Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam’s Floating Fishing Village

Having served in Viet Nam as a soldier in 1966-67, I was eager to revisit Viet Nam. Of course, in wartime I could not experience North Viet Nam and the Hanoi region’s Gulf of Tonkin, with its Unesco World Heritage site: Ha Long Bay.

Many memories surfaced as I returned to Viet Nam. But what struck me the most was the beauty of the country, and the surprising welcome I received from the people, generations removed from the suffering of war, on both sides.

This image was taken February 11, 2011 at 5:00 PM as the all-day mist suddenly dissipated and the sky burst with the amazing colors of sunset. Ha Long’s spectacular seascape was sculpted by nature. Limestone karsts weathered over millennium into more than a thousand islands. The bay is inhabited by families who live all of their lives on floating rafts, and fish on the boats pictured.

Ha Long means ‘descending dragons’ as the limestone islands appeared to resemble undulating bodies of dragons to the early Vietnamese.