This is the first of 52 weekly photos from 52 different countries, one of my 2012 New Year resolutions. Sign up to follow the blog if you want to see them all as the come! (Email subscription and feeds up on the right)
Recently Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay made some joker’s list of the new seven natural wonders of the world, based on internet voting or some such thing. Of the listings, a number of which are patently silly, however, this is arguably a fair selection. The expansive bay covers almost 600 square miles (1553 km²) and is filled with rising thrusts of limestone, many partly covered with foliage. There are almost 2000 of these karst islands, and some of them, like the one I’m shooting from here in the photo, have deep caverns inside. The geological story is long, starting 500 million years ago, and the results are some serious eye candy.
I cruised aboard the Emeraude, a replica of an old steamer of the same name that once cruised these waters. A nice overnight tour and I recommend it. On the boat tour they showed us the movie Indochine at night on the top deck. It was fun to be surrounded by the very same terrain depicted in the latter half of the movie.
Pictured here is the view from the entrance to Sung Sot Grotto (aka Surprise Cave) on Bo Hòn Island. (A similar photo of mine from this batch ended up as a two-page image in Porthole Magazine in 2011, my first full two-pager!)
I’ve got a number of blog posts about Vietnam plus a full article about the great beaches and colored dunes around Mui Ne
One down, 51 to go!
TRAVEL PHOTOS OF THE WEEK 2012: Week 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
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Good idea for the weekly photo section! Halong Bay was shrouded in a thick fog the whole time I was there, so I have a good excuse to go back.
Great idea! And beautiful photo! (And I learned a new word, always fun.)
Thanks, Erica. Maybe I should also do Word of the Week?
I have this almost exact photo although yours is much crisper. I am sure everyone who enjoys this great adventure has a similar one. Look forward to 51 more great pictures from 51 different countries.
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Yes, this is surely the most visited spot on tours there. The cave is pretty spectacular.
Loving the photo but am surprised to hear you refer to the New 7 Wonders of Nature campaign — a four-year process overseen by a foundation in Zurich, with hundreds of millions of votes and official government sponsorship in several countries — as “some joker’s list.”
Hi Esther! – OK, “some joker” is a bit off-the-cuff harsh perhaps — guilty!
But I’d suspect we could both come up with several more obvious spots to include on the list before what’s on there now. Jeju Island? Maybe it’s just silly to even try to capitalize on that 7 theme we’ve fallen into. It’s more marketing and voting campaigns, which is fine, but then people start using terms like “Official” and all that. Perhaps a rotating list like the annual European Capital of Culture would be more useful. Even when the need for work pushes me to write a top ten for some website I fight with them to leave “Greatest” or “Best” out of it and just go with Great or Beautiful or Wonderful. My Favorite or Our Recommended. Though still subjective, the superlatives make me crazy, and I’d say the voting process is flawed anyway. Gary at Everything Everywhere took Bernard Weber and the list to task and stirred up the commenters a bit. From the 7 campaign’s website: “‘Jeju Island is now confirmed as one of the New7Wonders of Nature. Congratulations!’ So wrote Bernard Weber, Founder-President of New7Wonders, in a letter to Professor Chung Un-chan, chairman of the national committee to vote for Jeju Island. Maybe stick to the Eurovision Song Contest method and not allow voters to vote for their own country. But again, that song changes each year so even if a flawed contest happened, it’d be forgotten about a couple years later. (Honestly, so will this new 7 wonders list, I suspect) But yeah, “joker” might get this quarter’s report card a check in the box for Needs to learn to play nice with others. 
Thanks for the comment!
Hi Kevin, good to hear more of your thoughts on this. I don’t personally give any weight to the ‘officialness’ of this list. What we’re looking at are essentially parts of the globe that people have rallied behind and shown their support for in a major way.
I agree with you that this whole event will probably be forgotten before too long; and yes, popular vote is not the most objective way to draft a list like this. But so long as those votes are real, I’ll let Vietnam do its victory dance.
I enjoyed reading your article and nice photo, seems like a nice place to visit.
Thanks, Carla! It is quite magical thanks to the landscape. You can see similar formations in southern Thailand (which I love) and around Guilin, China (still on my list of things to see). Halong Bay, however, ranges far and wide with so many islands and a lot of sea to sail.
We’re heading to Vietnam next month and I JUST finished researching Halong Bay! What fortuitous timing.
It sounds like a lovely area, and we’ll definitely take a boat ride and stay overnight on a ship. I can’t wait to see those imposing limestone cliffs up close.
I really loved being there at night with the shadows of the rock along the horizon. And swimming off the back of the boat — stars above, deep dark water. Any idea what boat you will get on? Make sure it’s reputable. Ours offered kayaks and rock-climbing. I only went overnight, but I guess they now offer two night trips. Have fun!!