Yes, go: it's free, it's open all day, and the white statue you can see from My Khe Beach is even bigger up close. Linh Ung Pagoda sits on the Son Tra peninsula, about 10 km northeast of the city centre, on a 20-hectare site backed by the Son Tra nature reserve forest. Its Lady Buddha (the bodhisattva Quan The Am) stands 67 m tall, the tallest in Vietnam by the city's count, with her back to the mountain and her face to the sea. Go early in the morning, or come back between 18:00 and 20:00, when the city's guide says you can see the line of lights along the coast from Da Nang to Hoi An.
Check before you go in the rainy season. The board that runs the Son Tra peninsula paused all visits from 8 October 2026 because of heavy rain and landslide risk, and reopened the roads to visitors on 14 October, Bao Da Nang reported. The rainy season runs to February and visits can be paused again at short notice, with no exception named for the pagoda, so see our Son Tra Peninsula page for how to check before heading up. If it's shut, the statue is still in plain view from My Khe Beach.
What to look for
The gate and the courtyard. You come in through a big three-door gate into a courtyard of bonsai trees and 18 arhat statues, each with its own expression. The city's guide calls it a good place for photos, and we'd linger here before heading for the statue.
The Lady Buddha. Inside, the statue has 12 floors, each with an altar. Near the statue, steps lead down to a balcony with the full view, and that balcony is where we'd spend most of the hour.
There are three Linh Ung pagodas in Da Nang. This one, at Bai But on Son Tra, is the newest and biggest. The others are on Thuy Son in the Marble Mountains and up at Ba Na Hills. If a tour says "Linh Ung", ask which one.
Hours and fees
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Entry | Free |
| Hours | All day |
| Time to allow | About an hour |
| Parking | Donation box, pay what you like |
| Built | Foundation stone 2004 (lunar calendar), opened 30 July 2010 after six years |
A free day, worked out. Linh Ung in the morning (free), the Museum of Cham Sculpture in the afternoon (VND 60,000) and the Dragon Bridge show at 21:00 on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday (free) comes to VND 60,000 a head in tickets, plus transport. The pagoda is about 7 km in a straight line from both the museum and the bridge.
Getting there
No bus or train stop is close, so it's a car, taxi or motorbike ride. By motorbike, the city's guide says: ride north along My Khe Beach on Vo Nguyen Giap Street for about 8 km, turn toward the mountain and go about 1.5 km to the pagoda entrance, then 200 m of winding road to the car park. Its 2016 guide put a taxi from the airport at about VND 200,000; we haven't checked a current fare.
In a straight line the pagoda is about 10.5 km from the airport.
The road on around Son Tra goes through forest and quiet coves, and the peninsula is where to look for the rare red-shanked douc langurs.
Nearby
- Dragon Bridge: about 7 km in a straight line.
- Museum of Cham Sculpture: about 7.5 km in a straight line.
- Marble Mountains: about 11 km in a straight line.
Questions travelers ask
Can I ride a rented motorbike up? A traveler warned r/VietNam about police stopping foreigners on motorbikes on the road to the Lady Buddha. Replies in the thread were mostly about licences:
"Also to add to this you need the appropriate license in the administering country for the IDP to be valid. Getting an IDP doesn’t mean you can just go and ride any motorbike, you need the relevant motorbike license in your own country first."
u/KalliJJ on r/VietNam
"Vietnam only recognizes the IDP based on the 1968 Vienna convention, not IAA based on 1949 Vienna convention"
u/vip17 on r/VietNam
If you don't hold a licence that's valid in Vietnam, we'd take a taxi or a ride-hailing car instead. Our international driving permit guide explains which permits Vietnam's rules recognise.
Our take
We'd go at opening or near sunset and pair it with the Son Tra road. Skip it only if you've already done a big modern pagoda elsewhere and don't care for views.
How we checked this: entry, hours, visit length, directions and the night view from Da Nang's city tourism portal (pages of 15 January 2016 and 12 January 2022), the statue's height, the floors inside and the building dates from the portal's 25 September 2019 article, the forest road and langurs from Vietnam Tourism's Da Nang page; the October pause and reopening from VnExpress (8 October 2026) and Bao Da Nang (14 October 2026), with searches on 16, 19, 21, 23 and 26 October for any new pause. The day total is our arithmetic; straight-line distances are our calculation from OpenStreetMap and Wikidata coordinates. Checked 13 October 2026; museum fee, bridge show, distances and closure status rechecked 23 October 2026; closure status rechecked again 26 October 2026.
Correction, 16 October 2026: from 14 to 16 October this page still said Son Tra was closed. The board had reopened it on 14 October.
