New Southeast Asian World Heritage Sites
Scrolling through UNESCO’s list of recent additions, two more new Southeast Asian World Heritage Sites popped up: Selangor Forest Park in Malaysia and the Yen Tu complex in Vietnam. (The full title of the latter being the Yen Tu-Vinh Nghiem-Con Son, Kiep Bac Complex of Monuments and Landscapes, which we’re only going to type once.) That’s in addition to the already described and better-known new inscriptions, the Cambodian Memorial Sites and the extension of Vietnam’s pre-existing listing, Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, across the Lao border into Hin Nam Ho National Park.
Apologies, but we confess to not being familiar with either of the former two new ‘properties’, as UNESCO likes to call them, so our descriptions will be based on those on their website and photos will have to be generic Malaysian forest images and rather random Vietnamese pagodas.
Picturesque old shrine in Ninh Binh Province’s Trang An Selangor Forest Park – also known as the Forest Research Institute Malaysia – does sound very interesting and has a very convenient location, a short distance outside of Kuala Lumpur. The project is a forest rehabilitation scheme on the site of a former tin mine and features nature trails, canopy walkways and presumably an exhibition centre. We’ll be sending Dan to check it out when he accompanies our February Malay Peninsula tour (so if there are any more willing guinea pigs out there, 4 places are still available on the 1st Feb departure.) With the recent closure of the sorely missed Time Tunnel Museum, we’ve been looking for an interesting stop between the Cameron Highlands and KL and this may well fit the bill. (1)
The second of the new Southeast Asian World Heritage Sites, Vietnam’s Yen Tu, is not so conveniently placed and doesn’t readily lend itself to inclusion on any of our existing Vietnam tour itineraries. So, unless it does prove to be something extraordinary, it probably won’t be appearing on them anytime soon. The listing refers to a collection of some 20 different sites widely scattered across Yen Tu Mountain, which covers an area of some 60 to 100 kilometres east of Hanoi, north and northwest of Haiphong City. This entry comes under the mixed, cultural and landscape categories and includes, to quote UNESCO, “pagodas, temples, shrines, and archaeological remains tied to religious and historical figures”, relating to the 13th to 14th century Tran Dynasty. The landscape is “forested mountains, lowlands, and river valleys”. (As with the Selangor Forest, Yen Tu awaits a detailed description on the UNESCO website.)
Primary rainforest in Perak State’s Belum stretches all the way to the Thai border In our opinion, both of these new Southeast Asian World Heritage Sites are slightly on the obscure side and not such obvious shoo-ins as Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek Killing Fields or even Laos’s Hin Nam Ho National Park. The Selangor project certainly sounds like an excellent rehabilitation scheme, although Malaysia still possesses large areas of primary rainforest, such as Perak’s Belum Forest or the Danum Valley in Sabah, which are in urgent need of protection and funding.
As for Yen Tu, it sounds intriguing, and we’ll try to check it out as soon as possible. so for now, it’s very much a watch this space affair
(1) Rumour has it that the fascinating museum may be open again, so that’s something else to check out asap.
