Tan Thanh Beach Go Cong

When the tide goes out at Tân Thành Beach, the work begins. A wide flat of fine black sand opens up, and far out on it people rake for clams and gather shellfish in the morning light. The wind blows in off the water, and there are boats too.

This is not the sea most travelers are used to picturing. The water is not clear and blue, and the sand is not white and glossy. It is not an ideal swimming beach like Nha Trang, Vũng Tàu or Mũi Né. Tân Thành is a beach of silt, and that difference is what gives it a pull of its own.

The beach lies in Gò Công Đông commune, in Đồng Tháp Province. The area used to be part of Tiền Giang.

The reason it is a silt sea lies in the geography. Gò Công sits on the delta coast of the Mekong, beside the mouths of the Soài Rạp River and the Cửa Tiểu. Silt carried down from far upstream on the Mekong gives the water and the sand a very different shade from the sea of central Vietnam or the sea of the southeast. Along the shore, a protective mangrove forest grows between the land and the water. It is a green band of đước, bần and mắm trees.

What the eye goes to first at Tân Thành is the pier. It runs straight out into the sea for more than 300 meters. People stop here to take photographs and to feel the space around them. On one side lie the sea dike, the shops and the life along the shore. On the other lies the wide sea, with boats coming and going and a flat horizon.

Tân Thành is known for clams, shellfish and a catch called sam. This is the taste of a silt sea, brought in by the hands of the people who gather it from the flats. Some days the sea is generous, and some days it keeps its catch for itself. A seafood meal here is therefore always a surprise. It is a story of the sea and of the people who work it, not a dish laid out in advance.

When the tide pulls back, the flat opens wide before the eye. The fine black sand runs far out, shining with water, a landscape that belongs to this stretch of sea. People work their way along it bent low, their figures printed against the wet sand. Standing and watching is enough to feel a life moving with the sea.

Tân Thành is also a doorway into the whole Gò Công area. In a single day, a visitor can reach the temple of the national hero Trương Định. A visitor can also reach the tomb called Lăng Hoàng Gia and the Đốc Phủ Hải house. Beyond them lie the famous Gò Công village of altar cabinets and the jars of mắm tôm chà, a shrimp paste. There are orchards of sơ ri, red when ripe, and the Sáu Hồi orchard of táo. The sea does not stand alone. It opens onto a land that has sea, history and local specialties.

The Tân Thành tourist area covers 80.36 hectares. It joins ecotourism to the historic sites and craft villages of the area. Here the sea, the mangrove forest and the ways of the delta flow into one.

The pleasures today are the air of a silt sea, the wind over the water and the pier reaching out. There is a meal of fresh seafood brought in by local fishers. There is also the quiet of a beach that the noise of city growth has not yet reached.

Tân Thành is not a luxury resort. It is the sea of the delta's own people, and that is what sets it apart from other beaches. It keeps the rhythm of early morning work, and the windy afternoons out on the pier.