Situated on the eastern margin of the Indochinese peninsula, Vietnam borders the Gulf of Thailand, Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea. Its closest neighbours are China, Laos and Cambodia and the nation is a part of the biologically and culturally important Mekong River Delta region.
The country is home to a large amount of animals and plants, the lowlands are hot and humid and the highlands are densely forested. Since the process of cataloguing the Vietnamese wildlife is still in its infancy new species are added on a regular basis. In addition to iconic mammal species like the two newly described species of Muntjac deer, there are also over 800 species of wood, 100 species of amphibians and over 150 species of reptiles to be found in this comparatively small nation, and the recorded number of plant species in the country surpasses 2,000. Click here for more info on tropical flowers in Vietnam and around the world.
The country is located in an area where the winds bring airborn seed from the north, south and west which has made this area extremly biological diverse and the forrest are home to a multitude of trees, flowers, fruits and berries. One of only four previously unknown large land animals to be discovered during the 20th century is native to Vietnam a wild ox that belongs to an entirely new genus. Two new species of muntjac deer has as earlier mentioned been discribed in Vietnam recently, both of the new species was founf in the same nature preserve, the Vu Quang nature reserve.
Vu Quang is a remote forested part of Vietnam in the Ha Tinh Province along the country’s north central coast. The area is well known for its steep mountains and dense rainforest and history buffs might know this as the base for the Phan Dinh Phung, the Vietnamese revolutionary army that fought the french colonial forces for independance during the late 1800s. The mountains in the preserve capture air from the South Chinese sea and is therefore very hot and humid. The preserve has a very wet climate with constant rain during the rainy season and a lot of fog during the dry season. It is very hard to move about in the preserve since all areas are wet and covered in algae wich makes them slippry. Not even local hunters like to enter the forest.
A marvel of nature that is easier to access it the 30 meter high Ban Gioc waterfall the 4th highest waterfall in the world along a national border. The fall separates the Chinese Guangxi Province from the Cao Bang province of Vietnam, 272 km north of Hanoi. On top of the waterfall there is a stone tablet engraved in Chinese and French saying that it marks the border.
Close to the waterfall you can explore the Tongling Gorge but only if you’re willing to access it trough a cavern from an adjoining gorge since this is the only entry point. This small gorge is home to a number of endemic plants and animals that can not be found outside this gorge (a gorge is a deep valley between cliffs). The Tongling Gorge use to be a favoured hidey-hole for bandits and locals still report finding treasures in the caves.
