There's over a million people in Da Nang, Vietnam and it is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the entire country. Being on the coast and the fact that there is an international airport here, it is very difficult to ever feel like you are somewhere vacation-worthy because there are always so many people around.
I think I've figured out the comfortable times where a person can have the beach to themselves, which isn't so easy to do.
For starters, if you go to the beach anytime on a sunny afternoon you can have the place to yourself for the most part. Asians, which constitute a majority of the tourists and of course residents here, don't like to be out in the sun and I've said many times before that I think this is actually wise on their part. How many problems have we created for ourselves in the west by spending too much time in the sun?
If you want to be able to experience the majesty of the sea without having to dodge hundreds of other people who are also getting in the water and you also don't want to stand directly in the sometimes deadly hot sun on the beach, you have to get there in the morning. Then you are going to want to walk a little ways away from the parking lots that exist in the popular My An areas because people come from all around as soon as the sun rises to enjoy the beach for about an hour at dawn. As crazy as it sounds to people in the west, this is one of the most popular times for people to be down at the beach.
You have to time it so that the sun is starting to get higher up in the sky because as soon as this happens, the Asians start to scatter in order to avoid the hot time of day entirely.
This is only about 530 in the morning and already the people were gathering en masse. There are certain designated swimming areas that are so full of people that I can't even imagine that this is any fun at all. I certainly wouldn't want to be bobbing around in there with dozens of people within arm's length from me.
After around 8am the locals leave the beach and then, and possibly only then, will you have a combination of a reasonable temperature, and a lack of crowds. You will only have this window of opportunity for about an hour or 90 minutes. After that, since we are on the east coast, the sun will be blazing down at an angle that is almost impossible to stay out of.
After that time you should probably head out of there just like everyone else unless you are looking to get burned. It happens a lot faster here than anywhere else I have been in the world and I know plenty of people that have gotten horribly sunburned in the morning, thinking that it couldn't happen at those hours for some reason.
Da nang is a wonderful place, but unfortunately for a lot of people it is going to seem far too popular to be truly enjoyable. I think this is probably true of just about any beautiful place anywhere in the world.