3 beach bars and open-air bars in Ha Long, right on the Bai Chay sand

Of the three, Chill Beach Bar is the only one open in daylight. It works as a café, a restaurant and a beach bar at once, right by the water on the Sun Group beach. You can take a table set directly on the sand, sink into a bean bag or claim one of the gazebo huts turned towards the bay, and a string of LED lights comes on along the beach after dark. One guest even watched fireworks from here. Google Maps gives 10:30 AM to 11 PM daily and a travel blog 3 PM to midnight; someone once arrived early to find it still shut, so call first.

At night the venue often brings in guest DJs, with acoustic sets at weekends. The volume is high, so ask to sit away from the speakers if you want to talk. Birthdays and small parties are welcome, and one guest combined a birthday with a marriage proposal here. The front row by the water is short, so reserve on weekends if you want it. Coming straight from a swim? There are toilets but nowhere to change. Daytime brings families with children; from late afternoon the crowd is here to watch the bay change colour.

Valley Beach Club is the biggest production of the three. The stage is built on a festival scale, with large LED screens, lasers and pyrotechnics, and lights strung through the beachside trees frame the dance area. The speakers are L-Acoustics K1, a system designed for stadiums and concerts and installed here by L-Acoustics itself; very few open-air stages in Vietnam use it. On open sand, where sound spreads out fast, that power is what keeps the music clear at the back.

Nights run on EDM, Vinahouse and remixes with dancers, and the Valley Rhythm Season series brings DJs from Vietnam and overseas. Choose from four areas: standing room on the sand by the stage, mid-floor tables, central sofas, and a seafront section for parties of 8 to 20 that looks straight out over the bay.

WoW Beach Bar, under the tagline WONDER OF WONDERS, sits on the stretch of Bai Chay beach opposite Sun Square; from central Bai Chay you can walk there or take a short taxi ride. Palm trees strung with lights ring the tables, and the stage carries a large LED screen. Each night brings DJs, dancers and guest singers, plus the venue's own WOW SAY HI show. The crowd is at its biggest from 10 PM to 1 AM.

Its strength is size: the venue's poster puts capacity at up to 1,500, and it hosts company parties, team-building trips, birthdays and reunions. You can sit at a Sand Table close to the performers, share a Group Table, settle into a Sea-facing Sofa further back where the breeze comes in, or take over the Group Area with a big party. Combo sets come in levels matched to group size, and a booking is held for 30 minutes past the agreed time.