DEATH VALLEY, VICTORIA FALLS, YEHLIU PARK, NAMIB NAUKLUFT, LEAPING TIGER GORGE, BAY OF HA LONG

It is particularly during the hot summer months that Death Valley does full justice to its name. On some days the temperatures here can reach up to forty five degrees Celsius in the shade, a rare commodity in this scant, treeless landscape. The bizarre landscape of the mysterious Devil’s Cornfield really does seem to have been scorched by the heat of another planet. But it is actually the relatively high salt content of the terrain that is responsible for its strange and desolate landscape.

Located in the south of the African continent and located on the Zambia/Zimbabwe border, the Victoria Falls is one of the world’s most amazing and impressive wonders of nature. Just as amazing as the waterfalls is the metamorphosis of the Zambesi River that transforms itself from a wide and lethargic river to one that is narrow and powerful. Between February and March when the Zambesi is at its most powerful an average of more than five hundred million litres of water shoot over the edge of the waterfall each minute.

In the north of Taiwan close to the second largest harbour in Keelung is one of the world’s greatest natural wonders. Due to its bizarre rock formations, Yehliu Park provides visitors with scenery that could be from a distant planet. But the polymorphic shapes of the rock are not extraterrestrial but the result of an ancient process that dates back several million years.

The arid landscape of the mighty Namib Naukluft Park in the heart of Namibia seems to be endless and it is the fourth largest nature reserve in the world. Further into the Namib Desert and the colours of the surrounding landscape grow more intense. It is as though both earth and sky are competing against each other to see which shines brightest.

Who Tee-Ow Shah is the sonorous Chinese name of the Leaping Tiger Gorge that is located around a hundred kilometres from the town of Zhongdian, the gateway to Tibet. The Leaping Tiger Gorge owes its name to the fact that at one point it is only thirty metres wide. In both a metaphoric and symbolic sense a tiger could jump across the golden Jinsha River with a single leap!