Cua Dai beach – immersing with the local tourists

Popular Vietnamese beaches are not for the faint hearted lovers of privacy and personal space.

After a wonderful morning scootering around Hoi An, we ended up on a beach and after the hot sweaty day it felt like seeing an oasis with the palms to boot.

The beaches in Vietnam are well catered for, a service I always miss on Western beaches. Having grown up in Bulgaria, I am  used to being able to stay all day within a few meters of the waves with cheap  food and drinks appearing on regular basis by the vendors cris-crossing the sand.

I felt right back at home with the constant supply of food that was whizzing around on carts playing various tunes adding to the craziness around us.

If you like privacy, go somewhere else.

The Dod was sitting alone on the beach, digging around, and then suddenly he was not alone at all. Something you should expect if you venture on the beaches popular with the locals.

The girls were in the water from the get go, but then we hired them a doughnut and didnt see them until it was time to go.

The beach is huge, the water warm and clear with just enough waves to make it fun without smashing you around out of your bathing suit.

A bathing suit:

In fact, in Vietnam every outfit turns instantly into a bathing suit as soon as you enter the water. The usual attire for women is some kind of a t-shirt and shorts. Men do the same, although on Cua Dai beach they were more naked than usual and most of them didn’t have a top on.

But really, anything goes. The strangest ones to me though were those going in the water with their jeans. If you have ever had wet denim stuck on you, you would understand.

Example of an outfit that few minutes later was reclassified as a bathing suit:

The Dod and I toured the food carts and stopped by to look at how a young man was cooking corn.

Then bought some and someone ate it, even though it was “bit seet” (a bit sweet)

We loved it – the craziness, how our spacious spot on the edge of the water was soon swarmed and we had families literally bunched up against us, how they kept on giving our kids food with big smiles, the naked kids being dunked in the water, the laughter and smells coming from the picnic set ups next to us, as well as the curious looks we have gotten so used to.

We had no idea where we were, until right now, when I had to find the name of the beach. There is another beach, which is supposed to be more popular with the locals (is that even possible), An Bang Beach, and I wish we had visited that one instead, but we got our fix of immersion.

Your cup of tea?