by Di Morrissey
‘You’d think we’d hear noises . . . sound carries across water,’ said Anna.
‘Come to bed.’ Sandy put down her glass. ‘Good night, Hung.’ She waved at the dim outline of Hung sitting cross-legged on the deck. He lifted an arm, the red glow of a cigarette in his hand.
Anna woke wondering what time it was, aware of the gentle swing of the old wooden junk on its anchor chain. She lay there for a short time but felt wide awake. She listened to the unfamiliar noises, a slow symphony of creaks and slapping water. It was as if the old junk was wheezing in its slumber. A metal clink, a soft thud, and was that a footfall? Hung in the galley making tea? Anna waited a few more minutes but, knowing she wasn’t going to get to sleep, decided to go up on deck. She went through the main saloon with its dining table and built-in long seats that doubled as storage. A small wall lamp glowed. She quietly climbed up the wide ladder, but before stepping out onto the deck she glanced around. There was a soft breeze; the moon was high but filtered through the light mist that drifted low above the surface of the water. She glanced to where the green light hung on the starboard cross arm and suddenly imagined that the nearby craggy peak spearing out of the sea was wavering. At first glance it seemed that the monolith might crumble and fall but it looked more like it was swaying, an illusion caused by the sea mist.
It was eerie and she was about to turn and go below when she heard the soft murmur of voices. Was Captain Chinh taking over his shift from Hung? Dawn seemed a long way off.
Anna poked her head above the raised cockpit, looking through the rigging, and saw the slim outline of Hung, but the other shape was not Captain Chinh or the Australian man, Tom. Snatches of conversation came on the wind but she didn’t understand what they were saying and wished Sandy were there to translate. There was something about their body language, the lowered urgent tone of voice, that seemed conspiratorial. Had this other man been on board since they left Halong? Softly Anna moved down the port side of the boat towards the stern, leaving the men amidships.
It was then she noticed a wet rope fastened to the railing and saw a wooden boat tied to the side. A large cane basket secured with rope was in the bow of the small boat and she wondered if it contained supplies to be hauled aboard the junk. But why so late at night?
The short muscular man talking to Hung flicked his cigarette over the side. Anna quickly hunched over so as not to be seen and tiptoed back the way she had come.
Lying on top of her bed sheet as it was so warm, Anna strained to hear noises up on deck, but the creaking of the wooden hull, occasional thuds from the rigging, soughing wind through the open porthole, Sandy’s gentle breathing and other unidentifiable noises made her imagination race. Finally, when she heard Captain Chinh making his tea in the galley before relieving Hung at sunrise, she dozed off.
Sandy, dressed and fresh, called Anna for breakfast, and when she’d showered and joined everyone on deck, Anna couldn’t help but glance over the side to where she’d seen the little boat tied up. There was no sign of it. Nor the large basket. A late-night visit from one of Hung’s relations, perhaps? But she didn’t mention it to anyone as she accepted one of Tom’s tea bags and tossed up whether to try Captain Chinh’s pho or the assorted breads, fruit and sweet rice, or just a mini packet of muesli. Sandy had become addicted to the strong chicory roasted coffee dripped into a cup with a liberal dollop of condensed milk.
‘Were you in the army, Tom?’ asked Sandy as Hung began stacking life jackets and water bottles on the deck ready for the day’s outing.
‘Felt I was on the occasions I travelled with them. No, I was a foreign correspondent for Australian radio. Wrote articles every now and then as well.’
‘Really?’ Sandy was surprised and immediately interested. ‘So you’re back as a tourist or a journalist?’
With chopsticks Tom deftly fished out a small piece of beef and bok choy from the hot broth in his bowl. ‘I retired a couple of years back. But once a journo, always a journo. Thought I’d update myself. I’ve been asked to do a couple of stories. There’s a lot happening here.’
‘From a political, economic or tourist point of view?’ asked Anna.
‘They’re pretty well all entwined,’ said Tom. ‘Initially I agreed to come to be part of a reunion and my curiosity got the better of me, so I’ve come early to see the changes since the war. The stunning scenery, its diversity, its people, make Vietnam pretty attractive. To businesses as well as tourists.’
‘You like what you see, Mr Ahearn?’ asked Hung.
‘I like, Hung, I like,’ said Tom, smiling. ‘I’m looking forward to this kayak expedition.’
After breakfast two kayaks and an open canoe were towed to the Harvest Moon from the village. They were surrounded by a flotilla of wooden boats filled with women and children, some with babies tied to their backs or across their chests in a cotton cloth sling. All were exuberantly selling food, shells, hats, postcards, necklaces or silk scarves as souvenirs. Standing on the deck, Tom flipped coins into the water and young boys were over the sides of their boats before the money had hit the surface. Several enterprising kids had paddled out in old rubber inner tubes and the water fight for coins became noisy and competitive.
There was a lot of good-natured banter as the locals watched Anna and Sandy climb down a ladder to a small wire platform just wide enough for two people to stand on. Hung held the craft steady and helped Sandy and Anna settle in the middle of each small yellow kayak, handed them both a paddle and pushed them off. Tom settled in the stern of a slightly larger canoe, and Captain Chinh lightly stepped into the centre and set off. Tom had a paddle that he cheerfully dug into the water following the captain’s lead.
Sandy and Anna handled their kayaks with ease and skimmed across the sunny calm morning water following Chinh and Tom. Then they paddled into deep shadow as they rounded Pagoda Peak and went behind a smaller outcrop that hid a narrow slit in the rock face. Captain Chinh stroked confidently through it. Sandy and Anna paddled through the opening to find themselves in another world. They were in a beautiful broad chamber where it was dim and cool, the water strangely luminous. With a deep plunge of his paddle Chinh took a turn around a wall of rock, disappearing from sight. Sandy paused, glancing to see Anna was behind, and did the same.
They had turned into a passage cut by centuries of wind and waves and suddenly they came out into an incredible light green lagoon, surrounded by dripping moss-covered limestone walls. The huge sheet of water was brilliant and calm. Far above, there was an opening to the sky. A fairytale grotto. They glided across the vast chamber only to find another smaller grotto. The towering walls shone in the reflected light and across an overhang marched an army of stalactites.
Captain Chinh and Tom stowed their paddles and drifted, Tom reaching for the small digital camera in his pocket.
‘Wow,’ breathed Sandy as Anna drew alongside.
‘This is unreal.’ Anna trailed her fingers in the crystal water. ‘Better than being in a cathedral at dawn. So cool, clear and calm.’
Captain Chinh and Tom drifted by. ‘Stunning place,’ said Tom. ‘How deep, Chinh? Anyone know what’s down there?’
‘Very deep. No fish.’
‘Can we swim?’ asked Anna.
‘Yeah, and how do you get back in the kayak?’ said Sandy. ‘Just enjoy the view, Anna.’ She caught Chinh’s eye. ‘How far back does it go? Can we get out the other side?’
‘No boat go through. You take picture and we go,’ said the captain. ‘Not many people see this place. Just special people. You special.’
Anna and Sandy exchanged an amused glance. Tom, looking through the zoom of his camera, pointed to one side of the grotto. ‘There’s a ledge there. Someone could stand on it. Is this tidal? Does the water come up higher?’ he wondered.
‘Little bit. When moon right,’ answered Captain Chinh. ‘You take picture and we go.’ But he paddled close to the ledge, raising himself to see it more clearly, then sat down again and turned t
he canoe away.
Anna and Sandy manoeuvred their kayaks, handing Anna’s camera to Tom to take a picture of them both. The flashes glittered on the craggy stone walls as if studded with jewels, illuminating the two friends holding hands in their orange life jackets.
Captain Chinh firmly dipped his paddle in the water and led them back into bright sunlight and the openness of the bay, where the brooding peaks dwarfed them all.
‘That was amazing,’ said Sandy.
‘Sure was, though I kept thinking that a monster could rise up, or a whirlpool start or something,’ said Anna.
‘There are stories from many years ago of people disappearing in such places, never to be found,’ said Sandy mysteriously.
They headed across the bay to where a finger of water led into a cove. Along one side was a small rough beach littered with boats, fishing nets, bamboo fish and crab traps, empty fuel drums and rubbish. Next to it, jutting into the shallow water, was a collection of thatched and wooden houses on stilts, mostly small with narrow verandahs only wide enough for two or three people to sit on woven straw mats. Below, pontoons sagged next to fenced water ‘paddocks’ and rickety ladders led up to the fronts of the houses. As they drew closer Tom burst out laughing.
‘The floating farmyard!’ He reached for his camera to take a shot of the small fenced pens on stilts above the water. One held chickens, another a fat pig.
‘What are in the fenced cages in the water?’ asked Anna.
‘Big fish for eating. In the tanks are shrimp,’ answered Captain Chinh.
Anna watched a girl sitting on the edge of a sampan moored next to her dwelling as she washed her hair, pouring a bucket of water over her head. ‘Do you reckon the loo, bathing, washing and so on is dumped into the water?’
‘Of course. No sewerage or plumbing here,’ answered Sandy.
‘Yuk. I’ve changed my mind about a swim.’
‘Ah, don’t worry, the catfish clean up everything,’ said Tom.
The girls howled at him and even Captain Chinh laughed. ‘This old-style village. Over there, that Hung’s father house.’
There were several boats tied up and people sitting in the open doorway smoking and eating. They glanced at the tourists and Anna suddenly wondered if one of the men was the one she’d seen on the boat with Hung last night. As if to confirm it, the man acknowledged them with a slight nod.
‘Are they Hung’s relatives?’ she asked.
Captain Chinh shrugged. ‘Yes, and some people from the mainland. They do business.’
Anna was about to ask what kind of business would be conducted in such a small out-of-the-way village, but the others were stroking strongly back towards the Harvest Moon as another batch of tourists in kayaks and tenders headed into the cove to see the floating village.
Back on the junk Hung had prepared food and, with Captain Chinh in command, he took a canoe, waved goodbye and skimmed across the water to visit his village.
When the three Australians were alone, Tom took another look at the photos he’d taken, then handed the camera to Sandy.
‘What do you make of this?’ he asked, showing a photo of the grotto in the large viewing screen.
‘Pretty. The light in the water is great,’ said Anna.
‘Yeah, but look at the ledge I pointed out. Above that.’
‘There are steps,’ exclaimed Sandy, taking a closer look.
‘Odd, don’t you think? Where would they go? Who’d access them from the cave?’ asked Tom.
The girls studied the picture. ‘Weird. Ask Captain Chinh,’ suggested Sandy.
‘What about the old nun at the temple up the hill? How does she get up and down to get supplies?’ asked Tom.
‘How do we know there even is an old nun at the pagoda?’ added Anna.
‘Let’s go and look!’ joked Sandy.
‘I’ll go have a yarn to Chinh,’ said Tom. ‘You chat up Hung when he comes back.’
‘Well, we don’t have anything else to do this afternoon,’ said Sandy. ‘Might cost more, an “extra” excursion.’
‘Be a great view from up there. Tom looks fit enough to make it up to the pagoda,’ said Anna.
‘Let’s talk to Hung when he gets back.’
Returning from his village with fresh fish, Hung was relaxed about their idea and shrugged. ‘It is not a very impressive pagoda but the walk winds around so it’s not a steep climb and it’s a shady walk.’
‘So let’s do it. I’d like to talk to the old nun. She must get lonely. How long has she been there?’ asked Sandy.
‘She was a novice near Dien Bien Phu, but fled when the French were defeated in the early 1950s and the communists took over. She finds this place very peaceful. Occasional tourists visit her and my family take her food. She is nearly blind but manages to cook and look after herself and the temple.’
‘Heavens, poor thing. What can we take her?’ asked Anna.
‘Just make an offering: that will please her. Fresh fruit. After the spirits have eaten she will enjoy the fruit,’ said Hung.
‘So how do we get up there? Surely we don’t have to climb up from the grotto?’
Hung gave a slight smile. ‘No one uses the grotto; it was once a place for . . .’ he struggled to find the right word and finally Sandy attempted to help.
‘Smugglers? Pirates? Shipwrecks? Bandits?’
Hung nodded. ‘Yes, very many bad men sailed all around South-East Asia in old times. Also when rich Chinese refugees left Vietnam after the American war they too were robbed.’
‘And so were some very poor people,’ added Sandy.
After lunch Hung took them across the bay in the Harvest Moon’s motorised rubber ducky. At the base of the outcrop Hung jumped into the water and dragged the boat onto the beach. Then Hung, a small bag slung across his back, led the way over the rocky foreshore to where the track began.
They threaded their way between boulders, the cliff face bare and windswept, until the track curved upward and there were suddenly straggly, struggling trees. It seemed they were walking in corkscrew fashion, slowly ascending, watching carefully where they stepped.
Eventually Hung paused and pointed at the view through a break in the high rocks beside the track. They took a breather and leaned on the rocks for a view of the bay spread out below. Tom took more photographs, murmuring repeatedly, ‘Great shot.’
Within minutes they were in a thicket of old trees that had weathered years of wind and sun, sinking roots between cracks in the rock in search of soil and water. Then, through the trees, they glimpsed the small pagoda, its red and gold paint cracked and faded. Hung hurried ahead to alert the elderly nun of their arrival.
As they stood admiring the incongruity of what Sandy had instantly christened the Temple of Nowhere, Tom announced that he would take a look at the pagoda from the other angles on a path that seemed to circle it. ‘Bound to find something worth shooting.’ He took off, and Sandy and Anna answered Hung’s wave and walked up the steps to the pagoda.
There was a small cobbled courtyard of beach stones in front of a stone arch etched with Vietnamese letters and religious symbols. They left their shoes at the open doors and stepped inside the dim cool room with its large decorated altar. Incense was burning; candles flickered next to a small offering of rice and nuts. To one side of the main shrine were smaller carvings and a doorway through which they heard Hung’s voice.
He came into the main room, leading a tiny woman in a simple brown robe. Her head was shaven and she walked carefully as if she knew rather than saw the way.
Hung made the introductions as Tom joined them. Sandy touched the woman’s hands, speaking quietly, and the nun smiled and led them to wooden seats in the courtyard.
‘She says it is good to feel the soft hands of a woman,’ said Sandy.
Hung wandered off as Sandy translated questions from Tom and Anna, piecing together the story of the nun, who had been raped and bashed, yet spared when others with her died. Since she had left Dien B
ien Phu, where the French had made their last stand against the communist forces, she had prayed each day and observed the rituals of her faith.
Sandy told them how the little nun came to this bay and was told of the deserted temple and how she’d asked to be brought here to thank the ancestral spirits who had watched over her. Local people came on feast days and ceremonial occasions to pray and make offerings at the temple on the hill, and gradually word spread and it became something of a pilgrimage to visit the nun living simply in a small hut beside the old pagoda. Visitors came away enriched by the woman’s piety and faith for she had suffered so much adversity and seen so much horror but remained serene.
When Sandy asked her about her blindness. She told them in a mixture of French, English and Vietnamese. ‘I do not miss seeing very well. I see shapes, a little light, a little dark. Enough for my needs. I believe the taking of my sight is a blessing. I see in my mind those things I wish to see: good people, lush rice paddies, blue sky and sea, my cooking pot, yellow star fruit and pink watermelon. When I taste food I remember good times with my family, my sisters and my brothers. When I hear your voices, I remember friends and teachers. In this place I see and hear and remember what is good. The spirits come and speak with me. I am not alone.’ She smiled. ‘And how may I help you?’ she asked simply.
‘We came thinking to help you, Mother,’ said Sandy softly, summing up what they all felt. ‘But you have given us far more.’
Hung had chopped the fruit and gave them each a bowl of sweet sticky rice and the fruit on top as an offering. They followed the nun to the altar, where in turn they set a bowl at the foot of the statue of Buddha, lit sticks of incense from the burning candles and, with hands clasped, bowed three times and offered a silent prayer.
‘We should go back now,’ said Hung quietly. ‘I will wait outside.’
‘Can I take your picture?’ asked Tom, and he led the old nun to the doorway.
Anna was deeply touched by the atmosphere and lingered before the shrine, trying to settle the many emotions she felt.
