Legend has it that Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay, was created by a dragon sent by the Jade Emperor who descended from heaven into the sea and sprayed a thousand pearls from its mouth. From these cascading pearls the 1600 craggy limestone stacks of Ha Long Bay emerged. Some see it as masses of jumbled karst positioned like a fortress designed to protect Vietnam from invaders in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Ha Long Bay is a mature karst landscape developed during a warm, wet and tropical climate. The stages of evolution of this karst landscape span 20 million years. Some of the most remarkable geological events in Ha Long Bay’s history have occurred in the last  1000 years with the process of erosion by seawater deeply engraving the stone and contributing to its beauty. Ha Long Bay in its current form is the result of a long geological evolution and is rightly treated not only as a geological wonder of the world but also a precious living museum that has been preserved in the open for millions of years.

The bay has a 120 kilometer coastline and is approximately 1553 square kilometers in size. Several of the islands are hollow with gigantic caves while some of the islands support floating villages of fishermen who live off the shallow waters of the bay. With 200 species of fish and 450 different kids of mollusks the fisherman have a bounty each day. Another feature of Ha Long Bay is the abundance of lakes inside the limestone islands.

Ha Long Bay was designated a UNESCO world heritage site over twenty years ago and is one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist attractions. Its mystical landscape of limestone islets lure tourists by the thousands with many opting to cruise around the bay in boats spending the night on the bay and watching the glorious sunsets and sunrises which bathe the rocks in a varies hues of orange and yellow making the whole place look surreal.

Sitting on the deck of a Junk while sailing the calm water of Ha Long Bay watching the many different karst formations pass by is simply breathtaking. No two rocks are alike and in the early evening dusk they loom like giants on the horizon. Cruising along the bay watching the landscape change constantly against the setting sun and engaging in a spot of squid fishing at night is the perfect way to spend your time at Ha Long Bay.

Text and photographs by Tina Edward Gunawardhana