The most beautiful place in Viet Nam

Ha Long Bay is the most beautiful place in Viet Nam beyond comprehension in my opinion. The first time we went to Ha Noi in the year two thousand, we missed it because there were so many places to go. We only had five days, so that was not enough to visit Ha Noi and its surrounding suburb. The second time we went to Ha Noi, we made sure to have a tour to go there. And it was an excellent choice. We spend four days to explore the area. The city is right next to the water. We stay in one of the oceanfront hotel looking out to the bay. The good thing is Ha Long is not an industrial or commercial district. It's still very bare and one hundred percent natural. You don't see large commercial vessels running around. The fishing industry is non existent, beside a few very small fishing, and tourist boats. The weather at Ha Long Bay is pretty cool year round. There are couple thousands of islets, most of which are limestone.

Renting a luxury junk sail for a day was really cheap then, the first time we went there in two thousand and two. It costs a mere fifty US dollars a day which includes the captain and his crew. You don't have to pay anything else except tips, and ten percent is considered to be generous. They brought us to many islets and caves to explore and to take pictures. There were a few swimming beaches as well.

There were not too many tourists back then, but things changed drastically by the second time we visited Ha Long Bay in two thousand seven. The natural habitats are slowly but surely diminishing. There were much more traffic from the tourist as well as local people servicing the increased number of the tourists. I found the number of junk sails now were more than triple. At the same time the need for more hotels, restaurants, transportation, and seafood caught locally from fishing boats to serve them increased fivefold to satisfy these numbers.

A community of around sixteen hundred people live on Ha Long Bay as of two thousand and one. The majority of them live on floating houses and are sustained through fishing and marine aquaculture. This number has been increase extensively in the last few years. The real number as of two thousand and ten is staggering.

The biggest hotel in Vietnam was planned to be built on the bay, beginning from two thousand seven. When we were there at that time, its ground work had started already. Now there were more than ten hotels with more than one hundred rooms each.

With an increasing tourist trade, mangroves and sea-grass beds have been cleared and jetties and wharves have been built for tourist boats as well.

Fuel and oil from junk sails, fishing vessels, along with tourist litter, have created pollution problems, which impact on both the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem of the islands. Human waste from portable toilets erected for tourists, and for people servicing them finds its way into the soil and water surrounding the islands, once more altering the ecosystem functioning, through increased nutrient flow.

Game fishing often near coral reefs are threatening many endangered species of fish. Building and creating swimming areas destroyed more and more coral reefs, most of which had been untouched for decades before. There were a few areas along the shore of the bigger islets has been prepared for jet skis and kayaks at the same time.

The delicate limestone cave ecosystems are diminishing as tourists visiting the caves break off stalagmites and stalactites. Litter, including wine bottles, soda cans, and candy wraps are dropped into cave streams. Visitors exhale huge amount of carbon dioxide, which has a deleterious effect on the caves.

The mouths of some caves have been widened to allow for tourist access. This increase in light has led to an imbalance in the delicate links between flora and fauna, and a decrease in the humidity of the caves.

If the governments don't stop the trend now, I believe just in a few more years, the damage will be irreversible. This year we plan to go there to see it for the final time. My recollection for sure will be able to tell the damages which have been done to Ha Long Bay since our first trip there.

On our coning trip, we plan to visit this place for a final time. We'll be able to see the new hotels which were barely started the last time we were here.

We'll also travel north to the northern tip of Viet Nam, the Sapa mountains in the Lao Cay province. If we have a chance, we will set foot on the China's - Viet Nam's borders.