Da Nang, Vietnam is a very popular beach getaway destination for much of the world. Most of the tourists that come here are from other Asian nations but there is a splattering of European, North American, and Australian visitors as well. The most frequent Caucasian visitors are Russian and you can hear the language being spoken everywhere that you go.
As we enter rainy or "low" season, a great many of the masses of tourists choose to not come here because the weather has an opportunity to turn ugly frequently. As strange as it might seem, I prefer this time of year over the other months.
The main reason that I feel this way is that the beach is, for a few months anyway, not completely overwhelmed with visitors. This photo was taken during what is normally considered a "peak" hour to be there and this is, during the rest of the year, the one time of day that I refuse to come down here despite the fact that it is just a few blocks from my house. On a regular day, this same beach would have so many people on it that you struggle just to walk down the rather large footpath along the beach.
Now, as you can see, there is plenty of space and most of the people that are down there are locals that congregate to this area to get some exercise. I was kind of there for the same reason but mostly I was taking advantage of the much cooler weather that is enforced by the fact that during this time of year it is normally very overcast almost every day.
The city does put up these attractions on the beach in an attempt to give the few visitors something to look at and this year's theme is a flower oriented one even though I am yet to see any flowers. There are plenty of signs talking about flowers, but not so many actual plants.
It's quite nice down here now but this is still Vietnam so of course there is still a ton of noise from the nearby busy street and also the never-ending construction that goes on across the street.
The waves are also a lot larger during this time of year so for anyone that enjoys some sort of surfing, this is the time to be here. One funny thing to point out because I am constantly bagging on this city for their façade of environmental friendliness: That bin that you see on the left side of the above picture has a "recyclable" and "non recyclable" flap on it.... Both flaps lead to the same trash can and to me that is worse than not having a recycling option. Anyone that puts anything in there is going to immediately notice that both entrances lead to the same depository. I don't know why they do this. Just having a bin at all at the beach is good enough.
So the next few months are my favorite months of the year in this city and it is the opposite for anyone who is a tourist. For me, I don't understand why anyone would want to travel to a place that is extremely hot and packed with other tourists but hey, people are free to enjoy whatever the hell they want to!