Hang Cau of Ly Son

If Mount Thới Lới is the flesh of Lý Sơn island, then Hang Câu is the place where the sea has bitten into it.

This is Đông An Hải village, at the foot of Thới Lới. The mountain is an extinct volcano about 169 meters high, the highest point on this volcanic island. Hang Câu lies right beside Hang Pagoda and stretches east along the edge of the sea. It is the outer flank of the volcano, and the waves have worn it into caves and hollowed notches.

The Lý Sơn web portal describes the northern slope of the mountain as under constant attack from waves, tides, wind and sea sand. Over thousands of years those forces made the scene that stands here today: steep cliffs, caves, hollows in the rock, and a band of submerged stone running far out.

The Lý Sơn handbook calls the foot of the cliff the most distinctive part of Hang Câu. In places the waves have cut it back into notches shaped like a frog's jaw. A great mass of rock sits above, and below it the sea and wind press in day and night. Standing here feels grand and precarious at once, because behind is a high wall of stone and ahead is open sea.

The handbook gives two popular explanations for the name. One says these waters once held plenty of rau câu, a seaweed. It is used to make xu xoa, a familiar dish in central Vietnam. The other says the rocky shelves and coral reefs near the shore were a good place for people to cast a fishing line, which is câu in Vietnamese. Both are local explanations, not an official record of naming. Yet both say the same thing. The people of Lý Sơn live so close to the sea that even their place names belong to it.

Look down at the rocky shelf on a day when the water is clear and the sun shines in. Seaweed clings to the submerged rocks and sways with the waves. The handbook records this as an ecological feature of the area. A proposal from the Quảng Ngãi provincial government adds that these waters are part of the sea around Lý Sơn, with seagrass, coral reefs and a considerable supply of seafood.

Hang Câu belongs to a longer route on the Big Island. The handbook places it on one route with Thới Lới and the Fatherland Flagpole. The route also takes in Hang Pagoda and the An Hải communal house. Walk the whole route in a single day and the story of Lý Sơn appears from several sides. A volcano laid the geological foundation, the sea wore it into caves and cliffs, and settlers founded villages and built a tradition of life on the islands.

At the edge of the rocky shelf, coral reefs show faintly through the clear blue-green water. This is why the people of Lý Sơn give a name to every stone and every small pool. Basalt from the volcano, waves that wear it down, coral that clings to the ledge, rau câu growing beneath the water. Each detail adds to the story of a small island, whose natural and human history is not small at all.