Dragons, Water and Gold

Patchy winter clouds welcome us to Cat Ba as I return to the island for the last time. I give my parents the simple tour: we duck into the AO office and walk the cliffside path around a peninsula ringing the main harbor, watching kites wheel over the water, nesting material clutched in their talons. We visit the hotel I've called home for the better part of a year in Ben Beo Harbor, drink tea with my landlords, and pay an older gentlemen in a suit to take us through the floating village of Cai Beo in his basket boat.

We wind through rows upon rows of anchored houses and fish farms, taking in the bustle of everyday life as fishermen spray nets and feed fish, kids laze in hammocks on porches, bright red flowers burst from potted gardens and dogs watch from atop overturned basket boats. The afternoon sun breaks through winter clouds for a few short minutes to light squid nets into blazing halos, and right toward the end, langurs make an appearance. It’s the closest I’ve ever seen them, and we pull up to the rocks behind the village to watch as they navigate the razor-sharp rocks with well-practiced ease, pausing to groom and pull leaves from the shrubbery. Our driver flags down young men as they pass in small basket boats, and they switch to row with their feet so they can pull out iPhones to take photos as they gawk alongside us.

We watch the sun set from Cannon Fort, an old outpost overlooking Cat Ba Town to one side and Lan Ha Bay to the other, sihlouetting fishing boats black against a golden sea.

We head to Butterfly Valley for dinner with Trinh, Nga and Toan, the family who runs Asia Outdoors' trekking and keeps a restaurant and farm next to our largest crag. Nga lays a beautiful feast in front of us in celebration of my family's visit and my father's birthday. We're joined by the rest of their family and my roommate Lizzy, who translates in rapid-fire fashion between stories about office pranks, and Chris, probably the person I've become closest with through my time on the island– and one of the few who've been around longer than myself. We eat amazing food, we laugh (a lot), and we drink. A lot. Trinh is so excited to have someone his own age to drink with, and as the night progresses somewhat of a dude-oriented shot challenge commences. After multiple liters of rice wine disappear a square glass jar is procured, in which Trinh gleefully points out a monster of a suspended gecko. Glasses dip, glasses are raised, and the final shot of the night is consumed.

The next day we head out into the bay on a junk boat. I visit Ba Trai Dao for the last time, showing my parents temples tucked into caves and my favorite secluded lagoon guarded by an ornate, seahorse-shaped rock. We cross the channel into Ha Long Bay proper to kayak into Le Mekong, a twisting system of lagoons connected by deep, black tufa-studded caves and tunnels. We kayak against a strong current; water drains from the massive system as we paddle in. We're here at the lowest tide I've experienced: tunnels yawn and stalactites hang far above our heads. We follow a short, twisting passage into a small side lagoon where two men in a basket boat scare fish from the bottom by slamming a bamboo pole on the water's surface.

Later we wind further out and up into the bay, circling a large cluster of unfamiliar islands. We pass between slender, twisting spires and caves hung heavy with stalactites, winding through territory i've never seen before. Massive ships navigate the natural maze, an alien species in this wide world of water and rock. Starkly contrasting worlds converge as foot-powered basket boats collect a day's meal as they move next to cargo ships importing thousands of tons of goods.

The tide drops throughout the day, exposing steep undercuts hidden beneath unsteady spires as we swing back down into Lan Ha bay for the evening, and I spend one last night on the bay following a beautiful dinner laid before us by Quang's crew.

The next day we visit Lien Minh one last time for my parents to see the valley by daylight, and to say goodbye to Toan, Trinh and Nga. It's a bittersweet goodbye, with hugs and some tears. See you next time, I say. I'll be here, Toan replies. But we both know next time is hypothetical. For all the times I've had pieces of me wrenched away as people I worked with and laughed with and cried with have moved on, for Toan, I've now become one of those people. And for all that I know I'll move forward and step into that transient lifestyle, Toan knows he'll be saying goodbye to every single person who comes through, for weeks or months or years.

We stop into a small souvenir shop where a company friend sells pearls, spend an evening making spring rolls for ourselves over the barbecue, and the next morning I truly say goodbye to Cat Ba.

We fly south from Hai Phong and drive to Hoi An, a village in the old Thu Bon river delta known throughout the country for tailor shops, shoe shops and silk lanterns. Although the place has obviously developed for tourists, Hoi An retains the charm of its deep historic heritage.

The town's French-style streets burst with tailor shops- hundreds of storefronts display various designs and walls hold thousands of bolts of silk, cotton, wool and polyester. Shops copy runway designs in mere days and build structured jackets and dresses overnight. Lantern workshops tuck between tailor shops, men and women working with quick hands to stretch thin silk over round bamboo frameworks amongst piles of completed orbs. Younger vendors sell mango cakes and fruit smoothies from small sidewalk tables nearer to the river, where a bridge lined with stylized fish and lanterns links the crossing between islands. 

By night, Hoi An comes alive. Lanterns light in every door front and hang from strands overhead, bathing streets in a soft sheen and reflecting from the river's gentle waters. Old women sell candles in paper lanterns from the river bank, charging a small fee to set one in the water from a slender bamboo pole and watch the current carry it onward, granting wishes and good luck. Small boats line the shores. They’re built more slender here, built for river travel rather to withstand sea swell and chop, painted eyes pointed downward from every prow.

A bicycle tour takes us out of the city center and into a maze of islands, passing fishing nets slung low over the river as we weave through rice fields and shrimp farms, giving us the opportunity to meet people as they go about daily business in the delta. On a riverbank near the ferry several men pound bolts into planks wide enough to nap on, performing routine maintenance on a fishing boat pulled high out of the water. We step into a rice wine factory, where a massive (read: really, truly gargantuan) sow huffs in a pen next to kiln-sized vats of distilled alcohol and another happy pig squeals eagerly next to a piggy-sized cauldron boiling cheerily away. From the rice wine factory a tiny woman trails us to the river and gives us a short but sweet lesson in paddling Hoi-An-style basket boats: sealed with buffalo dung and historically round and flat enough to pass for produce baskets and avoid taxes when the French came calling. On our last stop we visit an ancient couple who weave dyed bamboo sleeping mats; as a weathered woman slips stalk after stalk to her husband in patterns memorized through decades' repetition, he slides them just as quickly through the strands of his handheld loom.

After two days in Hoi An we move northward, driving through Da Nang, stopping to walk white sand beaches in front of penguin-shaped trash cans and driving over the coolest dragon-shaped suspension bridge I ever hope to see. We continue toward Hue, detouring around commonly-used long mountain tunnels to wind up along the coastal cliffs toward Hai Van Pass, where a cloud bank spills dense and low over a dip in the mountains, dissipating before it reaches the broad azure cove below. Although fog utterly obscures the pass' ancient lookout posts, we descend the other side to a fishing harbor where we stop to watch men lay nets from small slender row boats as a train powers by alongside us.

The city of Hue itself holds the center of the old imperial kingdom, home to the country's emperors for hundreds of years through the end of the French occupation before the capital moved to Saigon. Much of it, including most of the Forbidden City, is still being rebuilt in the aftermath of extensive damage sustained during the war as it served as a stronghold for northern soldiers. The wide, murky Perfume River divides the city, allocating taller buildings of the business and tourism centers to the west while historical sectors to the east retain low rooftops in deference to the Imperial City.  

Our day in Hue is filled with imperial splendor. We spend hours exploring the Imperial and Forbidden cities, wandering endless twisting paths through immaculate gardens, ponds and sculpted concrete archways around living residences and alters dedicated to the dynasty's emperors and immediate family.  Cast bronze bowls twice my height stand opposite a temple dedicated to the emperors, alters themselves shielded by intricate dragons painted on massive bamboo curtains. In the only building to fully escape damage during the war, high, sturdy beams support an arcing roof over a gold-gilded throne and canopy from which dragons watch over proceedings.

In the afternoon we visit tombs. The first sprawls across wooded grounds overlooking a tiered veranda and a broad pond constrained in red stone walls. Terraced and tiled gates lead to a white marble tomb set within a broad, low-walled burial enclosure-- more of a landmark than a true tomb, the location of the emperor's body beneath the enclosure long kept hidden to prevent theft or destruction by future rulers.

The second tomb is a work of art straight out of legends. A set of black dragons guards a flight of stairs hundreds high, climbing the hillside through ornately gated landings where rows of stone soldiers stand guard and tall pillars frame a rotunda holding the stone tablet proclaiming the emperor's accomplishments. In the burial hall proper at the top of the hill, dark, imposing concrete explodes into splendor. Mosaics blanket the walls. Flowers trail up pillars and frame corners. Dragons wrap columns and adorn a heavy concrete canopy blanketed in tile and gold. A life-sized, gilded statue of the emperor sits on a tiered throne above his remains, buried some nine meters below, backed by a massive gleaming sunburst and mirrors reflecting the hall’s adornment. Dragons watch from above, intricately painted into the ceiling amongst cloudy heavens. The entire thing takes my breath away.

During my evenings I find an old coworker, Thanh, at a bar not far from our hotel, still sporting that same mischevious grin and pristine Patagonia trucker hat as last time I saw him. We play some pool (Thanh schools me soundly) and shoot the shit for a while, and does it ever feel good to see that kid again.