Fishermen are preparing to catch fish

King Khai Dinh was so inspired by the beauty of Lang Co Bay that he composed a poem in its honor and had the words carved into stone and preserved in the village of An Cu Hong.

It’s the third Vietnamese bay to join the club, the other two being Ha Long and Nha Trang bays. Other new members this year are Pemba Bay in Mozambique and Cartagena Bay in Colombia.

Ha Long in Quang Ninh Province is where the club will hold its annual conference next year, according to general secretary Bruno Bodard.

To celebrate Lang Co’s club membership, the authorities of Thua Thien-Hue city Province put on a gala of entertainment and ceremony on Saturday June 6. The event also kicked off a tourism festival called “Lang Co - The Legendary Beach.”

Unrivaled beauty

Lang Co itself is a fishing village 60 kilometers north of Hue and 40 kilometers south of Da Nang, and lies between Phu Gia Pass to the north and Hai Van Pass to the south.

Tourists love the area and are flocking there in droves these days, as are the resort developers.

The huge lagoon by the village extends for eight kilometers inland and is lit up at night by thousands of lamps in the fishing boats lying at anchor. The scene has been immortalized in poetry and prose innumerable times.

Turquoise water, sweeping expanses of white sand, coconut trees, soft coral extending out for ten kilometers, and a backdrop of seemingly endless mountains characterize the area.

The best time to go swimming there is from April to late July, when the temperature averages 25 degrees Celsius and each month has 158 hours of sunshine.

Lang Co is rich in marine life with plenty of lobster, shrimp, crabs, mackerel and blood ark shell.

At night, local fishermen escort tour parties to the lagoon to catch gobies and to sup on bowls of rice porridge mixed with fresh seacooking.

Economic potential

In one of the speeches at the event last Saturday, provincial Chairman Nguyen Ngoc Thien said that Thua Thien-Hue would build Chan May-Lang Co Economic Zone into a modern center of international trading and tourism.

Above all the province is looking for investment in environmentally friendly projects, “human resources” and vocational training, Thien said.

Thanks to the 130-meter Chan May Pier and the tunnel under Hai Van Pass, it’s much easier for surrounding areas to trade with Lang Co nowadays, he said.

Vo Phi Hung of the Thua Thien-Hue Tourism Department said the province had to make the most of Lang Co’s natural beauty to draw more tourists to the area.

He also said it was vital to formulate long-term development strategies and stick to them.

For now the focus is on improving “tourism infrastructure” in the province, which is spending VND1.2 trillion (US$65 million) for this purpose.

Chan May-Lang Co Economic Zone has already gained 32 licensed projects with a combined investment capital of almost $2 billion. Ten of the projects are foreign and account for 71 percent of the capital.

The standouts are Laguna Hue and Bai Chuoi beachside resorts, on which Singapore-based Banyan Tree Group and Cattigara have lavished $977 million.

As evidence of Lang Co’s growing popularity, the 300-odd guest rooms in the area accommodated more than 8,000 overnight visitors in the first five months of this year.

Reported by Hoang Kien