THE MOST WEIRDEST AND MYSTERIOUS PLACES TO VISIT ON EARTH (PART II)

Our home planet "Earth" one of the unique and habitable planets in the universe and, surprisingly, it is also the home of some unique, weirdest, and mysterious places. We’ve all heard about some famous destinations like London, Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Los Angels, Dubai, Singapore, etc. However, there are so many unique and strange places that people don't talk about. If you’re an adventure-seeker and looking for a mysterious and strange place, here are some places that will amaze you. These places are worth traveling for their both uniqueness and absolute beauty.

(1) Goblin Valley State Park – Utah, USA

Goblin Valley State Park is a state park of Utah, in the United States. The park features thousands of hoodoos, referred to locally as goblins, which are formations of mushroom-shaped rock pinnacles, some as tall as several yards (meters). The distinct shapes of these rocks result from an erosion-resistant layer of rock atop relatively softer sandstone. Goblin Valley State Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, also in Utah about 190 miles (310 km) to the southwest, contain some of the largest occurrences of hoodoos in the world.

The unusual stone shapes in Goblin Valley result from the weathering of Entrada sandstone. The Entrada consists of debris eroded from former highlands and re-deposited on a former tidal flat of alternating layers of sandstone, siltstone, and shale. The rocks show evidence of being near the margins of an ancient sea with the ebb and flow of tides, tidal channels that directed currents back to the sea and coastal sand dunes.

Joint or fracture patterns within the Entrada sandstone beds created initial zones of weakness. The unweathered joints intersected to form sharp edges and corners with greater surface-area-to-volume ratios than the faces. As a result, the edges and corners weathered more quickly, producing the spherical-shaped 'goblins' (Wikipedia).

(2) Chocolate Hills of Bohol Island – The Philippines

The Chocolate Hills are a geological formation in the Bohol province of the Philippines. There are at least 1,260 hills but there may be as many as 1,776 hills spread over an area of more than 50 square kilometres (20 sq miles). They are covered in green grass that turns brown during the dry season, hence the name.

The Chocolate Hills form a rolling terrain of haycock-shaped hills – mounds of a generally conical and almost symmetrical shape. These cone-shaped or dome-shaped hills are actually made of grass-covered limestone. During the dry season, the grass-covered hills dry up and turn chocolate brown.

The Chocolate Hills are conical karst hills similar to those seen in the limestone regions of Slovenia, Croatia, northern Puerto Rico, and Pinar del Río Province, Cuba. These hills consist of Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene, thin to medium bedded, sandy to rubbly marine limestones. These limestones contain the abundant fossils of shallow marine foraminifera, coral, mollusks, and algae. These conical hills are geomorphological features called cockpit karst, which were created by a combination of the dissolution of limestone by rainfall, surface water, and groundwater, and their subaerial erosion by rivers and streams after they had been uplifted above sea level and fractured by tectonic processes. These hills are separated by well developed flat plains and contain numerous caves and springs. The Chocolate Hills are considered to be a remarkable example of conical karst topography (Wikipedia).

(3) Whale Bone Alley – Siberia

Whale Bone Alley situated on the northern shore of Yttygran island which is an island in the Bering Sea 24 kilometres (15 miles) northwest of Cape Chaplino, close to the coast of Chukotka.

Whale bone alley consists of a large number of carefully arranged whale skulls, whale bones and stones, along with a considerable number of meat storage pits. It is thought that Whale Bone Alley was used as a central shrine by a number of different villages dotted along the eastern chukotkan coast. It is thought that the site was used for initiation rituals and for sporting contests, although the local Yupik have a simpler explanation that the island was simply a collective centre for the flensing, butchery and storage of whale meat, an idea supported by the etymology of the Yupik name for Yttygran: Sikliuk, from Siklyugak, meaning "meat pit" in Yupik (Wikipedia).

(4) Plain of Jars – Laos

The Plain of Jars is a megalithic archaeological landscape in Laos. It consists of thousands of stone jars scattered around the upland valleys and the lower foothills of the central plain of the Xiangkhoang Plateau. The jars are arranged in clusters ranging in number from one to several hundred (Wikipedia).

The history of the stone jars is shrouded in mystery. The jars are believed to be about 2,000 years old. They come in varying sizes up to three meters high, weighing up to several tons. Most of them were sculpted from sandstone rock (BBC).

Several theories and legends exist about the purpose of the jars. Local legend tells that they were made by a race of giants to use as cups to drink rice wine. Another story tells the jars were used to store water for the dry season, or a King had the jars made to store rice wine after a military victory. As remains of human skeletons were found inside the jars it is now believed they were used as urns in burial rites (Renown Travel).

(5) The Catacombs – Paris, France

The Catacombs of Paris are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris' ancient stone quarries.

The ossuary remained largely forgotten until it became a novelty-place for concerts and other private events in the early 19^th century; after further renovations and the construction of accesses around Place Denfert-Rochereau, it was open to public visitation from 1874. Since 2013, the Catacombs number among the 14 City of Paris Museums managed by Paris Musées. Although the ossuary comprises only a small section of the underground "carrières de Paris" ("quarries of Paris"), Parisians currently often refer to the entire tunnel network as the catacombs (Wikipedia).

(6) The Hand in the Desert – Chile

The Mano del Desierto popularly known as “The Hand of the Desert” is a large-scale sculpture of a hand located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, about 60 km to the south and east of the city of Antofagasta, on the Panamerican Highway (Wikipedia). Mano de Desierto is a work of the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal, built in the early 1980s (Atlas obscure).

The most captivating thing about the sculpture is its sheer size. It is a powerful figure and makes for a striking sight, especially in the massive expanse of nothingness, such as here in the middle of the Atacama Desert. Standing at over 11 meters, roughly 36 feet, this tall and thick structure stands more than double the height of a giraffe, or about the height of the average telephone pole (Will Lees).

(7) Red Beach – Panjin, China

Red Beach, located in Dawa County, Panjin, Liaoning, China, is famous for its landscape featuring the red plant of Suaeda salsa of the family Chenopodiaceae. It is based in the biggest wetland and reed marsh in the world. The landscape is composed of shallow seas and tide-lands (Wikipedia).

The Sueda is one of the few species of plant that can live in highly acidic soil. Its growth cycle starts in December when it is coloured light red, while the colour of the mature species is deep red. Actually, hosts the most completed ecosystem that can be found: the nature reserve has become home to more than 260 kinds of birds and 399 kinds of wild animals (Bored Panda).

 FOR MORE PLACES VISIT - PART - I and III ↴  

THE MOST WEIRDEST AND MYSTERIOUS PLACES TO VISIT ON EARTH (PART I)
THE MOST WEIRDEST AND MYSTERIOUS PLACES TO VISIT ON EARTH (PART III)

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