Hoa’s Place

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Twenty kilometres up the road from Hoi An, past Cua Dai and An Bang on the way back to Da Nang, is China beach. In days gone past Hoa’s Guesthouse was a mecca for backpackers, and you couldn’t meet a traveller who had stayed in Da Nang who didn’t know about this little gem. 

Hoa had a few rooms that he rented to backpackers for a couple of dollars a night, while his wife Giao, cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner, as needed, meaning a day’s total stay, all food included only came to between $7 and $10 – a bargain considering the beautiful beach front location – a broad stretch of white powdery sand with crystal clear water gently rolling on to it, with the imposing marble mountains standing proud, just behind. 

Hoa is – according to previous guests and imho – a very cool guy – incredibly funny and with excellent English (learnt in his own words from speaking too much to the Americans during the war years) and has won many friends in his years as a host, and the 29 guestbooks he still keeps, spanning nearly 20 years, with messages of thanks from happy travellers are a testament to his warmth and good sense of humour. We only had time to read a couple of the books, from 2008 and 2004, but the stories were all very similar of travellers who arrived in Da Nang, knackered and grumpy after hours, days even, on the move and being ripped off at every turn, only to find Hoa with a friendly smile (and a lot of jokes) and the coldest beer they had drunk in Vietnam. Soon, after a couple of hours relaxing in a hammock, eating some of Giao’s famous spring rolls and gazing at the ocean their worries melted away and they felt not only chilled, but welcomed into the family. More than anything, the cheap accomodation, the amazing beach, the affordable (but gorgeous) food, it was the atmosphere and ambience of the place that kept travellers there for weeks on end and coming back time after time. Hoa is so relaxed and chilled, you can’t help but instantly chillax and “take it easy” in his company. 



Most of the guests left surplus visa passport photos as reminders of who they are with their farewell messages, while others forwarded printed photos once they were home of them sitting, laughing and enjoying a beer with the enigmatic Hoa, and more still relied on their artistic skills to leave a hand-drawn sketch for Hoa to remember them by.



After a while, when the word had started to spread, the demand for rooms was too much for Hoa’s Guesthouse to cope with and as he was the only person in the small fishing village near China Beach who spoke English, he arranged for some of the villagers to let their rooms too, building up his own humble little empire and supporting his fellow villagers. 

Today the village is gone. The local government decided that this particular stretch of beach would be more profitable if redeveloped into 5* hotels and most of the village was ripped down with owners facing compulsory purchase orders.  Hoa refused to accept the paltry amount being offered in compensation and was the only remaining home owner yet to leave when the bulldozers rolled in. After a lengthy, and presumably expensive, battle in court he was able to keep a small plot of land, but only a fraction of what he had built before, largely thanks to the guestbooks he had been savvy enough to keep over the years, proving that there was a demand for an alternative to the faceless corporate hotels starting to line the beach.



Today, head down the main strip in Da Nang and there a dozens of 5* hotels, the Melia, Pullman, Crown Plaza, and just before you reach the Sandy Beach resort, there is a new road on the left leading to a quiet stretch of beach, presumably built to accommodate a new hotel, but work seems to have ground to a halt around it. This is where you will find Hoa, running a restaurant with his wife, offering cheap but wonderful food and cold refreshing beers. It’s a small victory, to still have his own business, but until the work on the hotel finishes around him, he is much quieter than he would like to be. He has plans to reopen as a guesthouse, but to rebuild the ripped down rooms takes money, and without more restaurant customers, this could take time.  Such a shame when you consider how long it had taken him to build his own village homestay, a backpacker haven and how loved it was by so many travellers the world over, New Zealand to New York and back again. 

His story would almost be sad, if it weren’t for his own stoic resilience, determination to rebuild and good humour. He built up a fantastic business that benefitted his entire community and became a legend in backpacker circles only to have it destroyed by the arrival of the package tourist and the soulless (and half empty, half finished) 5* hotels.   But I guess that’s what they call progress, and what happens when a beautiful part of the world is whispered about in travelling circles a little too loudly and suddenly becomes a “resort”.  Half of Thailand has gone this way too…..

I wish I could reach out to those hundreds, probably thousands of people who stayed with him and wrote in his many many guestbooks to let them know what happened as I’m sure, knowing Hoa better than we were able to get to know him in the space of an afternoon they will be moved by his story and like me will probably wish there was something they could do to help – even if only in some small way.  

My hope is that someone visiting Da Nang will find this post and decide to try Hoa’s for lunch or dinner and a few beers and contribute in a small way to rebuilding the dream.  

Or maybe one of those travellers from a few years ago has hung up their backpack and is managing a hedge fund with a few quid spare that they feel like sending over…..!