Beach Life in Durban

Durban's beaches have a mixed reputation. My favorite guide book refers to them as tacky and best avoided. I suppose I can see why. The long strands of beaches are geared toward tourists, and as with anything geared toward tourists there is both a lowest-common-denominator element and a laser focus on extracting rands from the visitors.

But despite this perception, I knew that I wanted to cap this trip to South Africa with a week or so in Durban where I would inevitably stay right on the beach. If a 3rd floor room with a window that opens up fully to the sounds and smells of the Golden Mile (which is actually closer to 6km) and a breathtaking view of both the Indian Ocean and the hustle and bustle on the streets means that I've been suckered, so be it. We should all be suckered this well.

My somewhat ramshackle hotel costs me not quite $30 a night, and sleeping with the windows open I can both smell the sea air and also hear the sounds, such as those from African men in "traditional" Zulu garb pulling rickety, colorful rickshaws that they hope to lure tourists into (the parting of a tourist and his money thing). The hotel is on the road that fronts the beach (there are no literally beachfront hotels on the Golden Mile) and it is constantly busy. The closest comparison I can make that might draw nods of recognition is Miami's South Beach. Durban's beaches are not as glitzy, and the ratio of the gorgeous to the average here tends to favor those of us stuck on the average side of that equation, though there is no lack of people out to see and be seen, and with good motivation. Nonetheless, first impressions link Durban and South Beach in my mind.

Durban is South Africa's third largest city, and is supposedly the fastest growing in all of Africa, and maybe in the Southern hemisphere. The beaches here used to be a prime draw for South Africans from the interior, who would holiday on the pristine beaches that, because of apartheid policies, were free from non-whites. ("Net vir blankes," read the signs in Afrikaans, "only for whites," and Durban embodied the apartheid ideal, with a white facade that covered up and distanced the holidaying masses from a simmering population kept at bay just on the fringes.)

Durban also is compelling because of its particular demographic. Beyond being the population center of the former province of Natal (Now KwaZulu-Natal) and thus consisting of a plurality of Zulus, the second largest ethnic group in Durban is Indians, whose presence here is supposed to be greater than in any city in the world outside of the Asian subcontinent. Their presence has a huge cultural affect on the city. For one thing, it changes the very look of the people here. For another it serves as a reminder that the black-white dualism is a fallacious one in South Africa. But perhaps more prosaically, it also means that Durban has some of the best Indian restaurants and takeaways anywhere in the world. The city also has a large coloured population as well as whites, both English and Afrikaner. If the city lacks the romance and allure of Cape Town, it does not lack that city's diversity and variety.

I had not been back to Durban in years -- since 1999, when a professor girlfriend who taught in the Boston area came to see me from Germany where she was researching, and we spent a week in a beachfont hotel not far from where I am staying on this trip. Much has changed since then. The city's growth is reflected in the growth on the beachfront, and naturally much of that growth has lent credence to the accusations of tackiness. Amusement park rides, modified bungee jumping areas (two people get into a steel encased pod attached by bungee cords on either side that are in turn attached to parallel poles that extend upward probably eight stories, and are catapulted high into the air and then bounce like a suspended superball for a few minutes that seem inexorably to elicit shreiking), an increasingly commercialized walkway, the ubiquitous rickshaw commandoes, and elaborately organized covered stalls where African women try to allure you to their wares, tchochkes, clothing and googaws that run the gamut from the wonderful to the utterly crappy and from the authentically African to the Chinese knockoff ripoffs (The Chinese have their fingers in a lot of knockoff pies).

So I can see the criticisms. But for me, many of the changes over the last decade or so have also been enlightening. By the 1980s Durban lost some of its allure as a tourist mecca as the apartheid state either could or would no longer stanch the tide of Africans, Indians, Coloureds and others onto the beach areas. The polyglot nature of the beach is affirming, even if the new beachfront manages to pull off a usually incompatible double -- it is both sanitized and commercialized to a greater degree than it was a decade ago but also not especially safe.

Or at least the danger on the beachfront is part of the line that you always hear. The standard line is not untrue. It is just overstated. My new British pal Rob is staying in the more upscale, hip, reputable, and cool Berea area, and as soon as he told his landlady that I was staying on the beach, she said that this area was nothing but "Prostitutes and pickpockets," which, in addition to being a great name for a rock band, is also part of the cliche not only of Durban but of any city of any size in South Africa. Exaggerated but not without a certain element of truth, the outsized fear of crime is a trope perpetuated by white South Africans in particular and usually whispered conspiratorially to white visitors to make sure our stay is a pleasant one. The best advice is slightly less hysterical -- be smart, don't flaunt money or goods, be careful at night, if you begin to feel uncomfortable, turn back, and so forth. It's advice, really, that works anywhere in South Africa, but also anywhere in the world. I could say that same things about Dallas or London, Boston or Beijing, New York or Amsterdam, Durban or Odessa. During the day, in particular, the metro police are ubiquitous. The tourist will only have his money siphoned away in a host of dubious, but perfectly legal, ways, as long as he is reasonably smart.

There might be one other reason why, beyond the Indian Ocean, the interesting melange of people, the Indian- and seafood, the view from my hotel room, and the fact that it is summery here (26 C) where it was increasingly freezing (high of 15 low of -2C) up on the highveld, I still find the Durban beachfront appealing. I grew up in New Hampshire, which has the shortest coastline of any state on an ocean. The closest ocean beach to me, therefore, was Hampton Beach. And let me tell you -- Durban's oceanfront is the embodiment of class and understatement compared to Hampton. Every so often I'd make it to the more stately coast of Maine, especially as I got older and could drive myself or go with friends, but once you've been to Hampton, all beaches take on an element of class that might be beyond local perceptions.

In the meantime, I think I need a curry, so back to the beach and through the humanity and hucksters I wander, far more likely to get squooshed by a car than mugged by a tsotsi. Then perhaps to a walk on the beach and into the water and a brief stare out into the endless expanses that lead to Madagascar and Asia.