🇻🇳 Da Nang - Surfing

Slowing down in the Miami of Vietnam

I’ve been wanting to learn how to surf for a while, and was pleased to find that I can do so in Vietnam. There’s only really one place where it’s possible, though - Da Nang. Some people call it the Miami of Vietnam, which is a bit rich, but there’s a vague resemblance, if Miami replaced part of its nightlife with families doing karaoke on the street at 7 in the morning.

The city is huge, but also, it’s really a city in the plainest way possible. It doesn’t really offer many cultural attractions, with the main things to do being the beach (the view from which isn’t the prettiest due to the pollution), a theme park in the mountains, and various other new man-made monuments, which feel like deliberate investments to attract tourists (all have been built from the early 2000s onwards).

The city is also oddly popular with digital nomads and expats, which I wasn’t massively fond of. Strolling around in the mornings, you could see a lot of westerners with headphones on in fancy cafes, giving subtle Bali vibes. I got this reel the other day, which feels like a microcorm for what’s happening in Da Nang:

I may be interested in some hippie stuff, but this is not my vibe.

Saying all this, it was a good place to just surf in the morning and get into a bit of a routine without any distractions. I also enjoyed going to the same places often, in particular this vegan restaurant serving vegan versions of Vietnamese dishes, with ingredients from their own garden. The place was also owned by locals, locally priced, and had locals eat there - it’s been hard to find places like this outside India and Nepal.

Sightseeing

I had a day before surfing, where I explored the local attractions that are easy to get to. I say this, as many of the more popular are 1.5h+ out of the city. There’s a small park that houses the Lady Buddha statue that’s supposed to protect the fishermen, and a newly built pagoda. Honestly, nothing to write home about.

Da Nang also had some surprises for me.

The worst hostel so far

I had the pleasure of staying in the worst hostel I’ve been to so far. The rooms and the bathrooms were infested with mould, and the smell of it was everywhere. Someone also pissed on the floor in the bathroom on the first night I was there, which I discovered by stepping in said golden puddle.

What seems to have happened is that the hostel got a really high rating 2 years ago on Hostelworld (dropping from a 9.0 to 7.1 over 2 years) and must’ve been riding that success while seriously reducing its standards. The price and the location were hard to beat, though, so I braved it through a few nights. Apart from the floorpisser, the people in the hostel were very nice, which made the stay bearable.

I feel like I’ve got my hotel and hostel booking checklist down to a tee after this experience.

Donating to the local community

The first Bad Thing on my travels also happened in Da Nang - I lost my wallet. The circumstances were silly, as I had some swim shorts on after leaving the gym, and the wallet must’ve slid out without me noticing. Luckily, I carry two wallets specifically to mitigate the effects of situations like this - one with my cards, and one with cash. I lost the one with cash. It sucks, but it wasn’t too much money in the grand scheme of things (~£170), and I managed to get it all back through travel insurance (and as an aside, would gladly recommend Big Cat insurance).

When I realised I had lost my wallet, the locals were really kind and eager to help me. They all checked various security cameras around their houses, trying to see if they could see where I dropped it. I got really uneasy having this much attention on me quite quickly, though, so I bailed on the search after an hour. I’m treating this as a donation to the local community.

As a prerequisite for the insurance claim, I had to report the matter to the police. That ended up feeling like a humiliation ritual, with the police being very reluctant to give me any sort of case number that I could use in the insurance claim. I got a photo of my report back in the end, but similar to the palaver on the street when I lost my wallet, I just wanted to get out of there.

Anyway, losing the wallet sucked in the moment, it felt like a small price to pay for a few lessons. I’ve bought a few extra Airtags, started taking a photo of every receipt to help with future claims, started leaving excess money in my accommodation, and started using the locally-preferred payment method - bank transfer via QR code. The latter is usually difficult to access for foreigners, but a startup called Moreta Pay is making it easy across Southeast Asia. I really should have used this more on my travels so far - I’m writing this post from Thailand, and paying by QR code has made travelling here incredibly easy.

I’ll leave you with this awful AI decor that adorned the gym I was in before I lost my wallet. As an aside, I’ve been progressively seeing more AI slop make its way into everyday settings while on my travels in Asia - from billboards with AI-generated images, to cafes and taxis playing livestreams of AI-generated music nobody has to be paid royalties for. I’ve not noticed this to be so bad in Europe, but it’s pretty rife here.

Surfing

I made Da Nang sound pretty bad so far, so I’ll cut to the reason I was there - the surfing. And the surfing there was great.

I learned with Holiday Surf, based on their overwhelmingly positive reviews on Google Maps. I can concur with the reviews - the lessons were very well priced, the teachers were good, and they knew good English. After the lesson, you could also stay on the beach with any hired gear for as long as you liked to practise.

I had lessons over 3 days. Over these, I made a surprising amount of progress, being able to stand up after the first lesson, and working on independently catching and riding the waves on subsequent days. The surf school also had a photographer, so I got a few shots of myself surfing.

The teacher helped spot waves initially and was giving me a small push on the board, but progressively, I ended up doing more myself, with the teacher just giving feedback. When you manage to catch a wave, the feeling is incredible; I can see why people get addicted.

On subsequent days, my body ended up taking a bit of a beating, mostly the bottom of my ribs from perking up on the board, and a lot of sore spots on my hands and legs from rubbing against the board. Taking a day in between some of the lessons to rest would have been a good idea.

Every day provided a different challenge, with the waves changing daily. I’ve still got a lot to learn, and I’m hoping to get surf more later in my travels. Ideally, in a place with a bit more soul.