The world is filled with incredible rock formations: Australia’s enormous red monolith, Uluru; Northern Ireland's dreamlike Giant's Causeway; the United States' hulking lump of granite, Half Dome. Then there's Thailand's Hin Sam Wan, or Three Whale Rock – perhaps the most surreal of them all.
Like a family of giant whales, the 75-million-year-old rock formation rises from an ocean of trees on a plateau high above the Mekong River in north-east Thailand.
From above, the rock's resemblance to a family of whales (mother, father and calf) is almost uncanny – the statuesque animals' large, bulbous heads, dark-grey bodies and white jaws perhaps making them most akin to a pod of sperm whales.
The largest of the three whales is approximately 100m long – that's roughly seven times the size of a large (real-life) sperm whale.
A network of trails allows visitors to wander through lush forest, past waterfalls, tropical plants and singing birds, to the rock formation. From here, views stretch out across the mighty Mekong River and into Laos.
One of the best ways to appreciate just how whale-like these boulders are is from above – as this selection of striking drone photos proves.
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