As Vietnam modernizes as a state, one of the challenges it faces is tracking down all the people who live in these myriad islands and providing various public services to them (little things, such as education and health care…).  As long as they lived hidden away in caves, that was virtually impossible to do.  So […]

By late afternoon of the first afternoon of our voyage through Bai Tu Long Bay, our junk sailed into a sheltered cove of one of the many islands.  Two other junks operated by the same company were already anchored in the cove.Apparently the company has exclusive rights to the island, which meant we didn’t haveto […]

As evening drew near, the steamy humidity over Bai Tu Long Bay made for an incredible sunset.

Like Machu Picchu, the true power of Bai Tu Long Bay comes from the indescribable feeling of being there.  There’s no way that a photograph, even a fancy panoramic one, can fully capture the feeling of gliding among these giant rocks, with row upon row receding into the mist.  Still, since not everyone can come […]

Just off the coast of northern Vietnam lies Halong Bay, a fantastical world where thousands of limestone karsts shoot out of the water at 90-degree angles and fishermen live in floating villages in their shadows.  It’s a landscape where creatures like pearl-and-fire-breathing dragons seem plausible — which perhaps explains how it got its origin story:  According to legend, a mother dragon and her […]