Lac Cai Beach

The last stretch is unpaved but flat, and an ordinary rental car manages it.

The setting is what people come for: mangroves on one side, shallow turquoise water on the other, and a mound of conch shells piled up over generations of fishing. The water is calm and shallow, turtles pass through, and there is more birdlife here than on the west coast beaches — herons, egrets and the occasional flamingo working the shallows.

Sunday afternoon is a different place entirely — local bands play, there is food, and half the island turns up. Any other day it is close to deserted, and the road out is a dead end, so nobody passes by accident. Free to visit. An hour or two, or a whole Sunday afternoon if you time it that way.