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Ha Long Bay

NHK World Heritage 100 Series

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Narration Text

Ha Long Bay is in Northern Viet Nam near the Chinese border. The landscape around the bay is extraordinary. This quiet port has received an increasing number of visitors from all over the world since its addition to the World Heritage list in 1994.

"Ha Long" in Vietnamese means "Descending Dragon". The bay was named after a local legend which says that a Dragon descended from the sky and spat out thousands of pearls when Viet Nam was being attacked by foreign ships. The pearls then became a multitude of small islands and prevented the enemy from advancing further.

Ha Long Bay is also known as the "Guilin on the Sea", because the seabed, which is a sunken limestone plateau, connects all the way to Guilin in China.

This is an exceptional example of such a great number of limestone islands spreading out over such a large area. There are some peculiar shaped rocks. Two rocks here are facing each other. The Vietnamese named them "Fighting Cocks’ Islands". Cock-fighting is a national passion in Viet Nam. This is the "Dog Rock".

On another side of Ha Long Bay … there is a … village built on the sea. A village on water. The local people built houses on rafts. A woman cradles a baby … Another does her washing on board. The main source of income is fishing. People live here with the blessing of the sea. Children even row to school.

The Bay is a remarkable example of world heritage.