Mo Falls of Na Hang

A child's small hands hold on to the hem of a grown-up's shirt, then let go as the trail begins to climb. The child walks behind, in short steps, eyes on the ground where each foot will land. Behind them, the center of Nà Hang has just slipped away, taking with it the noise of traffic and the smell of sun on hot pavement.

The forest closes overhead. The air changes color, greener and softer. Then comes a sound the child cannot yet name.

It is a deep, steady roar, coming from somewhere ahead. It does not grow loud and then fade, the way a passing car does. It simply stays there, without rest and without hurry. The child stops to listen. The grown-up laughs and says to walk a little farther.

A little farther on, the wind changes. Here it is cooler and damper, and it smells of wet stone and of old leaves rotting underfoot. The skin of the child's arms turns cool before the eyes can find any water. Then the trees part, and a white ribbon appears against a cliff green with moss.

People in the area call it Thác Mơ. The falls have one more name, thác Pác Ban. The two names run side by side, and either one is the right name. The falls lie in Nà Hang commune, in Tuyên Quang province.

Thác Mơ does not stand alone. It belongs to the Na Hang and Lâm Bình special national scenic area, in a wide land of mountains and forest. Walking through that land, a small child is like someone walking through a very tall house. The roof is the canopy of leaves. The walls are the mountain cliffs. And the voice of the water is the voice of the owner of the house.

The child sits down on a slab of rock at the foot of the falls, looks up, and starts to count. The water does not drop in a single fall. It comes down in steps, one after another. Each step is a ledge of stone, and on each ledge the water breaks in its own way. After a while the counting goes wrong, because one ledge runs into the next, some hidden and some in plain view.

On one ledge the water spreads thin, like a cloth just shaken out. On another it gathers into a fast, hard current, rams into the rock and leaps back up as white foam. On another it only seeps from a crack, slowly, as if lost in thought. It is the very same stream, yet each step gives it a different temper.

Of the whole chain of ledges, the third is the highest. It stands about 20 meters tall. The child has to tip back their head all the way to see the edge where the water starts to fall. Seen from below, the water leaves the lip of rock very slowly, strangely slowly. Only then does it rush down and burst into white spray on the step below.

But the place where the child sits is only one stretch. The whole run of the falls is about 2 kilometers long. Following the water from one end to the other would mean walking farther than the familiar way from home to school, with the sound of water in the ear the whole time. From a distance, that run of water looks like a strip of white silk draped loosely over the shoulder of the mountain.

Sunlight slips through the leaves and lands on the spray. The whole cloud of mist lights up and glitters, then goes dark again when a cloud passes. The child dips a hand into the stream, pulls it back from the cold, and dips it in again, then turns a face up so the tiny drops can land on each cheek. A shout follows, and the roar of the falls swallows it whole, before it has time to echo.

The child asks whether they can climb all the way to the highest ledge. The grown-up shakes their head. The rock here is often wet, with a fine coat of moss, and even a grown-up's foot can slip. Going higher would need someone who knows the path to lead the way, and a day when the rock is dry. So the third ledge stays where it is, up there, kept for the eyes alone.

While they rest, the child hears why the falls carry the name Mơ. People in the area still tell how, long ago, a young woman named Mơ stood beside this water, waiting for her husband. She waited and waited, and her name has stayed with the falls to this day. It is a folk tale, a story handed down from one generation to the next, not a piece of history.

Yet sitting inside that sound, the child understands why people long ago tied the falls to the story of a young woman. The water here is patient beyond belief. It does not tire, does not stop, does not change its mind. Season after season, it falls onto the same old steps of stone, doing just one thing, in just one voice.

At the foot of the falls, it becomes clear that the water does not have only one voice. There is a heavy sound from the high ledge, crashing down in deep waves. There are lighter sounds from the low steps, slipping through cracks in the rock, clear and thin, like someone pouring water into a small cup. And there is the sound of the forest leaves above, drier and farther away. These sounds lie one on top of another all day long, and no moment is quite like the last.

Time at the foot of the falls moves in another way. Here the minutes go by so fast the child can hardly believe it. The child's shirt is damp now. Wet hair sticks to the forehead. The palms still hold the chill of the water. The child does not want to go home yet.

On the way out, the child walks more slowly than on the way in. Every few steps, the child turns to look back. The forest closes over the trail, and the leaves hide the white of the water. But the sound of the falls follows the child for a long way, smaller and smaller.

Then that sound, too, fades away behind the child. And up there, deep in the great forest of Na Hang, the water is still falling over each step of stone. The third ledge is still white in the sun. And no one is telling it to stop.