A sunny afternoon watching Quay Son
Cao Bang's mountains and rivers have an ancient and charming beauty. The land is high but flat. The mountains are undulating but round and low. The rivers are winding and meandering but like to flow gently. These mountains and rivers have carved a unique brocade picture, making Cao Bang different from other lands in the Northwest.
At the end of November, even though there have been several monsoons, the golden sunshine still generously pours honey from the immense jar of blue sky. In this mountainous region, far from the earth and the sky, if there is no sunshine, it is fine, but when there is sunshine, it must be golden and the sky must be a deep blue without a single cloud.
On the late-ripening terraced fields of Trung Khanh, the golden carpet is even brighter in the sunlight, highlighting the Tay stilt houses with only the brown-black roofs sticking out. The terraced fields here are also flat and low, with only a few blocks stacked on top, and the blocks are much larger than in other places.
However, the ripe rice still covers most of the stilt houses, because the stilt houses are built on lower ground. Just looking at the stilt houses of the Tay people, you know that they are near rivers and streams because the Tay people like to settle near water sources, like to take advantage of the water power to build water wheels to pound rice, like to eat fish...
In this area of Trung Khanh, the places where the Quay Son River appears are where people live. However, because of its winding structure, the Quay Son River has a very mysterious and unpredictable water course. It is right in front of you, but after a few more knife throws, it disappears behind the trees or cliffs. So its appearance is also very unusual.
Quay Son’s hide-and-seek game had unintentionally created breathtakingly beautiful scenes. It was a secluded coastal area, with flat grassy fields as far as the eye could see, a little lower down was a clear, murmuring stream of water, a little higher up were bamboo bushes, bushes with broad, axe-like tops, or a few mountains eroded by wind and rain like the nipples of mountain girls.
The wide banks are used for farming and building houses, while the narrow banks are left free of grass and used as grazing grounds for buffalo, cows, and horses. For the wanderer, the grazing grounds along Quay Son are fragments of paradise, hidden here, beyond the reach of the masses.
Taking a beautiful piece of grazing cattle, a tent was erected, creating a fortress for the wandering group who were busy lighting an alcohol stove to make tea and coffee, or lying and basking in the sun on the green grass that still smelled of cattle, or soaking in the sweet Quay Son water that had not yet cooled enough to make them stiff.
The wandering crowd, like Quay Son, accidentally came here, fell in love with this paradise, stayed for a few moments to live life to the fullest but then left, leaving that shore in regret and a bit of hesitation, perhaps one day they would meet again. Once they left, they could not remember the way in.
Diligently flowing water and clouds
Quay Son in Cao Bang has no upstream or downstream, it is simply a river to visit in the true sense. Quay Son originates from the mountainous area of Tinh Tay district (Guangxi province, China), then flows south, to Ngoc Con commune (Trung Khanh district, Cao Bang province) and is located in Vietnam territory.
From here, Quay Son flows in the Southeast direction, to the South of Dinh Phong commune and turns East, Northeast to Dam Thuy commune and then turns Southeast again. Here, Quay Son encounters the change in height of the rocky terrain, creating the famous Ban Gioc Waterfall in the border area.
In this area, the East bank of Quay Son belongs to China, while the West bank belongs to Dam Thuy commune (Trung Khanh district, Cao Bang). Quay Son is also the natural border between Vietnam and China, with landmark number 836 located at the midpoint of the main face of Ban Gioc waterfall.
Quay Son only "roamed" 49km on Vietnamese territory, but it managed to create a flock of white dragons in Ban Gioc, sometimes bravely tumbling on the surface of the blue river, sometimes leisurely letting white silk strips dry in the border sun and wind.
Quay Son also plays the role of a soft, graceful border with the beauty of a watercolor painting. The river also creates dreamy deserted beaches, providing shelter for those who want to escape from life for a while.
Quay Son stream also has some similarities with Nho Que stream in Dong Van (Ha Giang). Another name of Quay Son is Que Son, which is the name derived from the mountains planted with cinnamon trees through which the river flows. The color of Quay Son is also turquoise due to cobalt minerals.
But Quay Son's charm is very different, not a dragon flying in the air, not a sword slashing the abyss, but a winding appearance, wandering at the foot of the mountains, crossing deep valleys, pouring down rapids. In the river area flowing through Ngoc Con commune, dozens of waterfalls similar to Ban Gioc waterfall were created by Quay Son, only in miniature "bon sai" versions.
Wandering in a dream
Looking at Quay Son, one easily becomes daydreamy and fanciful. Sitting there, staring at the river gently nestled under the canopy of ancient trees or bamboo clumps, one really doesn’t know what to say. There is nothing to say, and there is nothing to say because of the impotence of words.
Looking from here into the distance, one can see the orphaned shape of an ancient chestnut tree, the ancestor of thousands of chestnut trees in Chongqing. This season, chestnuts have fallen and rolled around the base, waiting for people to pick them up and bring them to Quay Son bank to roast, giving off a light aroma and a fatty, pale yellow core. Braised chestnuts with Dam Thuy duck are truly a perfect match.
On the Quay Son River, which was dreaming in the early morning mist, suddenly the shadow of a boat casting a fishing net appeared. That dreamy scene seemed both real and illusory, but the delicious taste of the fish living in the heart of Quay Son was very real, very hard to forget once tasted.
The aroma of the piece of agarwood fish - just hearing the name makes you feel fragrant, right? - has made Quay Son famous, as well as the green dam fish, anh vu fish, fried fish... of other rivers in the Northwest. It is very rare and lucky to taste a piece of agarwood fish cooked with sour bamboo shoots.
The strong yet gentle flow of Quay Son also creates another romantic scene with hundreds of water wheels built along the banks. The Tay people have long known how to exploit the water power of Quay Son to pound rice, to bring water from the river to terraced fields more than ten meters high.
The bamboo-wooden wheel kept turning with a perpetual motion machine, bringing water into the trough, and when it was full, the wooden pestle as big as a human thigh would stand upside down, pour out all the water in the trough and slowly pound it into the mortar. Just like that, the sounds of thump, thump, thump echoed in the wilderness.
