The Lady Who Watches The Sea

Drive out along Son Tra, the round green peninsula on the north side of the city, and you climb until the road turns to face the water. There she is. A white statue of a woman in a long robe, standing on a lotus flower, looking out at the sea. She is so tall you can spot her from My Khe Beach on the far side of the bay.

This is the Lady Buddha, and she is 67 metres tall. That is about the height of a 30 floor building. She is the tallest Buddha statue in Vietnam. She stands at Linh Ung Pagoda, on a hill about 10 kilometres from the middle of the city, high enough that the whole coast opens up below her.

She is not old. The pagoda was built between 2004 and 2010, and the statue was opened to the public on July 30, 2010. So she has only been watching the sea for a little over fifteen years, even though she looks like she has always been there.

The lotus flower she stands on is 35 metres wide. Inside the statue there are 17 floors, and each floor holds 21 small Buddha statues. She faces the ocean on purpose. The people here say she watches over the fishermen who go out from Da Nang, and brings them home safe.

Come in the early morning before the tour buses, when the air is still cool and the sea is flat and silver. Stand at her feet and turn around. The city, the long beach, the boats, all of it laid out below. Then look up at her calm white face looking past you, out to the water. That is the moment people come for, and it costs nothing.