Hon Dau Island

A small boat leaves the pier at Đồ Sơn, and 15 minutes later it reaches an island that holds three stories from three very different ages.

The island is called Hòn Dấu, and it is sometimes written Hòn Dáu, with a slightly different accent. It lies just off the Đồ Sơn peninsula, in the Gulf of Tonkin. In 2009, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism recognized it as a National Historic and Scenic Site.

The first story belongs to the sea. It begins in the 13th century, under the Trần dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400. Fishermen of Đồ Sơn say that a Trần general died in a naval battle on the Bạch Đằng River, fighting the Mongol army. His body drifted to this island. The local fishermen lifted it from the water and built a temple for him. They honored him as Nam Hải Thần Vương, the Spirit King of the Southern Sea. From then on, he became the spirit who watches over fishermen heading out to sea.

This is a popular legend, and the general's real name has not been verified in any official record. Even so, the temple still draws tens of thousands of fishermen every year for the Đảo Dấu festival. It runs from the first to the tenth day of the second lunar month. Fishermen come from Đồ Sơn and Cát Bà. Others come from Quảng Ninh and Thái Bình. More come from Nam Định. The main days are the eighth, ninth and tenth. At night, boats carrying lanterns circle the island, and paper boats are set afloat on the water as a prayer to the sea spirit.

The second story belongs to the French. At the end of the 19th century, Hải Phòng was the most important port of colonial Tonkin. To guide ships toward it, the French began building a lighthouse on the top of the island in 1892. It was finished in 1896. In June 1898, its light shone out over the Gulf of Tonkin for the first time. More than a century later, the lamp still burns. Each night it lights the way for ships bound for Hải Phòng. It also guides those heading for the ports of Đình Vũ and Cát Hải.

But the lighthouse has not had an easy road. In 1964, as American forces escalated their bombing of the North, the tower was struck many times and badly damaged. After the country was reunified, it was rebuilt in its original French neoclassical design. So the Hòn Dấu lighthouse is more than a colonial legacy. It is also a witness to the Vietnam War. It is among the oldest lighthouses still working in Vietnam, though not the very oldest.

The third story belongs to the trees. More than 100 ancient banyan trees grow on the island. Of these, 45 have lived for over a century, and 35 are recognized as Vietnam Heritage Trees by the Vietnam Association for Nature and Environment Protection. In the folk belief of Đồ Sơn, these banyans are sacred, and no one dares to cut them. Over the centuries, their hanging roots have grown down and woven together like a net.

Hòn Dấu is a small island, yet three layers of time rest on it. There is the faith of fishermen, from the 13th century. There is the French colonial light, more than a century old. And there are the old banyans, whose thousand roots keep reaching down into the earth as if no day had ever passed. At dusk, under those trees, the waves can be heard below and the lighthouse begins to flash. It is easy to see why the people of Đồ Sơn have come back here in every generation.