My Khe Beach, a beautiful beach in Da Nang

My Khe Beach is recognised as one of the most ideal beach of Da Nang City, international tourists came here for convalescence and relaxation...

Da Nang has a coastline of 30 kilometres long, famous for many beautiful seashores stretching from the north to the south such as My Khe, Nam O, Xuan Thieu, Thanh Binh, Tien Sa, Son Tra, Bac My An, Non Nuoc. They are calm seas with green water during four seasons, not being polluted with 60% salination and high safety. With 900 meters in length, My Khe Beach is the most crowded of Da Nang beaches and popular to local people.

My Khe Beach is located about 6km east of Da Nang and about 24km north of Hoi An. It is a nine-kilometre stretch of smooth sand with an average width between 50m and 70m. The gradient is gentle, and its sheltered position in the lee of the Son Tra peninsula softens the autumn winds that restrict swimming further down the coast.

It is an ideal and huge beach with smooth sand and a slight slope. Behind the beach is a dark green poplar forest, and beside, the Kinh River carries crystal water to the sea. The beach has coral, abundant plants and creatures along bankside and under sea. Especially, the beach is next to the city centre, in roads easy to come and by various means of transport. Sea water in My Khe is cool with little wave so you can bath all year's round, especialy in summer from May to August. The lack of large waves, less than average pollution, and an annual mean temperature around 25oC, makes it a safe place to swim for adults and children alike.

The beach has hotels, pleasure-houses and various abundant services, creating favourable conditions for tourists to relax on the seashores. There are 50 well-equipped and comfortable bedrooms and lots of services in My Khe hotel. Many luxurious seaside villas with over 100 rooms are available for families. You can come here to play and rest at weekend. Around the hotel area, there is plenty of seafood restaurants and stalls, and large numbers of local vendors traverse the beach selling all kinds of foods and drinks. Coastal specialties like shrimps, crabs, fish, cuttles, etc. in hundreds of small shops are at reasonable price. They can be irritating sometimes – if they are too persistent, you should ignore the nuisance since that is the best strategy.

American soldiers occupied a part of the beach before 1975. They established some premises for their relaxation and recreations. With some enabling conditions such as being near the city’s center, large space, beautiful landscapes, and qualified services (hotels, restaurants, vehicles keeping site, fresh water bathing, sunshade and buoy lease), My Khe Beach is now convenient for developing kinds of services such as fishing, water-skiing, diving, yatch race and so on.

Moreover, the safeguard team of Da Nang seashore work from 5 a.m to 8 p.m every day to guarantee safety for visitors to bath and relax on the beach. There has been a steady increase in the number of tourists visiting the beach.

Han River suspension bridge was completed, it links the east to the west area, making transportation possible. As a result, My Khe Beach becomes an attractive resort, a really very good beach!

The Cultural Space of Gong in the Central Highlands

The fame of Central Highlands gong culture has crossed national borders to become a property of all human beings.

Specific values of the cultural space of the Central Highlands gong which is a part of Vietnam's cultural heritage and quintessence has been recognised by the international community.

On 25th November 2005, the UNESCO decided to recognize “The cultural space of gong in the Central Highlands” of Vietnam as “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”.
Caption

Throughout the Central Highlands of Viet Nam, Gong ensembles are parts of various ceremonies and closely linked to the communities’ daily life and the cycle of the seasons. The instruments, measuring 25 to 80 centimetres, are played by men as well as women.

The culture space of the Gongs of central Vietnam is about original musical forms, which are performed against the background of the linguistic and ethnic diversity of the region. Diversity is also found in the compositions and customs of the Gong ensembles, in their performance techniques, in the musical genres and in the ritual functions of the gongs.

In the realm of Vietnam’s musical instruments, the gongs are very well-known for their outstanding value and regarded as the privileged language bridging humanity and the supernatural world. The gongs are made from a mixture of bronze and silver, with some distinctive features. The peoples living in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam possess many sets of gongs, which would be performed differently. A set of gongs consists of two to twenty units.

Culture Value
The most outstanding value of gong culture showcases masterpieces of human creativity. The masters of gong culture are the ethnic people of the Central Highlands. Although they can not cast gongs themselves, they raise the value of a product into an excellent musical instrument with their sensitive ears and musical soul. In the hands of talented folk artistants, each gong plays the role of a musical note in an orchestra to perform different pieces of gong music.

As for ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands, gongs and gong culture present a means to affirm the community and its cultural identities. As time went by, gongs have become an attractive and appealing symbol of the culture of the Central Highlands. It is an activity associated with cultural and spiritual life, and beliefs of ethnic people when they are born, grown up and return to the soil.

Customs
The Central Highlands gong comes from long-standing historical and cultural traditions. In the past, community of people in the Central Highlands knew how to play the gong. Its sound is either deep or strong, moving and combining with the sounds of streams, wind and the hearts of people so that it can live with the heaven, the earth and people in the Central Highlands.
However, different ethnic minority groups arrange different orchestras. Listening to the sound of the gong, people in the Central Highland can know which ethnic group is playing.
Gong players in the majority of ethnic groups in the Central Highlands are male. Only in a minority of ethnic groups in the region, gong players are female.

Visual description of the picture 
It is a bright sunny day and a group of seven men are outside playing brown tambourines. Only five of the seven men are clearly visible. Their bodies describe a semi-circle facing the left of the picture. They all wear calm expressions. Each man holds the tambourine in his right hand, hitting it with a short thick piece of wood held in the left. The tambourines all have white characters written on them. All the men are wearing the same costume: a dark-blue long-sleeved shirt with multicoloured cuffs and a red square piece of material with golden buttons down the front. Some of the men wear caps; the first man from left to right wears a yellow cap, the second from right wears a blue cap. In the background we can see a forest with blue sky just visible through the dense foiliage of the trees. Smoke is spiralling upwards from the dirt floor. On the far left of the frame we can see the entrance to a hut.

The Central Highlands’ gongs, together with the epics, the treasure of folklore, folk sculpture and folk knowledge, constitute the unique cultural heritage that have attached to the life of the highlanders for over thousand years.

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Vietnam Highlights 7 days

Day 1: Welcome to Hanoi (L)
Arrive at the airport in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital city of tree-lined streets, colonial houses and centuries-old temples. You’ll be picked up and transferred to the hotel. Enjoy a water puppet show and a dinner with traditional folk show. Overnight in Hanoi.

Day 2: Hanoi - Halong bay (B,L,D)
The half-day city tour features both cultural and historical highlights, comprising Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and his house on stilts, the One Pillar Pagoda, the Temple of Literature, Ethnology Museum, the Quan Thanh Temple, the Tran Quoc Pagoda, the Old quarter s and a downtown pedicab ride (1 hour). Leave for Halong (170km), a World Heritage site. Overnight in Halong.
Day 3: Halong - Hanoi - Hoi An (B,L)
Board a private boat for an astonishing cruise in Halong bay (4 hours). Visit some magical grottoes and relax in the best scenic beauty of Vietnam. Lunch of fresh and fine seafood is served on board. Return straight to Hanoi Noi Bai airport for a short flight to Danang. Pick up at the airport and transfer to Hoi An. In the evening, taste and savor the delicacies of central Vietnam, arguably the finest cuisine in the country. Overnight in Hoi An.

Day 4: Hoi An - Danang - Hue (B,L)
Enjoy a morning tour of Hoi An, a centuries-old trading post of seafaring Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese merchants. In the afternoon, transfer to Hue (140km) with a stopover to visit the stone-carving village of Non Nuoc and the scenic Lang Co lagoon. In the evening, be the guest at a typical royal court dinner with a presentation of ancient dancing and court music which has been recognized as a World Intangible Heritage. Overnight in Hue.

Day 5: Hue - Ho Chi Minh city (B,L)
In the morning, visit the Imperial Citadel and the tombs of King Tu Duc and King Khai Dinh. The monuments, designed by the kings themselves, were also used as holiday retreats during their lifetime. In the afternoon, take a superb boat ride on the Perfume River to Thien Mu Pagoda, a 21-metre-high (69-foot-high) octagonal tower regarded as the symbol of Hue. Dive to the Dong Ba Market, famous for its conical hats. Transfer to Phu Bai airport (Hue) for a short flight to Ho Chi Minh city , formerly called Saigon, the largest and busiest city in Vietnam. Meeting at Tan Son Nhat airport and transfer to hotel. Enjoy a folk show and dinner. Overnight in Ho Chi Minh city .

Day 6: Excursion to Mekong delta river (B,L)
Enjoy a full-day excursion to My Tho, 75km south of Ho Chi Minh city , a peaceful town on the bank of the Mekong River. The tour includes a cruise on the Mekong River, a visit to local homes and orchards, a sampan ride on palm-shaded creeks, a taste of seasonal fruit-and-honey tea and a performance of traditional southern singing. Lunch of Mekong specialties is organized. Overnight in Ho Chi Minh city .

Day 7: Departure from Ho Chi Minh to next destination (B)
The morning tour visits the major sights of colonial Ho Chi Minh City; it features the former Presidential Palace, Notre Dame Cathedral, Old Saigon Post Office, Dong Khoi Street, Opera House and City Hall, and the History Museum. Spend your last minutes shopping downtown (ceramics, silver-carvings, silk...) or at leisure before check-out. Transfer to Tan Son Nhat airport for departure.

Want an independent tour and private tour, please email us at: FootStepVietNam@Gmail.Com to get more information and assistance