Islands of Halong Bay

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Recommended by Mike Lyvers: Almost two thousand jungle capped wedges of limestone monolith make up this island group in Vietnam’s Halong Bay near the mouth of the Dang River. The islands form a labyrinth of rock knives sticking out of the bay and many have been hollowed out by the ocean over time and now have interiors crenulated with caves and tunnels containing interesting rock formations.

Only two islands in the group are inhabited and provide tourist facilities, they’re also two of a dozen or so with good beaches in cliff alcoves, but beach lovers won’t have any problem finding a good beach along the long swathe of coastline that fringes Halong Bay. Under the bay's surface there are offshore coral reefs and fish and molluscs are abundant.

Floating fisherman’s villages have been tethered to several islands.

Some of the larger islands also support a range of different types of environments, there are swamp and mangrove forests in the shallows, then jungles, homes to populations of monkeys and iguanas growing precariously out of the top of the monoliths.

Halong Bay is also a place of historic significance, one of the spectacles of which is Bai Tho Mountain (Poem Mountain) into which an Emperor had engraved in huge characters an ode he had written to the beauty of the bay.

Review by editor World Reviewer Staff

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