Three Beaches in One Day at My Khe — Epoche A2
Three Beaches in One Day: My Khe, Da Nang Day one, five in the morning. I thought I would have the beach to myself. Wrong. Hundreds of people were already there, and the sky was still grey. In the water, heads everywhere — many of them grey too. Old men swam straight out with slow, sure strokes. A circle of women did exercises to music from a small speaker. Along the sand, people walked fast, swung their arms, stretched against the palm trunks. This was not a holiday crowd. It was a gym with waves. By half past six the sun was up and already strong, and the crowd was leaving. There was a queue at the public showers. By eight the beach was almost empty. Midday. Sand like a hot pan. The only people were a few foreign tourists lying in the full sun, turning red. A lifeguard watched them from the shade. Local people looked at them the way you look at someone standing in the rain. Five in the afternoon. The beach filled again: families now, children with floats, a swimming class in matching caps, football before dark. So My Khe is three beaches. The exercise beach at dawn, the empty beach at noon, and the family beach in the evening. The dawn one is the biggest of the three.