Bãi biển Mỹ Khê

My Khe runs along the eastern edge of Da Nang, central Vietnam's largest city, nine kilometres of pale sand between the Han river mouth and the Marble Mountains. The city has grown along it rapidly and the beach is now a city front rather than an outskirt.

It is widely known under a name Vietnamese people do not use. American forces called this stretch China Beach and used it as an in-country rest area during the war; the name entered English through a television series in the late 1980s and has stuck in foreign usage. Locally it is My Khe, and the war-era association is not the frame Da Nang applies to it.

The beach is broad quartz sand with a gentle shelf and warm water from spring to autumn. There is surf in the winter months and a shore break; lifeguards patrol marked areas in season and rip currents occur. The city has invested heavily in the seafront, with a promenade, lighting and rebuilt access points. The Han river bridges and the seafront lighting have become the city's signature, and Da Nang has grown from a mid-sized port to Vietnam's third city within two decades.

Development is a wall of hotels and apartment towers built largely since 2010, with the Marble Mountains at the southern end — limestone outcrops holding Buddhist caves and shrines — and the Son Tra peninsula to the north, a protected forest with a population of endangered red-shanked douc langurs. Hoi An is thirty minutes south and Hue two hours north, which is the standard central Vietnam route.

Americans called this China Beach and used it for rest during the war; Vietnamese call it My Khe and use it for the morning swim. Nine kilometres of city front built almost entirely since 2010, with the Marble Mountains at one end and Hoi An half an hour south.