Any place this hauntingly beautiful warrants a good legend. Here’s how legend explains Halong Bay: A dragon descended from the sky and spat pearls into the water to protect Vietnam from foreign ships. The pearls transformed into islands; the ships turned away. Dragon wins.
“Pearl” is right, when it comes to these island rarities. Sixteen hundred of them dot Halong Bay, Vietnam, and most are uninhabited and untouched. They’re made of limestone, shaped by the sea into lovely pillars — some standing 160 to 330 feet tall with vertical cliff walls and caves systems within. Some of the pillars even look like things they’re not. Two pillars are named “Cock Fight Islands” — because they look like two chickens faced off against one another. And the Dog Rock looks like, well, a dog.
In one area of the bay, folks have built a village on the water; their homes float on rafts, and they make a living fishing the waters. Children row (instead of walk) to school, according to UNESCO.
Floating house on Halong Bay - Martin Puddy/Getty Images
This place is wonderful and you should go there.
It’s a four-hour drive from Hanoi, and you can tour the bay on a junk ship (which is way prettier than its name implies), according to Frommer’s. Or, kayak the smooth waters, and then rock climb one of these pearls …
by Amanda Arnold
Source: Howstuffworks
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