Journalist Vu Viet Tuan

The Panorama hotel and coffee shop was erected on the Ma Pi Leng Pass of Ha Giang, one of the most popular tourism destinations in Vietnam’s northern highlands. But there is no legal document, not even a construction profile, to justify its existence.

The first time I visited Ma Pi Leng was three years ago. On my motorbike, along the winding slopes, I saw towering limestone cliffs, silvery rivers and valleys that spread out as far as the eyes could see. It was an ecstatic, heart-thumping experience.

When I was going down a hill, a group of children sprang out from the side of the road. They were dusty, unkempt; one was carrying her younger sibling, while another wore no pants. They were trying their hardest to snatch whatever was on my motorbike. I revved up my engine, hoping to outrun them, but they just kept chasing until their figures eventually disappeared behind the tree line.

Ha Giang Province is blessed with some of the most spectacular mountain scenes in the country, an idyllic refuge for anyone who craves the quietude and serenity of a life detached from the madness of big cities. But every year, the government still has to transport hundreds of tons of rice for the people of Ha Giang. The children I saw earlier were just pixels in the big picture of the poverty that plagues the region. Ha Giang’s nature, as dazzling as it its, has not done much to propel the economic fortunes of the province’s downtrodden.

This time, I’d come to Ha Giang to figure out why the controversy raging around the hotel. I was also keen on seeing how the region has changed after all these years.

Some of the scenery stayed the same. Houses and huts with dilapidated roofs stood on several mountain slopes. Children with ragged nor no clothes were still to be seen.

But the six-storey hotel stood out like a sore thumb.

The Panorama hotel on Ma Pi Leng pass, Ha Giang Province. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

Built on top of the Tu San cliff, the most beautiful location in all of Ma Pi Leng, the hotel came up after Meo Vac District authorities called for investors to build a place where tourists could rest their feet. A year later, the work was done and the hotel opened to the public.

But that’s not how this story ends.

In tears, the hotel’s owner, 57-year-old Vu Thi Anh, told me that the land where the hotel was erected on used to have nothing. There were only rocks and pebbles, where no plant could grow. Since the day the first stone was laid until the day it was completed, she didn’t sleep or eat much.

She said she wanted to bring more tourists to the region so that the people could have a better life. While admitting that she knew the hotel was an unapproved project, “it did not deserve to be either dismantled or shunned.”

People do frequent the hotel. They eat, they drink, the go sightseeing and they take pictures. The hotel’s always filled with laughter, though some patrons are aware it is an illegal enterprise.

As I sat on the highest balcony of the hotel and watched the sun go down behind the Nho Que River and the mountains standing opposite, I felt strangely calm. On the paths leading up to the mountain’s huts, I could see silhouettes carrying large bundles of wood on their backs, swaying side to side as the last light of the day started to fade away from the horizon.

There will be more investors and businesses interested in capitalizing on the beauty that Ha Giang’s been gifted with. If it wasn’t Vu Thi Anh, it would have been someone else who built a different hotel or establishment somewhere in Ma Pi Leng.

Anh’s hotel is not solely born out of her aspiration and resoluteness. It is also a product of its time, of the tourism market’s potential to grow and meet the needs of more and more travelers satisfying their wanderlust.

Whenever one reads socioeconomic reports about Ha Giang and Meo Vac, they would most certainly think there was little the region could do to improve itself, save for farming. But the hotel on the Ma Pi Leng pass, though illegal, was not a minor investment. It is proof that there is more to Meo Vac than the picture painted by the reports; that the district can grow financially and economically through tourism.

But how did it come to this? Local authorities have not figured out a way to deal with either the illegal hotel or the public criticism, while travelers and nature lovers feel betrayed knowing that the area’s natural state has forever been altered. Vu Thi Anh might end up losing everything she has poured into the hotel’s construction.

Panorama’s story is not simply its own. It tells us that the best things this poverty-stricken land offers is poorly utilized and made useless. It tells us that local authorities don’t care enough for such things, and even worse, have no vision or strategy to grow the region’s economy.

The head of the provincial Department of Transport has said that one of the factors behind the illegal hotel is that the province has no detailed development plan, because it has no budget to draw one up. And if this situation persists, there will be more Panoramas illegally erected along Ma Pi Leng at some point in the future.

There’s no definite, easy answer when it comes to dealing with Panorama. Should it be dismantled, fined or simply let be? An unapproved hotel that did not go through any legal process or safety checks, if left be, would signal a breakdown of law and order and create a bad precedent. If it is dismantled, it would be a huge waste of the time, effort and money spent on building it.

If Meo Vac and Ha Giang authorities had considered construction requirements in the area, Panorama could have been built in a different location without violating the law. It could have been an environmentally-friendly structure that easily blends with Ha Giang’s natural beauty instead of an odd, aberrant block of cement standing ungainly amidst the province’s mountains and valleys. I wonder what exactly do Meo Vac officials talk about in meetings to develop the district’s economy if not about proper directions and methods to utilize investors and their capital to develop the region.

At the end of the day, no one and nothing should be above the law. The hotel might very likely have to go. But I’m afraid Panorama’s fate would not be the last of its kind. As long as there’s no strategy or planning for development, any project can easily go down the drain in Meo Vac or Ha Giang. As long as authorities stay ignorant and clueless, disaster awaits.

[Editor’s note: The Panorama hotel, situated on the Ma Pi Leng Pass, Meo Vac District of the northern Ha Giang Province, has been in the news after it was revealed that it had no construction approval and negatively affected its surroundings.

The hotel was also built on top of a land plot reserved for agriculture, which has not been converted for non-agricultural purposes yet.

It might be partially dismantled in the future, Ha Giang officials said.]

*Vu Viet Tuan is a journalist based in Hanoi. The opinions expressed are his own.

These days wild monkeys on the Son Tra Peninsula in the central city of Da Nang, a top tourism destination in Vietnam, wait until garbage is dumped in landfills behind the local Linh Ung Pagoda, then begin scavenging the piles for leftover food.

Their search continues even when workers prepare to burn the trash.

Open coconuts are a favorite find.

One monkey drinks from a bag of soup.

Having got used to searching for food in trash dumps, the monkeys are not afraid of humans.

“The fact that the monkeys are no longer searching for food in their natural habitats indicates a big change in their behavior,” said Bui Van Tuan, an expert with the GreenViet Biodiversity Conservation Center.

“Food from the trash dumps might be spoiled or contaminated, which can make the monkeys sick as their immune systems aren’t equipped to deal with these kinds of food,” he added.

“Many monkeys have lost their fur which might be due to different reasons, including food from the trash dumps that is too salty,” said Tuan, warning that the condition could spread within the monkey colony and even to other species in the Son Tra Nature Conservation Center.

Visitors to the Son Tra Conservation Center ignore a sign asking them not to feed wild animals.

This has prompted the monkeys to rely on humans for food instead of finding it on their own in the jungle, said Tran Thang, head ranger for Son Tra and Ngu Hanh Son districts.

“Visitors are making a mistake, not knowing that the monkeys being friendly means they are losing their natural food foraging habit,” he said.

By feeding the monkeys, visitors can also catch diseases from them, said Nguyen Duc Vu, head of the management board of the Son Tra Peninsula and Da Nang beaches.

Authorities would continue warning visitors in Son Tra not to feed the monkeys, he added.

Two bears frolic in the playground at the Vietnam Bear Rescue Center in Chat Dau Valley, part of the Tam Dao National Park, an hour and a half to the north of Hanoi.

The center spans 12 hectares and is the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia. It has around 200 moon bears and sun bears, many of which used to be held captive for bile harvesting.

A bear is taken into a surgery room inside the center.

Upon arrival at the center, the animals are quarantined and carefully monitored for 45 days. Health checks, including x-rays and examination of teeth, mouth, feet, and claws, are done once every two years.

Staff at the center prepare foods for the bears. Fruits, carrots, sweet potatoes and milk are on their menu.

The center has around 100 workers and experts, including foreigners, to take care of the bears.

Hoang Van Chien, a manager at the center, prepares food for the bears.

Chien said the bears are fed three times a day, twice outside and once inside their enclosures, before they go to sleep.

A worker trims grass in a field which serves as the bears’ playground. Workers often hide food items in bushes or on trees for the bears to find.

A worker sets up electric wires around an enclosure. All enclosures are closed and electrified after 8 p.m.

Chien said: “Five amps of electricity flows through the fences of the semi-wild enclosure. The bears step back if they touch an electrified fence, and after doing that a few times they learn not to go near the fences.”

A bell is rung to signal to the bears to come out to the playground to play and eat.

A group of bears come out of their enclosures and into the playground.

Each enclosure is 2,000-3,000 square meters large and houses 20 bears. If a bear cannot get along with the rest of the group, it is moved to a different enclosure.

Two sun bears at the center. They are often kept as pets, but sun bears raised in captivity are not capable of foraging for food. As there is no guarantee the bears can survive on their own outside, most of them live at the center for life.

Aerial view of the Vietnam Bear Rescue Center.

Around 600 bears are still held captive across Vietnam. Both the moon bear and sun bear are listed as vulnerable species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

“Exploring insect diversity in Vietnam” is on at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. Italian photographer Saulo Bambi is from the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence and Professor Vu Van Lien is from the Vietnam Museum of Nature.

The terrific lighting at the exhibition hall makes the world of insects come alive.

From 2008 to 2018 Bambi traveled to various national parks and nature reserves throughout Vietnam to capture these pictures.

The moth in this photo by Bambi has eye-shaped patterns on its wings to fool predators. When it is attacked, it opens its wings with the false eyes to distract the predators and make a getaway.

This caterpillar was found in the Van Ban Nature Reserve in the northern province of Yen Bai. Some moth caterpillars protect themselves from predators with their long stinging hairs. In this picture, water droplets are clinging to the hairs.

Sometimes several moth caterpillars gather on a leaf and use their stinging hairs to protect themselves from predators.

This is a cicada at the Sao La Nature Reserve in the central province of Thua Thien Hue. The cicada’s loud chirping sound can be heard in all tropical forests.

This green grasshopper is in the Pa Co Hang Kia Nature Reserve in the northern Hoa Binh Province. Its colors help it blend perfectly into the surroundings.

Bambi took this photo of a planthopper at the Ba Be National Park in the northern Bac Kan Province.

The pattern on the wings of a butterfly in Xuan Son National Park, Phu Tho Province, northern Vietnam. The colors and patterns are created by tiny scales.

Lien said there are more than a million insect species in the world, but they are disappearing due to pollution and global warming. The exhibition aims to raise awareness of the need to preserve insects and their habitats.

The exhibition, also being held to mark 10 years of scientific cooperation between Vietnam and Italy, will go on until June 18.

In a belated action, authorities of Quang Ninh Province, home to Ha Long Bay, demanded Thursday that the bay’s management board stop two projects in its core zone.

The move followed several media reports saying the zone has been bombarded with illegal construction works.

Two projects to upgrade and innovate the piers for boats to dock at Tien Ong and Me Cung caves in the bay are part of a bigger project to preserve and promote the heritage values of the bay.

They were approved by the province and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in December last year, but were yet to get an environmental impact assessment.

Pham Dinh Huynh, deputy head of Ha Long’s management board, said it had already submitted the environmental impact assessments for the two projects, costing VND30 billion ($1.3 million) in total, to the environment ministry, but was yet to receive any response.

“As the stormy and rainy season is coming but the piers at the two caves are downgraded, posing a potential danger for tourists, the board decided to start work on the two projects,” he said.

Aside from these two projects, Huynh conceded there were several others that were also illegal, including a 170-meter-long embankment built of stones and concrete linking to a pier at the Cay Chanh Islet.

An embankment running 170 meters along Cay Chanh Islet in the core zone of Ha Long Bay. Photo by VnExpress/Minh Cuong

“Those projects had been under construction since 2016, and Ha Long has issued decisions to revoke them but so far that has changed nothing.

“We are making proposals to higher authorities to stop them,” he said.

Ha Long Bay has an area of around 1,553 square kilometers (600 square miles), including 1,960–2,000 islets, most of which are limestone structures.

In 1994, the core zone of Ha Long Bay was listed as a World Heritage Site and listed for a second time in 2000.

The bay is a top attraction in Vietnam, helping Quang Ninh Province attract 5.2 million foreign visitors last year, up 22 percent from a year ago and accounting for one third of foreign visitors to Vietnam.

Following the tourism boom, Ha Long Bay has had to deal with serious pollution in recent years, with its docks usually littered with garbage, engine oil and carcasses of animals.