Halong Bay sunset

The theme letter for our ‪‎travel pics this week is V, for Vietnam.

I’ve mentioned Halong Bay before – and this image comes from there: it’s a sunset, as we cruised the bay in January 2016.

HaLong literally means “descending dragon” … the legend is that as a giant dragon landed, it gouged out valleys and gashes in the land – and those then filled with water, leaving almost two thousand islets.

But the interesting thing is that despite the legend, the name we now use for the region is relatively new – the first recorded use was in the 1800s.

However it came to be named, the core of the bay, with its 775 karst outcrops, was listed as a UN Heritage Site.

It is possible to do day-sails around Halong Bay – but the vast majority of tourists do a two or three day cruise, on hundreds of two-and-three level junks that ply the waters – allowing views like this as the sun sets.