Ha Long Bay in the eyes of international friends

Ha Long Bay is one of the famous tourist destinations of Vietnam and the region, highly appreciated by UNESCO and many prestigious travel websites.

The majestic beauty of Vung Vieng fishing village, Ha Long Bay. Photo: Nguyen Hung

Ha Long Bay is not only famous for its magnificent and majestic beauty of the sea and islands, but also a giant geological museum, where important traces of the formation, movement and development of the earth's crust in this area are preserved.

On December 2, 2000, Ha Long Bay was honored to be recognized by UNESCO as a World Natural Heritage for the second time for its outstanding global value in geology and geomorphology.

Majestic natural landscape

Ha Long Bay is a place chosen by prestigious newspapers and travel websites as an attractive destination in Southeast Asia and Asia.

In 2023, the American magazine Travel + Leisure rated Ha Long Bay as worthy of being an Asian tourist mecca, one of the four most beautiful places to watch sunrise and sunset on the continent.

"Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO-recognized heritage site, has more than 2,000 large and small limestone islands, worthy of the title of Asia's tourist mecca," the magazine wrote.

In early October, Forbes magazine voted Ha Long Bay as one of the 24 tourist destinations worth visiting in 2024. The article praised Ha Long Bay's landscape: "This place owns one of the most unique ecosystems and geological formations in the world. Few places have such a combination of natural beauty, abundance of outdoor activities, fresh food, tranquility and accessibility."

The leading British travel magazine Wanderlust also named Ha Long Bay in first place in the list of the most impressive heritage sites recognized by UNESCO in Southeast Asia.

"These limestone pillars are not unique to Vietnam, but nowhere else on earth do they reach such an impressive scale. About 1,600 limestone pillars rise from the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin, creating towering islands inhabited only by birds," the magazine described.

In 2022, the Canadian travel site, The Travel, voted for the 10 most beautiful destinations in the world, of which Ha Long Bay ranked 5th. The magazine was impressed by the uninhabited islands, which retain their wild beauty, and the mysterious landscape as if covered by a layer of fog.

Meanwhile, Mr. Monreo Bartolani, working at Avianca Airlines - Italy said: “The landscape of Ha Long Bay is beautiful but still retains a certain wildness. This is what many Europeans want to discover. Nature has been so kind to you when it bestowed such a wonderful landscape on Quang Ninh, Vietnam.

You need to have strategies to develop tourism in Ha Long Bay in a sustainable way. How to develop tourism while preserving and maintaining the pristine, peaceful beauty inherent in this wonder?

Not only loved by tourists, Ha Long Bay is also of interest to Hollywood filmmakers, chosen as a filming location.

In 2023, the image of Ha Long Bay appeared impressively in the film "The Creator" by director Gareth Edwards, with an investment of up to 80 million USD.

Previously, in 2017, the movie "Kong: Skull Island" directed by Vogt - Roberts with many beautiful scenes of Ha Long Bay was released in cinemas worldwide.

In the film, Ha Long Bay appears impressive and majestic with a system of overlapping rocky islands, undulating on the clear blue sea.

Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts was later appointed as Vietnam Tourism Ambassador. He returned to Vietnam many times and expressed his deep affection for the S-shaped country.

In 2015, Ha Long Bay appeared magically and beautifully like a fairy tale in the Hollywood-produced movie "Pan and Neverland".

This location was also chosen as the setting for the film “Indochine” by French director Régis Wargnier, first premiered in 1992.

With its engaging plot and beautiful, poetic scenes, “Indochina” was awarded “Best Foreign Language Film” at the 65th Academy Awards.

Hon Trong Mai - symbol of Ha Long Bay. Photo: Nguyen Hung

Environmental pollution warning

However, SCMP commented that the rapid development of Ha Long city - which now owns an amusement park, cable car, a series of luxury hotels and thousands of newly built houses - has seriously damaged the ecosystem here.

Journalist Mercedes Hutton commented that these projects could put Ha Long at risk of being overcrowded with tourists, while some problems already exist in this natural wonder, typically environmental pollution.

Conservationists estimate that there were originally 234 species of coral living in the bay. Today, that number is down to about half that. But above all, plastic and trash remain a major concern.

In fact, in 2012, travel journalist Mary O'Brien wrote on Traveller about the real picture in Ha Long: "When we arrived at the bay, our boat was suddenly surrounded by countless cargo ships. The beaches near the port were often littered with trash, and some travel websites also recorded complaints from tourists about the environment."

Despite continuous tightening of management measures, this is still one of the major sources of pollution for Ha Long Bay, which has long been warned by UNESCO and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).

Laodong.vn