None Shall Know Me: Poem Mountain.

" ... Here are laid half-made things

Mountains, islets, clouds and stones are disorderly scattered

In their game, the ancient giants threw the stones.

From the trees is still smelt the after taste of ancient times..."

"Salute to Halong." - Xuan Dieu

I left Sapa and took another night train back to Hanoi with another full day there. The next day I began my little journey though Halong Bay, the main attraction of Vietnam, sometimes called the eighth wonder of the world and a site the poet Nguyen Trai describes as "a marvel of the earth erected towards the high skies." Oh, such unworthy praise for a site as that, and if a national poet for an entire country cannot capture worthy words, then I am doomed to fail, and you are doomed to suffer through my failure. I boarded a junk (what the over night boats are called) and began to sail the waters, stopping to explore a cave and then venturing off deep in the bay and up through rivers where thousands of islands of karst mountains gallantly stood and towered in all shapes and sizes. Many of the islands are given names in Vietnamese, such as "Human Head Island," "Sail Island," "Dragon Island," and "Poem Mountain," so named for a a poem written by a king centuries ago, and engraved on the stone walls of a sacred mountain among sacred waters. We anchored in the water and spent hours jumping from the third level deck in to the cold water below, feeling the current drag me down stream as I swam and played, jumping and diving and kayaking through the waters of the bay out and around islets of rock and trees. I paddled around in the pleasantry of calm and silvery waters embedded in a soft emerald and jade colored bay. Dinner was a great meal of local food and a fish freshly caught from the bay by locals living on small floating huts in the bay, far from everything. At night, it was hours of karaoke, then hours of talk, much of which was anti-American. I have definitely noticed how many Europeans hate America and Americans, even though most of them have never been, and the only Americans they have ever personally known they admittedly like, but yet they all act like experts on American politics and culture, and it does grow annoying. It seems what they hate most is that we aren't clamoring to be just like them, and many the things they hate us for they are often the worst offenders for.

After a night on the boat we went to Cat Ba Island and took a hike in the national park up a mountain and through slippery rocks and mud, and then climbed atop a tall and rusty watchtower overlooking all the mountains of the large island. The tower was corroded with holes abounding and stood high and tall, already above a mountain top with views out over the island and the sea of trees growing thick through healthy mud and strong stone and rock. I stood there above the canopy of cushioned leaves, above the bark of trees, the soil, the dark paths, the streams of filtered light. The hike looking out to a range of mountains sloping up and down in green hues was a worthy site separating the days sifting through the islands firmly fastened in the water. I gazed and breathed, and how I love to breathe that breath of adventure. It is an intoxicating purity.

The next morning we set again, slowly sailing the emerald green waters of Halong Bay. There were thousands of them, islands of stone, brown, orange, green, silver and white, and both the sky and water slid colors from blue or green or purple, and the clouds loosely floated through the colors, dragging strings of the hues in slow motions as the sun awned and dawned. I ate well. I slept well. I partied well, and I saw the Vietnam I wished to see. There are many Vietnams to see. It is a country of great beauty and old charm.