse backpack sort of thing where the dog can ride on me and she really loves being in that thing anyway. I could carry her to this point and then we could enter the beach area.
It was around 3pm when I visited without the dog yesterday, and as you can see, there is basically nobody here. There is one problem though and that is right at the entrance.
you cant really see him, but there is a lifeguard and his accomplice in the shade of that building there right at the entrance. Normally I have never been harassed by a lifeguard because they aren't there to enforce the beach's rules, they are there to guard life. I would have to take a chance with bringing Nadi down there and see if he tries to stop me. Then I may try to bargain with him by showing him the leash and perhaps offering him some money. The sign with the no dogs rule is just on the opposite side of his booth so if he walks over there to aggressively show me the "no dogs" section, I will not argue with him. At least at that point Nadi will have been on a bike ride and she really enjoys that anyway. We can go to a nearby park or something afterwards as some sort of "I'm sorry baby."
As you can see there is basically nobody here and this is because most of the resorts in this area either never opened (that is an empty and incomplete build in the distance) or they shut down during Covid and never re-opened. This beach access road is frequented in the evenings by Vietnamese people who live nearby and they do this for around 90 minutes in the evening and then everyone leaves. It's pretty strange and cool when this happens. It is also when the no dog rule is most likely to be enforced so we will not be going down there at this time.
It's a nice little spot, and it could become a regular thing for us if the security or rule-enforcers would just be cool and understand that there is a huge difference between a rule and the reasonable application of that rule. The no dog rule exists to protect the people on the beach but since there are no people there, why bother?
I hope it works, it's been 6 months since Nadi had a chance to get into the water by her own choice.
