Gavel 2 Gavel: The Compass: Vietnam

PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN MOTT

There’s magic to be found among the emerald rice paddies, lush rainforests, and bustling markets of Vietnam. In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, visitors can uncover layers of history along streets lined with skyscrapers, colonial-era buildings, and exquisite pagodas. Join us this week as we see how Vietnam's bear bile industry is fading as times and tastes change, see a fanged mouse-deer after vanishing for a generation, and sail through Ha Long Bay's dreamy seascape.

Let's explore Vietnam.

ANIMALS

As bear farms close in Vietnam, many consumers of bear bile for traditional medicine say they’re “apathetic” about the product’s continued availability, according to a new study.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK LEONG, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION

As times and tastes change, Vietnam’s bear bile industry is fading away

For what was once considered an essential medicine, farmers spent decades extracting bile from captive bears. Now, farms are closing down—and consumers have mostly moved on.

Asian honeybees have evolved a variety of tricks to ward off attacks from giant hornets.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SATOSHI
KURIBAYASHI, MINDEN

Honeybees found using tools, in a first—to repel giant hornet attacks

In Vietnam, Asian honeybees use feces to ward off the cousins of “murder hornets." The finding could help protect bees in other countries with invasive wasps.

A camera trap captured a photo of silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor), which had been lost to science for nearly 30 years. It remains barely studied.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SIE/GWC/LEIBNIZ-IZW/NCNP

Fanged mouse-deer identified after vanishing for a generation

A small group of silver-backed chevrotains, tiny deer-like creatures, has been photographed in a Vietnamese forest after an intense search.

Phoen Sok Phoen, a fisherman who caught 250-plus-pound giant barb in his net on two separate occasions last year but called the fisheries officials to release the fish, drives his boat back home through Kompong Loung floating village on Tonlé Sap Lake, Cambodia. It was the first time in 10 years of fishing the Tonlé Sap Lake that he’d caught one giant barb, let alone two. “I was very surprised and very afraid, because giant barb is like a god or spirit,” he says. “I prayed to it, ‘Please don’t harm me!’”

PHOTOGRAPH BY LINH PHAM, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Critically endangered giant fish on menu at luxury restaurants

Vietnamese restaurateurs are illegally sourcing rare Mekong River megafish from Cambodian fishermen.

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Wearing conical hats and traditional áo bà ba tunics, local women gather the water lilies at the break of dawn, as generations before them have done.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KHÁNH PHAN

This river in Vietnam transforms into a living watercolor

During flood season, flowering water lilies paint the mighty Mekong white and fuchsia.

For nearly 2,000 years, the Trung sisters and their elephants have been popular subjects in Vietnamese art, like this 1999 embroidery from Tam Coc, Vietnam.

HALIA TRAN-ADAMS

These elephant-riding warrior sisters freed ancient Vietnam from Chinese rule

From atop their war elephants, the Trung sisters ousted China's Han overlords in A.D. 40. They have since become heroic icons to Vietnamese people all over the world.

TRAVEL

DREAM NOW, GO LATER

A Buddhist monk meditates at sunrise on the seashore.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN MOTT

See gorgeous pictures of Vietnam—from above and below

Honoring his adopted home, a photographer travels to Vietnam to show its landscape and people in a new light.

Cau Vang, the "gold bridge," just opened near Da Nang, Vietnam.

PHOTOGRAPH BY @_CATRICORN_

Giant hands cradle Vietnam’s golden bridge

This unique architectural feat now
welcomes visitors.

Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay, a maze of jewel-like islands, inspires wonder with its fantastical outcrops, caves, and coves.

PRODUCED BY BETHANY JONES

Sail through Ha Long Bay's dreamy seascape

These lush emerald and turquoise waters harbor more than a thousand small islands.

WATCH VIDEO

The red-brick Notre Dame Cathedral opened in 1880 to provide services for French Catholics living in Vietnam.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PHUNG HUYNH VU QUI, GETTY IMAGES

Craft brews and skyline views: The ultimate Ho Chi Minh City itinerary

Savor the sights and sounds of Saigon through its French architecture, canal-side pagodas, and delicious Vietnamese coffee.

WHERE WILL WE JOURNEY TO NEXT?

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Gavel 2 Gavel

2.05.2022

The Compass: Vietnam

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