Trong Mai Rocks of Sam Son

Two huge slabs of rock stand on a hillside above the sea at Sầm Sơn, balanced so unsteadily that they look ready to fall. Some places draw people neither by great size nor by an age of millions of years, but by one plain puzzle. Here the puzzle is how the stones stay up.

That is the riddle of the Trống Mái Rocks.

The rocks lie on the Trường Lệ range, a coastal range south of the city of Sầm Sơn in Thanh Hóa Province. Vietnam's national tourism authority describes the cluster as three large slabs arranged entirely by nature. A broad, flat slab lies below as a base. Above it sit two separate blocks. One has a pointed head, and people have likened it to a rooster. The smaller block facing it has been likened to a hen. That is how the name Trống Mái came about. It is a folk name given for the shapes, not a geological name or a scientific term.

The rocks are special not only for their odd forms but for their unsteady stance. The two upper blocks look as if they are about to topple, yet they have stood firm for hundreds of years. The Trường Lệ range is a coastal range with a special-use forest, and it has been recognized as a national relic since 1962. The whole area falls within a landscape protection zone of Thanh Hóa.

The people of Sầm Sơn do not see these two slabs only as stone. They have tied a story of faithful love to them, and the story comes in several versions. One tells of a poor married couple. After a flood of rising sea, the two turned into a pair of birds, and then into stone, so that they could stay forever with their village and the sea. Another tells of a young fisherman from Trường Lệ village who rescued a girl thrown onto the shore by the waves. The girl turned out to be a fairy maiden, and the two turned to stone to remain together forever.

These are versions of a folk legend, not historical events that have been verified. The meaning, though, is clear. The people of Sầm Sơn chose this cluster of rocks as a symbol of love, and of attachment to a homeland by the sea.

For that reason Sầm Sơn holds a Love Festival every year at the Trống Mái Rocks Park. It offers arts and cultural events on the theme of love, a contest of family meals and many other community activities. The rocks are no longer just a scenic spot. They have become a place where the people of Sầm Sơn bring what they treasure most.

The Trường Lệ range holds more than the rocks. A national website on nature conservation and biodiversity describes it as a range with a special-use forest, fine scenery and rich plant and animal life. On the range stand the Độc Cước Temple, the Cô Tiên Temple and the Tô Hiến Thành Temple. Each stop on the range is a different layer of the story of Sầm Sơn: the layer of natural scenery, the layer of belief and worship, and the layer of folk legend.

Yet the rocks are not immortal in any absolute sense. The newspaper VnExpress once passed on information from the authorities that natural weathering has made the hen rock sway, and that it has slowly shifted toward the outer edge of the base block. Both stones still stand firm, but they are also changing bit by bit, to the rhythm of wind and sea.

Standing at the foot of the Trường Lệ range and looking up, there are two tilted blocks against the sky and the blue sea. That is why the people of Sầm Sơn chose this place as their symbol of love. It is not because the stone lasts forever. It is because, tilting and shifting as they do, the two stones still face each other, through hundreds of years of sea wind.