Things to See & Do in Lap An Lagoon, Lang Co Vietnam

Best Spots to See/Photograph Lap An Lagoon

From Nguyen Van road in Lang Co town, on its eastern side, visitors will have the best view to Lap An Lagoon. For that reason, tour buses often stop here. The scenery has a breath-taking beauty that is typical of the Vietnamese central coastline. It includes an immense green lake stretching until high and steep mountains that are crowned by white clouds and covered by untouched green forests. On sunny days, their reflection on the mirror-like water is just magnificent. Sometimes, a long and narrow strip of white sand emerges, providing a great ‘bridge’ for visitors to go further and take beautiful photographs. This tidal lagoon also fascinates visitors by oyster farms, stilt houses, and life of local fishermen;

Visitors will need to pay for boats and swings at Lap An Lagoon about 20,000 VND/time/person if want to take photos there.

From Hai Van Pass, near the train track, visitors can see the whole Lang Co town area, the beach and the sea in its front, and the lagoon and mountains in its back. In the estuary where the water in the lagoon flows into the ocean, it’s possible to see a white sandy cape and a fishing village, with lots of boats. If come here in sunset time, the scenery is brilliant;

From the top of Phu Gia Pass, on the way to Hue from Lang Co, the view to Lap An Lagoon is also excellent. Since the tunnel which allows vehicles to go through the mountain was opened, not many tourists stop here to see and photograph. On motorbike tours from Hue to Da Nang/Hoi An (and vice versa), it may be recommended by local riders;

From the train ride between Hue and Da Nang, it’s also possible to see Lap An Lagoon from the window. However, the view is not as great as the above spots. 

Learn about Local Oyster Farming

If coming to Lap An Lagoon, visitors will have the chance to learn about local oyster farming and watch how they process them (collecting, removing shells,…).

Oyster farming in Lap An Lagoon started in 2004. Today, there are about 245 households from 5 villages that have raised and collected oysters to earn for living. They use over 1,000,000 old bike tyres, and 140,000 timber/bamboo stilts for this business. For that reason, visitors see lots of thin stilts standing in the lagoon, and plenty of tires along its shores or on nearby roads.

In Lap An Lagoon, there are 5 types of oysters raised, including the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas), duck bill oyster (Crassostrea sp1 .), snail oyster (Crassostrea sp2), stone oyster (Saccostrea cucullata), and estuary oyster (Crassostrea rivularis). The last one, estuary oysters, is most popular.

An oyster season in the area lasts 9 to 11 months. The best time to start is February, and oysters come and cling to tyres most between March and May. When the tires are full of oysters, local people will select a low-tide day, and then build stilts to hang them up (but still in water). The highest yield is around 11 tons/season/household.

To have good-quality oysters for sale, firstly local farmers will use the boat to go to the farm to collect tyres. After that, they hang one tire on a stilt and then twist it, to let oysters peel off, fall down into the basket. This is the reason why they use old tires. On the next step, female farmers will select big-size oysters from the ones in the basket, because of the higher price. They remove the shells or don’t do anything else next, depending on the request of restaurants or markets. Visitors can buy if want to.

At restaurants and café along the shoreline of Lap An Lagoon, visitors can try grilled oysters (hau nuong) or fresh oysters with mustard (hau song) or ‘oyster sauce’ (mam hau), the specialty sauce of the town.

Try Fresh Seafood in Floating Restaurants

There are a dozen seafood restaurants on the shoreline of Lap An Lagoon now. All of them have lots of tables and tables with a view, free parking lot, aquariums where a variety of living seafood is kept, guest-only spots to take pictures, and toilets. The price of each type of seafood is shown on a large board nearby, but sometimes, due to seasonal reasons, it’s announced when someone asks how much. On the menu, seafood dishes (with both Vietnamese and English details) have a clear price. In general, it’s inexpensive.