Ba Vi National Park

Something strange happens on the flat land of the northern delta. Out of the rice fields rises a mountain range more than 1,200 meters high, like an island afloat in a sea of green.

This is the Ba Vì range. The first question most visitors ask is why a mountain stands so tall and so alone in the middle of a plain.

The answer lies underground. Ba Vì is an ancient volcano, and its last eruption was almost 200 million years ago. The magma hardened. Over hundreds of millions of years of weathering and uplift, it formed peaks of old igneous rock that now stand above the silt plain of the Red River. So Ba Vì is not here because the mountain grew upward. It is here because the plain around it was worn away and filled in with silt, while the mountain held firm.

The range has three main peaks.

The highest is Đỉnh Vua, or King Peak, at 1,296 meters. On its summit stands a temple to President Hồ Chí Minh, built in his memory.

Next is Tản Viên Peak, at 1,227 meters. At the top is the Upper Temple, which honors Tản Viên Sơn Thánh, the most sacred spirit of northern Vietnam.

The third is Ngọc Hoa Peak, at 1,131 meters. It is named for Princess Ngọc Hoa of legend. She is Mỵ Nương, the daughter of a Hùng King.

Tản Viên Peak calls to mind the legend of Sơn Tinh and Thủy Tinh. Vietnamese people honor the Hùng Kings as their ancestors. The 18th of them had a beautiful daughter, Mỵ Nương. Two suitors came for her. One was Sơn Tinh, the god of the mountains, who made his home right here on Ba Vì. The other was Thủy Tinh, the god of the sea.

The king set a test. Whoever first brought nine-tusked elephants, nine-spurred roosters and horses with nine red manes would win his daughter. Sơn Tinh arrived first, and he married Mỵ Nương. Thủy Tinh was furious. He raised the waters and attacked Sơn Tinh. But Sơn Tinh lifted the mountain higher, and wherever the water rose, the mountain rose with it. He never lost.

This was how the Vietnamese of long ago explained the floods of the Red River that come every year. In the flood season, from the seventh to the ninth lunar months, Thủy Tinh sends the water against Sơn Tinh once more, and Sơn Tinh lifts the mountain once more.

Because he protected the people from floods, Sơn Tinh became Tản Viên Sơn Thánh. He is one of the Four Immortals of Vietnamese folk belief. Tản Viên Sơn Thánh stands for the land. Thánh Gióng stands for the defense against foreign invaders. Chử Đồng Tử stands for love. And Chúa Liễu Hạnh stands for the religion of the Mother Goddess. People call Ba Vì the ancestral mountain of the Vietnamese of the northern delta.

Higher up, at an elevation of 800 meters, lies an unusual ruin. It is a stone church in the old European style. Green moss covers its walls, and trees have grown up through the old stonework. Early in the 20th century, the French built a mountain retreat on Ba Vì after finding that the highlands were four to six degrees Celsius cooler than Hanoi. After 1954, when the French withdrew, the buildings slowly fell apart. Today only the stone walls remain. Young people and photographers love to take pictures of them.

Yet many people say what sets Ba Vì apart is neither the temples nor the old church. It is the sea of clouds at dawn.

Between about five and seven in the morning, cold air on the mountain meets water vapor rising from the valley below. The two make a thick layer of white cloud that covers the plain. From the summit, you see only white clouds rolling below, and the peaks stand like islands in an ocean of cloud. That sight, many say, is why some people have climbed Ba Vì many times and still want to come back. The best cloud season runs from September to December.

Ba Vì National Park covers more than 11,000 hectares, and almost 3,000 of them are primary forest. It holds tropical and subtropical forest with many rare trees, and a rich collection of medicinal plants once called the medicine garden of the north.

And every early morning, when the white clouds rise again and cover the valley, Ba Vì stands there once more. It is a volcano millions of years old, and the home of the god who kept the plain alive through every flood season.