Couchfish: The Erosion Of A Dream Couchfish

Note: Our exisiting coverage for Cửa Đại and An Bàng on Travelfish which were researched and written in 2017 serve as good counterpoints to the following piece as they illustrate now much has changed in just a few years. I’ll be updating them to bring them in line with the following in the coming days.
Let me start by saying I’ve seen more than my share of great beaches. The flip-side of this is I’ve also seen my share of not so great, dare I say, awful, beaches. A product of travelling in circles in Southeast Asia for the last thirty years is that I’ve seen many a beach shift from the former to the latter. Few—if any, move in the opposite direction.
Despite this downwards shift, beaches remain one of the major calling cards for many a Southeast Asian destination. There’s the palm trees, the blue skies, the powdery sand, the warm and lapping turquoise water. You get my drift right?
What we need is a “no building” sign. Photo: Stuart McDonald.
I’ve written before about the perils that rising sea levels hold for the not too distant future. Yet, tourists’ favourite holiday spots washing away are the least of the concerns. The economic and social ramifications of a vanishing coastline will be as vast as the ocean that submerges them. Yes, the calamities associated with this are down the tube a bit—give it another twenty years give or take.
Yet, in some spots you don’t need to wait twenty years. For those who want front seats on the calamity, come to Vietnam. To An Bàng and Cửa Đại beaches, a short bike ride from tourist hub Hội An. I made the trip today to save you the bother, and the beach is an unmitigated disaster area.
What could go wrong? Photo: Stuart McDonald.
First a brief history.
I first visited Hội An’s beach strip in 1993 or 1994. As best I remember, at the time there was nothing tourist-facing on An Bàng, and Cửa Đại had three hotels—the Victoria and two others. The beach, still quite duney in places, went and went and went. To the south, the (then with no dams) Thu Bồn river emptied out to sea, while offshore, the Chàm Islands glimmered. You could walk all the way to Đà Nẵng’s Mỹ Khê Beach and see barely any construction whatsoever. I did it—once. Yes, 1993 was a lifetime ago.
Vietnam’s coast around Hội An catches a bit of weather in October-ish most years when tropical cyclones blow in. While the town often floods and has for decades, the beach districts bear the brunt of it. People die. For the rest of the year, thanks to current, wind cycles and the Thu Bồn, the sand returns—ready to get sucked away again. This combination of islands, estuary and storms create a complex and unique system. Still, this cycle of erosion and accretion (when the sand returns) has been going on forever. Well, almost.
What a difference 19 years makes. First two images (source), third image, Stuart McDonald, via Google Maps.
In recent decades, An Bàng, and Cửa Đại have boomed—a search on AirBnb for “An Bàng” delivers results for hundreds of “homes.” Many sit on what was once the sand dunes that formed a natural protective element for the beach. Off beach meanwhile, at least seven dams now sit on the Thu Bồn. Illegal sand dredging on the river is rife. In a few short decades, a system that has worked forever and a day has started to malfunction. The cycle of erosion and accretion isn’t what it used to be. Add to this, a worsening of the storm cells that hit the region each year, and none of the news is good.
But wait, there’s more!
At the southern end of Cửa Đại Beach, where the Victoria was once the southern-most resort, more resorts went in. Built within metres of the high tide mark, it should come as a surprise to nobody that they started to wash away. At the southernmost tip, everyone’s favourite enviro-vandal Vin Group dropped in the VinPearl Hoi An Resort. Built at the cusp of the Thu Bồn’s mouth, even by Vin Group standards,