Tides, Temples & Terraced Hills
Vietnam & Cambodia
The Con Dao Islands stand in a clear green sea, their forested hills dropping to the water, and in March the sea is calm and warm from morning to dark. You taste salt on your lips and hear the surf working the sand.
At Siem Reap the sandstone towers of Angkor rise out of the jungle, their carved faces and bas-reliefs warming from grey to gold in the first light. In Hoang Su Phi, rice terraces step down the mountainsides in curves, and the paths between them are narrow, steep and muddy underfoot. Then Hanoi, in Vietnam, where scooters thread the old quarter, incense drifts from temple doorways, and coffee is poured thick and sweet at every corner.
Con Dao Islands (Con Son), Vietnam
Con Son, the main town of the Con Dao Islands, is a low row of rooftops along a bay, and the first sound after the little plane's engines die is the sea working at the shore, steady as breathing. You step onto an island that is mostly national park, with green mountain rising straight behind the rooftops and warm salt air thick with frangipani.
Evenings are for the waterfront, where the light turns copper on the water and a few fishing boats ride at anchor. In the mornings the sand is pale and empty, and the shallows run clear out to the coral. You swim, doze, walk the forest trails and snorkel the reef.
Siem Reap (Angkor), Cambodia
In Siem Reap you are up before the sun clears the treeline, walking toward Angkor Wat, five towers rising out of the dark above a moat laid flat and black. The stone turns the colour of old honey once the light reaches it.
You hear the place before you understand it, cicadas in the sugar palms, sandals on worn sandstone, a monk's saffron robe bright against the grey. Bayon's carved faces smile from every angle, and silk-cotton roots pour over the walls of Ta Prohm like slow grey water. You climb steep steps, stand in cool galleries, and tip your heads back.
Hoang Su Phi (Thong Nguyen), Vietnam
Beyond Ha Giang the private transfer climbs into Hoang Su Phi until rice terraces fill the windows, hundreds of narrow steps stacked to the ridgeline, brown and resting before the spring planting. Thong Nguyen sits among them.
The air is thin and cool, and woodsmoke drifts from the houses. At dawn mist pools in the valleys below you, and a buffalo's bell clanks somewhere out of sight. You climb the dikes, wander the slopes, and look down on it all.
Hanoi (Old Quarter), Vietnam
Hanoi's Old Quarter wakes to the clatter of metal on metal, and the streets named for what was once sold in them, Hang Bac for silver, Hang Dao for silk, still hold their trades. You arrive with the highlands still in your boots and walk into lanes narrow enough that scooters brush your sleeves.
Charcoal smoke drifts from a pavement grill, broth steams from low plastic stools, and a temple door opens onto cool, incense-dark air. You wander shopfront by shopfront, taste bowl by bowl, and read a thousand years in tiled roofs and carved beams. The lanes hum until the lamps come on.