Tam Hai Island

The wind that crosses Tam Hải is salty, and the water around the island lies still. It is a small island, and it has kept the rhythm of a fishing village.

Tam Hải is not a loud place. There are no rows of stalls and no loudspeakers playing thumping music. The people here are fishermen, and their community does little trade. Their lives turn around the boat, the net and the fishing season.

At the edge of the waves lies the stone beach of Bàn Than. Big boulders sit close against one another, their surfaces black and glossy, as if they had been polished with wax. The name is no accident. Seen up close, the stone is as dark as coal, and than is the Vietnamese word for coal. When the sea draws back, every crack between the rocks holds a small, clear pool.

Waves breaking on these stones sound quite unlike waves on sand. The sound is denser and louder, like the sea clapping its hands.

Life in this fishing village does not hide itself. Nets dry along the fences. Small boats are pulled up onto the sand, and children run barefoot down narrow lanes that have no names. People on the island are used to visitors from far away, and the rhythm of their days has not changed because of them.

In the morning the fishermen go out to sea while it is still dark. In the afternoon they come back with the holds of their boats full of fish. At night the island grows so quiet that the sound of the waves from the Bàn Than side carries all the way back.

Sunset on Tam Hải has a red of its own. As the sun sinks toward the horizon, the light spreads gold, then red, then violet over the water. The Bàn Than stones change with it. They are no longer black. They turn the color of bronze and of vermilion.