Eyes Open

I’ve lived on Cat Ba Island for just short of a year now. It’s hard to wrap my head around the idea that, at the winter solstice, days have barely shortened since August. December weather brings to mind crisp autumn days: when the sun shines, the world glows in a gentle warmth otherwise hidden by misting clouds.

Last week was huge. I wrapped my two largest projects yet– fitting, since I have only ten days left on the island.

We’re releasing the first climbing guidebook produced for the region since 2008. I’ve been editing the book for the past few months, working with my badass friend and volunteer Luca (Author) and my friend and General Manager Chris (Co-editor). Luca has been the most amazing partner in crime, headlining the project with monumental vision and sheer will. He combines a rare and genuine mix of talent, passion and humility. Chris has overseen the project with levelheaded grace, offering guidance in networking, tact, partnership and pride.

I’m so proud to have been included as part of this project as we worked to draw together the area’s rich and complex history. I’m proud to have coordinated amongst dozens of contributors on local and global scales. I’m proud to have learned intricate publishing software on the fly, building sections of the book, constructing maps and proofreading the document time and time again. I guess those Catholic High School English classes came in handy after all.

I’m humbled to have connected with individuals I never expected to meet. I’m humbled at the generosity and goodwill of dozens of people who contributed stories, information, photographs and history to the project. I’ve learned so much about the place I currently call home. Tremendous work has gone into developing rock climbing in the region, from original pioneers to those who have left their mark more recently– making the place accessible, working with authorities, exploring, bolting, putting up first ascents and gathering information to bring home. I’m so glad for the opportunity to work with Luca and Chris to compile decades of information, making it available and passing it on to those who come after we leave.

We submitted our final draft to the printers last week. Test copies are on the press as I write. With a little Western luck in a Vietnamese print shop, we’ll release the book before the end of the year. Our hearts and souls have gone into this project, and we can’t wait to share it with the climbing community at large.

Photo credit: Rich Fergus

Last week “in the office,” I worked as advisor, guide and subject for an American film crew  producing a documentary about life on the water in Vietnam. The crew were an absolute riot; Vietnam is the seventh of ten countries they’re filming, so they know each other pretty well by now. There were kung fu kicks with plastic samurai swords and Vietnamese hats. There were beautifully staged spats centered around awkwardly positioned cameramen. There were moustache selfies taken with air force tagalongs (we were filming in a militarized zone). Jaws hit the floor as Vu’s abs were revealed to the general populace before he began climbing. At one point I distinctly remember hearing, “Rip it off, kid!” (I even got paid to tell Vu to jump into the water... and Vu hates getting wet.) There were barbeque parties and beers. There was almost an unsuspecting slo-motion slap across the face filmed in retaliation for a friendly punch to a kidney.

The week was filled with speedboat rides through the bay, VIP meals on the boat, good company and visits to just about every place I’ve come to know through a year’s time living and guiding here. The shoot took me so much further into Ha Long Bay than the areas where I operate on a day-to-day basis. We filmed kayaking in a secret system of tunnels and lagoons I’d never actually seen before our scouting days.

I think I surprised myself more than anyone else as I realized how intimately I’ve come to know this place. With a tide chart in hand I was able to almost completely coordinate the shoot on a local level, from organizing meals and boats, to introducing the crew to their main characters, to acting as safety advisor, to fulfilling every request for places and opportunities to film specific footage. (The guys who served us at the bay’s floating business hub thought it was hilarious that a Vietnamese logistics team relied on a foreigner to guide them.)

Most importantly, I received a desperately needed gift through a simple reminder of where I live. It’s so easy to become immune to places serving as home base– places we experience day after day. In my last few months, stressed by large groups and worried about customer satisfaction, I had become largely apathetic to Ha Long Bay. I’d begun neglecting to take in the world around me. My focus had turned to wrapping up projects and moving onward at the end of the year. I looked forward to a bittersweet end, knowing I had grown beyond expectation, wishing I could stay longer to dedicate time fully to climbing, but more than ready to be somewhere– anywhere– else. Without looking back.

Preferably somewhere with access to Mexican food.

And then the film crew showed up. I had the time of my life exploring places I rarely go, looking north past slender spires from unfamiliar inlets and venturing deep into floating villages. More than anything, though, the crew brought a drone with them. On the way home from filming on the first day, Matt showed me a clip of the footage he’d collected. His camera rose from our kayaks to pan north over hundreds of ancient islands spread in a whorling maze amongst the sea’s deep emerald embrace. It offered a stunning, otherworldly perspective of the place to which I had lately become so numb, providing the crucial catalyst allowing me to again truly recognize and appreciate my surroundings before I leave the island in a few days’ time.

Although it’s certainly time for me to move onward, I’m able to do so now with true appreciation and recognition for the people and places amongst whom I’ve spent the last year. And so, to Luca and Chris and Ben and Matt and Dean– to everyone I connected with through my work on the guidebook and the film crew– you have my utmost gratitude.

World of Weaving and Bamboo

There are three surefire ways to tell where you are in Southeast Asia with a single glance: the tuk tuks, the boats and the night markets.

Luang Prabang, the largest city in northern Laos, provides a plethora of all three. The city is a textbook presentation of French colonization’s influence on a vastly undeveloped country– I fly in over small wooden houses sprawled along dirt roads, each lit by a single fluorescent beam.

The city center, however, is different: delicate double-story row houses boasting blue shutters and French doors line the main street. Flowers and vines burst from gardens along twisting alleys. Women and children hawk fruit smoothies from dozens upon dozens of stands between French bakeries (apple cake and brownies!) and backpacker central. Temples gleam in the sun behind white stone walls.

And yet, the country’s more traditional heart heralds form every place I look. Girls walk to school in universal uniforms: a black skirt with a single white stripe. Long, slender boats made for distance travel in a land-locked country crowd the banks of the Mekong and the Nam Ou rivers where they embrace the city. Striped tuk tuks rattle past old, polished Mercedes parked in front of riverside boutique hotels. And the night market overflows with handicrafts- traditional embroidery and weaving sit next to wooden carvings, silver rings, bracelets and the obligatory scorpion-and-cobra-stuffed rice wine, presenting an awe-inspiring marriage of talent and tradition.

I quickly discover the place I’ve booked for my first night in LP is the epitome of a backpackers’ party hostel. I’ve found that I do truly enjoy having people to share experiences with, despite giving up the flexibility that comes with travelling alone. However, waking up to drunk Europeans doing the deed in the bed next to me takes the concept a tad too far.

I move across the street the next morning, connecting with a Spanish and French trio. With Spanish as our common language, my brain gets a solid workout over the next two days. Together we rent motorbikes and ride out to Kwangsi Falls, a rushing ice-green drop and subsequent cascade overflowing with monsoon waters. We climb to the top and descend hundreds of stairs, laughing at Europeans in bikinis next to Chinese girls in long white sundresses. We watch sun bears snooze in their sanctuary. We swerve to avoid water buffalo as they plod up the street and we pull to the roadside to look down over LP from a high winding mountain pass.

We pile into longboats to head up the wide, lazy Mekong and pass young monks as they set off bottle rockets by the water’s edge, running and screaming in glee. We watch mahouts bathe their elephants, standing upright as the animals dip deep into mineral pools. We duck into side alleys for dinner, filling two-dollar bowls from sprawling buffets as thunderstorms crack, shattering the skies, shaking buildings and sending deluges to swamp the street surrounding us.

I head further north for the second half of my stay, piling into a minibus to rattle three hours through twisting mountain roads to the small town of Nong Khiaw. (Multiple dams have recently been built on the river running from Nong Khiaw to Luang Prabang, privatizing travel in an area that historically provided transport between the two cities.)

I continue an hour further up the Nam Ou with Sharon and Phil, an Aussie couple I’ve met on the Mini-bus journey. We crouch on narrow benches as our longboat navigates the passage, twisting between rocks and rapids and lazier patches until we arrive in Muang Ngoi. The little town of 800 people sits on a raised bank, nestled amongst massive peaks, overlooking the Nam Ou until it disappears around bends in either direction. A small temple sits at the near end of the main street (the only street), a deeply-rutted dirt lane running parallel to the river. Small restaurants and guesthouses line the street, gardens adorned with artillery shells collected from American bombardment during the war as supply paths to northern Vietnam were bombed. Chickens and ducks squack and scatter in every direction.

The town is simple. Life flows at an easy, carefree pace. For an afternoon we simply relax, watching water pass below and disappear around the bend from hammocks strung along our bungalow porches.

The next day, Sharon, Phil and I leave town for a two-day trek with a guide named Vita, entering a world of sticky rice and bamboo. We follow a small road into a valley behind Muang Ngoi, full of rice fields in their prime, surrounded by bamboo fences protecting crops from hungry cows.

We step into the mouth of a cave that provided refuge for hundreds of people during the Vietnam war– for 12 years, the cavern’s underground river ensured their survival by providing water, prawns and fish. A low, narrow entrance opens onto a labyrinth of passages, still marked with divots where bedposts rested.

Rice fields turn to bamboo jungle as Vita leads us through unmarked trails, following seasonal streams and old tracks before turning up into the mountains, climbing close to three thousand feet to a tiny mountaintop village. Along the way, Vita teaches us about rice: he points out different varieties, squeezing open young black kernels to show us their milky insides and snagging bunches of golden strands from which we munch. He points out little things– a hydrophilic leaf upon which water gathers into pearl drops and plants to eat when a person is sick with Malaria.

Sometime in the morning a small, black, floppy-eared dog joins the party, trotting ahead of us and chasing lizards through the brush. Although Vita tries to send him home, he actually likes having him along– he’ll give us advance warning of any snakes we may encounter.

Stream crossings reveal tall, slender foot bridges built from bamboo stilts and woven stakes, and low, sturdy bridges supported by woven bamboo rounds filled with rocks. Occasionally we find miniature bamboo dams providing hydroelectricity– just enough to power a light or small TV for a family.

When we arrive at the mountain top village, just before dusk, we discover the true breadth of the plant’s versatility and our hosts’ ingenuity. Houses are constructed of woven bamboo, as are chicken coops and a two-room schoolhouse. Bamboo fences lashed together with hundreds of slender bamboo ties protect small vegetable patches from chickens, pigs and dogs running amok. Slender bamboo coops shelter young tobacco plants. Bamboo baskets of various shapes and sizes hold sticky rice, dry chilies under the sun and scatter rice for pigs. Woven bamboo tokens invite good spirits to visit rice fields and warn visitors from houses with bad spirits. Massive bamboo contraptions pound dried rice from its shell while bamboo baskets three meters tall hold a year’s supply of grain for a family. Thick bamboo stalks are used to store bamboo worms by the kilo, to be sold or eaten by the village chief at a later date. Bamboo cradles hang from bamboo sunshades.

The modern world has just begun to touch the village. A recently built “road” consists of a rocky mountain path navigable by a very talented motorbike driver (with an air pump for good measure). Perhaps a third of the village’s houses boast a solar panel and satellite dish. And, home-made guns resembling two-meter muskets hang just inside doorways; apparently residents do also hunt to supplement their diet.

That night, looking out from the cliff behind our hosts’ house, I see Orion for the first time since leaving home.

The following morning I wake to enraged scolding from the village chief’s wife as she chases a puppy who’s apparently developed a taste for chicken. The puppy, not much larger than the chicken itself, spends the next fifteen minutes chowing down as he snarls away his brothers and sisters. Belly bulging, he waddles over to settle next to a doorstep and promptly pukes up half of his hard-won meal.

We begin our walk downward after watching the beginning races and other festivities planned for National Teachers’ Day. A complication occurs half way into our day when we encounter downed bamboo on the path, left to rot instead of being burned. While Sharon and Phil escape unscathed, I find myself faced with the unhappy task of navigating a swarm of very large, very angry hornets. Six stings later, I decide carrying an epi-pen in the future isn’t a half-bad idea.

Our final day in the area we journey upriver once more to visit Shop Jam, a small weaving village. Hundreds upon hundreds of scarves and temple sashes flutter in the breeze in front of handmade looms, where delicate bamboo rods and quick fingers make easy work of intricate embroidery. A small white kitten finds a paradise in threads and half-finished scarves hung at the village’s far end.

The three of us return to Luang Prabang on our final morning and part ways in the afternoon. I take a final stroll through the night market, and forty minutes later, my plane lifts off for Hanoi.

Travel--Work--Play

Three and a half hours southwest of Hanoi a long, narrow valley curves and twists amongst the mountains near the Vietnamese- Laotian border. A small river meanders through gently terraced rice paddies which blaze green from the valley floor, disappearing from sight as they curl around bends. Light bamboo forest bordering the valley gives way to steep slopes laid thick with jungle.

Along the valley’s single main road lies the town of Mai Chau, a kilometer of pho restaurants, old motorbikes (decals tell us there’s a Mai Chau Minsk Club), scattered bakeries and ladies selling fruit and a tiny bus station.

Up and down the valley from Mai Chau, slim concrete causeways cut across rice paddies to scattered Hmong villages, houses clustered by the dozen or two under the bamboo. Raised on stilts to avoid the monsoon’s floodwaters, the houses’ intricate woodwork shines gold in the morning sun. 

I’m in Mai Chau with Dan, a colleague, to head up guiding for one of Vietnam’s international schools on an annual “cooperation and teamwork” trip. Call it a working vacation, if you will– I’m back in the mountains for the first time in a long, long while.

We have two main missions while we’re here: first, to work alongside local guides with the international school. Sons and daughters of diplomats, ministers and Vietnam’s elite, they come from countries and backgrounds all over the world. Over the course of two days the six of us– four guides from Mai Cahu Lodge, Dan and myself– tie in ninety 12-year-olds and several teachers, coaching them up the wall at the local crag.

Some kids struggle: a boy who excels in math and traditional Chinese schooling can barely make it off the ground. Some kids unused to being pushed balk at grabbing the sharp rock. Some climb with ease.

And others shock their teachers in the best way possible. A girl struggling with learning disabilities in the classroom, wearing a dozen friendship bracelets (“they’ll be all the way to my elbow before I leave!”) pulls herself together to concentrate more fully than her teachers have ever witnessed. A slight boy to whom carbs and gravity simply don’t apply overcomes initial terror to display the most natural movement I’ve ever seen from anyone their first time on the rock, utilizing advanced technique without coaching. Later he returns to try the same route again, climbing without a single fall. His teachers tell me the boy is so scatterbrained he often doesn’t know where he is in space as he walks down the hall. His mother has almost given up on him. They’re going home to tell her to get him climbing– it may well finally introduce positivity, confidence and success into his life.

It’s been almost a year since I worked with kids this age. The work is still utterly exhausting. However, it also reminds me of the fulfillment I get through helping kids discover the outdoors and exit their comfort zones as they get out of the classroom to explore the world around them.

Our second objective this week is to check over the Mai Chau Lodge’s climbing gear. Sine the lodge and Asia Outdoors share a parent company, we outfit the lodge and ensure gear is replaced as needed. It’s an easy job; the guides are meticulous in their work and climbing gear is almost obsessively cared for, catalogues and kept immaculate.

For three evenings, we live in luxury at the lodge. We swim in the pool beneath the stars. We bask in fully functioning air conditioning and soft beds with even softer comforters and lightning-fast wifi. We cycle into the nearby village to feast on platters of banana flower salad and meat rolled in leaves and dumplings and fried chicken. We wander through alleys full of scarves and looms where women weave beneath hanging lightbulbs. And in the morning we wake surrounded by mountains. The sun emerges as mist curls through the valley over rice farmers in wide bamboo hats as they begin the day’s work in fields of green.

Isolation

Arrivals and departures of new and old staff have blurred together. At this point it’s hard to remember who met whom and for how long each person was with us on the island. Most of those people I considered to be family in my first months on Cat Ba have moved onward. It can be so mentally exhausting to build meaningful relationships every time a new staff member or volunteer arrives. Deeper conversations come with varying levels of ease amongst those still here, and in terms of gossip and the way news gets around, this place is worse than a sorority.

This week, however, brought the most wonderful surprise: Luca and Ben, two volunteers from back in April, returned to the island. Luca’s here to do a mega-push as he finishes editing the region’s updated climbing guidebook. Ben’s here to “Help Luca,” meaning he’s having the time of his life climbing every day and counting bolts or measuring route length as needed. It feels like family has come home, and things are just so good.

More than people, though, I find myself missing a Jewish community. I’ve lived in isolated places before, but never have I been so isolated in regards to this specific aspect of my identity. Although I don’t hold literal belief in the scriptures, my identity, culture and morals are all heavily grounded in Judaism and comprise a large part of who I am.

Living abroad pushes me to practice more than I would by habit at home, needing to maintain a tangible connection to Judaism. In the past when I’ve lived abroad I’ve always had a common community around me. In the Galapagos Islands my dive instructor, Shye, provided me with a steady supply of Matzo through Passover. In Kenya, Nairobi’s Orthodox synagogue became my refuge during High Holidays as long-term expats and visiting Chabad took me under their wing. During Hanukkah that year, my family lit a menorah in the middle of the bush with our Maasai guides and hosts for the night.

I’ve always taken comfort in knowing I can walk into a synagogue anywhere in the world and find welcome as family. In the absence of any such community on Cat Ba, I realize how much I’ve taken refuge in the comfort of my heritage in the past. Holidays pass here without mention, jokes fall flat and references to Manischewitz meet blank faces.

I haven’t been near a synagogue since well before I left home. I miss being in a sanctuary in front of an ark and Torah. I miss the sound of a Shofar- a ram’s horn. I miss the sound of dozens of Shofars sounding together– there’s a reason they say that the Shofar’s blast announces the opening of the gates to Heaven. I miss smoked salmon, matzo ball soup and potato pancakes with applesauce. Somehow I even miss keeping Kosher- I still can’t bring myself to add bacon into a chicken burger.

It’s somewhat of an irony, as I sit writing this on Rosh Hashana, that when I’m home near family I take this part of myself for granted. Traditional foods show up at family events and subtle reminders surround me in the form of Shabbat candles stored in plain sight, Mezuzot on door frames and leftover matzo meal waiting in the pantry.

Over time my spirituality has become an odd mix of my Jewish upbringing and whatever it is I find when I leave the city. When I’m home in Oregon I tend to search for that sense of fulfillment by heading toward higher elevation. I’ve been known to skip services on our most important holidays to climb, choosing instead to lose myself in trust and fear and meditation on the wall. Nowhere but in the alpine, isolated, surrounded by nothing but rock and ice and trees, have I felt so small and insignificant and humbled by the world around me. There, survival even on simple days draws on my own accumulated skills and knowledge and experience, all built through past lessons and triumphs and failures. In that sense, the experience is keenly personal.

As much as I might seek such an isolation and sense of smallness compared to the world, living abroad has taught me more than anything that culture and community are equally important to me. In a lifestyle where I constantly aspire to move forward and push myself further, my roots and family provide comfort, belonging, stability and steadfast support. It’s taken moving away to realize just how much that presence and support contributes to my life at home.

For now, I’ll hang out with Ben and Luca for the short time they grace us with their presence. I’ll watch True Detective (Luca’s influence), climb scary things (Ben’s influence), jump off boats in the bay, watch thunderstorms and do everything I can to swerve my motorbike around goats scattered across the road on my way home from work.

And when the chance arises I’ll find a synagogue to step into, momentarily filling that void of family and familiarity amidst the constant shift and change living abroad brings on a daily basis.

Heat

The last week of August launches a heat wave unlike anything I've ever experienced. Temperatures rise to a steady 95° F, humidity hovering around 70%, thickening the air as it pushes perceived temperatures to 115° F. Power cuts occur without warning as air conditioning units and fans overload the grid. Generators' hums fill Cat Ba Town as work continues as normally as possible through obscene heat. Although the government usually times power cuts during daylight hours so that people can sleep at night, we do occasionally wake to rising temperatures as our air conditioning fails for several-hour stretches.

Unfortunately we're without a generator at our hotel in Ben Beo, where those of us lucky enough to be on days off (read: not guiding in the sun) sprawl across hammocks and attempt to cool off in the imaginary breeze.

In typical Vietnamese fashion, the internet cable running from Cat Ba to the mainland has also sustained damage and we're already in the midst of a multiday internet blackout.

Our sole respite comes in Deep Water Solo. Luckily we have almost daily deeping tides this time of year, so we take basket boats into the bay to climb from their prows onto overhung rock before dropping into the sea. While the bathwater-warm water provides a short-lived break from the heat, it also forces us to choose between staying home or risking infection of any broken skin-- unfortunately the bay's emerald water does carry a certain level of pollution.

We climb anyway. It's the only way to stay sane.

Eating has become physically impossible. Staying hydrated proves a task in itself, as liter after liter of water simply sweats itself out of my body. By the third day, my body rebels. Heat blisters blanket my hands and fingers. Tiny scratches become obscenely infected and an ear infection begins forming. The process of trying to maintain a base level of health consumes all of my body's energy, leaving me exhausted.

I throw my hands up and turn to the island's pharmacies (of which there are many). With my Vietnamese roommate Lizzie at my side I buy a full week of antibiotics for 28,000 VND... or $1.25. Hear that, USA? That's anywhere from 2 to 10 times less than I would pay at home and 26 times less than they quoted my very ginger-haired coworker when he showed up without a local to help negotiate price for him. As the amoxicillin begins working literally within hours, I revise my opinion of Vietnam to assert that health insurance and Obamacare have nothing on this country when it comes to getting hands on prescription drugs.
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I'll leave you with a post I put up on that sanctified Book of Face recently, which I think pretty much sums up my current experience.

In the last week:
- I've been informed with authority that I should not eat mango or watermelon, or wash my hair, while I am sick.
- After double-checking that sausage served was not made from dog, clients have asked me (in genuine concern) if dogs no longer like me because I have eaten dog meat.
- My kayakers have broken into the Jurassic Park theme song at the top of their lungs.
- I capsized my first kayak, in front of fifteen customers, while I was bailing out said kayak for customers to get into.
- I've been served purple rice wine made from sea cucumbers and sea stars. And chunky orange rice wine with bees in it.
- I bought a full week's round of amoxicillin for $1.25.- Temperature and humidity combined to a perceived 115° temperature for multiple days, complete with internet and power blackouts.

Welcome to August in Viet Nam.

Summertime Storms

Vietnamese Summer Holiday kicks in at the beginning of June, and with it come hoards upon hoards of local tourists. Although our trips remain largely unaffected by the influx, the number of junk boats on the bay increases drastically. It’s always easy to spot those carrying Chinese and Vietnamese tourists– they’re marked by dozens of girls in strapless sundresses, wide straw hats and jeweled stilettos posing with selfie sticks while men wear swim shorts revealing way more upper leg than I ever wanted to see.

The entire atmosphere of the islands has changed. Motorbikes swarm the streets and propaganda blares from loudspeakers. Christmas music covered by children screams on repeat from mini-marts while carousels add ABC’s to the cacophony. Electric tour carts weave through crowds, carrying people who’ve elected not to walk home. Dozens of little plastic chairs pop up around tables filled with tacky U-paint plaster tigers and fire trucks. Ladies post up on corners with scales and massive baskets, selling lychees by the kilo.

The noise never stops.

Although the main influx of island tourists is Vietnamese, we also see a rise in Westerners. Many of them bring confirmation to the idea that travelers are, in essence, ambassadors for their countries. Although by working in the tourism industry I interact with a miniscule portion of a nation’s citizens, those individuals form my overall perception and opinion of their countrymen. Undoubtedly they influence my initial judgment and behavior toward those I work with in the future.

They teach me that people from some countries will generally be happy to hang out and talk, interested in why I’m here and what my passions are, treating me with respect for my abilities as a guide and my knowledge of the area where I live and work. These are the nationalities I enjoy seeing on my register when I enter the shop before a morning trip.

They teach me that people from one country will come off as self-entitled and arrogant, while those of another nation will without fail be high-maintenance and stingy. These are the people for whom I put up mental shields as soon as they walk into the office; who I expect to treat me as though I’m below them.

The atmosphere can be utterly overwhelming for an introvert like myself after a long day working around people. The refuge of home, just across the peninsula in Ben Beo Harbor, has become crucial. Here, I can lay back atop the roof on a slackline as generators shut down for the night in the bay, watching lightning flash overhead… and what a show it is.

Electric storms come two or three times a week now, preceded by choppy seas, massive swell, soaring temperatures and air so thick it feels like I breathe more water than oxygen. Thunderheads blot out stars, heralded by furious wind and blinding sheets of water. Lightning blazes through the sky every second or two for hours on end. Thunder peals and cracks, reverberating amongst islands, shaking buildings and shattering the world around me.

Late in July, the weather turns weird. Strong gusting wind one afternoon on the bay signals the arrival of a storm and we wrap the trip early. The boat crew cuts our engine every few meters as we top massive choppy swell after swell through the channel leading back to harbor. We ferry customers, guides and gear to land on basket boats through deepening dusk and rain so our big boat doesn’t crash and break against the pier.

For the next week life on the island comes to a standstill. The sea churns, water colored deep brown with sand and silt. Swell crashes into small islands, sending spray hundreds of feet into the sky to soar over jungle cliffs. Wind whips as rain batters trees and windows. Water cascades down hillsides, sweeping rocks and mud into gutters and overflowing into streets to obliterate new-laid pavement. Hillsides collapse, sloughing truck-size rocks into roads. Signs rip from trees and posts, branches sprawl across the waterfront and downed power lines lie coiled in puddles.

Transport to and from the island halts and the island empties of Vietnamese tourists as news comes of villages flooding, fishing boats flipping and people dying. As cranky Westerners come into the shop to gripe about delayed travel plans, statistics name the present storm as the heaviest rain in a condensed period in over forty years. Apparently, compared to the next province north, Cat Ba has had it easy.

When storms break, the bay calms once more. Sun shines and water settles, the sea’s surface turning glossy smooth. Waterfalls of runoff and seepage form veils amongst mineral tufas, tumbling from overhung rock into the sea. Wildlife re-emerges. In the cathedral of my favorite hidden lagoon up north, langurs appear to lounge amongst shrubbery and trees as they cling to plunging circular walls. Giant black and white owls swoop around us in circles before disappearing in the jungle and squirrels race down rock streaked black with moisture to feed on fresh vegetation as once again, new life begins emerges in the wake of sustained chaos.