Bai Tu Long Bay

If Ha Long Bay is the elder brother, famous all over the world, then Bái Tử Long Bay is the younger one. It is wilder, and fewer feet have walked its shores. Many people say that is exactly why it is beautiful in its own way.

Bái Tử Long lies just northeast of Ha Long. The two share a geological history hundreds of millions of years long. They have the same kind of limestone islands and the same kind of caves. The same long retreat and return of the sea shaped them both. But there is one difference. Bái Tử Long has seen less mass tourism. There are fewer footprints, and the water is calmer. Boats move slowly between the limestone islands, their bows drawing small ripples that fade away behind them.

Many people get one thing wrong. Bái Tử Long Bay is not part of the UNESCO World Natural Heritage site. The UNESCO boundary covers only Ha Long Bay and the Cát Bà archipelago. Bái Tử Long sits right beside it and has a similar geology. But in law and in management, these are two separate areas.

Inside the bay lies Bái Tử Long National Park. It was founded on June 1, 2001. It covers 15,783 hectares and takes in more than 40 islands. In 2016, ASEAN recognized it as the 38th ASEAN Heritage Park. It was chosen for the integrity of its ecosystems and for its rare species.

The American magazine Condé Nast Traveler ranked Bái Tử Long Bay third on its list of seven top wonders of Southeast Asia. It was the only place from Vietnam on that list.

What sets Bái Tử Long apart from Ha Long is its tùng and áng ecosystem. Tùng and áng are local names for small coves or closed sea lakes inside limestone islands. They form as water wears away the rock from within, over millions of years. Inside, they are almost completely cut off from the outside. Each one has its own small climate and its own community of living things. The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity considers this the most distinctive ecosystem in Southeast Asia, for science and for education.

Bái Tử Long National Park has six typical ecosystems. There is evergreen broadleaf forest on soil-covered islands, forest on limestone mountains, and mangrove forest. There are coral reefs, seagrass beds, and the tùng and áng. On Ba Mùn island, a fairly large herd of deer still lives fully in the wild. They are hard to spot by day and come out to feed at night. Ba Mùn covers about 1,800 hectares. Most of the islands around it are limestone. Ba Mùn is the only shale island in the bay that still has old-growth forest, and that forest is nearly intact.

Altogether, about 2,415 species have been recorded in the park. Of these, 106 are listed in the Red Book. Behind those numbers are living things, thriving on the islands, under the water and in the forests the boats glide past.

These waters were once one of the busiest trading centers of Đại Việt, an old name for Vietnam. In 1149, Emperor Lý Anh Tông founded the trading port of Vân Đồn right here in this bay. It was the country's first commercial seaport. It linked the kingdom with traders from across Asia, among them China, Japan and Siam. Siam is the old name for Thailand. Merchant ships from those lands once anchored in the very waters that boats cross today. They traded spices, ivory, pearls, gold and silver. The port of Vân Đồn lasted for nearly 700 years. It served through the Lý, Trần and Later Lê dynasties. In 2023, the remains of this old port were ranked a Special National Monument.

In 1288, a battle was fought in these same waters of Bái Tử Long and Vân Đồn. Forces under Trần Khánh Dư destroyed a fleet of supply boats. The boats belonged to the Yuan, the Mongol dynasty then ruling China. That success helped lead to the final victory.

People lived here even longer ago than the port of Vân Đồn. Soi Nhụ Cave and other caves in the bay hold traces of the Soi Nhụ culture. Its ancient people lived here between 18,000 and 7,000 years ago.

Minh Châu beach stretches for nearly 2 kilometers of fine, natural white sand. Behind it is an old-growth forest of trâm trees, covering 14 hectares. There, trees recognized as heritage trees still stand tall, quietly counting the seasons.

The elder brother, Ha Long, is famous all over the world. The younger brother, Bái Tử Long, keeps something else, something each visitor carries home in their own way: silence. A boat slips into a tùng or an áng. All that is left is water dripping from the rock walls and birds calling in the forest. In that moment, the silence can be heard. And right here, beneath the water, coral reefs still glow with color. They are a world of their own, one that divers get to see up close.