Go to the Western region of Nghe An to reap a sky full of dreams and clouds

I can say that I have just fulfilled a dream of my life. The dream seems so far-fetched, it will make others laugh, but for me it is so sacred. And I have lived days of happiness to the point of astonishment, the echoes of which will surely follow me to the future. It turns out, it is very simple, I just need to sit on the back of a motorbike, hold the shoulder of my trusted companion, and travel the distance from Vinh city to Ky Son. I go to harvest the clouds. I have been lost in the clouds, as I once dreamed…

Want to blend in with the clouds and mountains

One morning I woke up, suddenly feeling the small city, my small life. I whispered to my companion: "I crave to smell the grass. I crave to be in the middle of the green sky. I crave to let my shoes run on the deserted road. And I crave the feeling of wanting to blend into the blue clouds on the mountain top." And so, I was sitting on the back of a motorbike of a person who gave me a feeling of absolute trust and peace. The days of late Autumn and early Winter were so strange. They were not as fresh and green as Spring, not as proud and brilliant as Summer, nor as gentle, soft, dreamy as Autumn, not as cold and lonely as Winter. I don't know what to say about these days. I only know that they were days full of turmoil, full of immense anxiety, lingering, drifting through human life, like clouds...

I slept fitfully in a small hotel in Muong Xen town, a sleep that was not complete because of the excitement of "cloud hunting" the next morning. My excitement was indeed rewarded when my companion stepped on the gas to enter the road leading to Nam Can - Ky Son. The road was winding and winding, the further I went, the more it seemed to touch the mountains, the further I went. I was surprised and bewildered when the car started going uphill, around the bends, the curved waist of the pass. Oh my, a misty sky? Mist or clouds? Mist or clouds? Despite my cheers, my companion continued to step on the gas, the car quickly carried people into the enchanting floating crowd. The whole road up and down the pass, there were only a few cars. Suddenly, people felt so small. I shivered, feeling unsteady and floating. The mist filled my eyelids, and I could taste the salty, nostalgic, and distant taste… And if the large, rough, and warm hand hadn’t suddenly reached down and grabbed my small, trembling hand that was tightly gripping my waist, I don’t know where the vagueness that resided in my soul would have drifted to, amidst the white mist and clouds of the border region.

There is a white cloud area

In my youthful dreams, there was a boy with skin as white as clouds, who often wandered in this valley. The boy who once called my name in the middle of a lonely night in the mountains, in my memories, and promised that he would definitely take me to such a place one day, a place where clouds covered the mountains and hills, a place where clouds drifted in the sunlight. Youth often gets lost, like the heart that often cannot control its own beat. The boy with skin as white as clouds has become something, fading in my soul, sleeping peacefully in my heart. But what about the promise, what about the dream of a white cloud? They are still there, guiding and comforting me every time I find this city too crowded and I too small. The memories will be settled properly, when the dream is continued and turned into reality by love.

Yes, there are mysterious sounds like a salvation. There are mysterious colors like a pure pristine land. The sound of wind and the color of clouds in the borderland make my heart flutter. It seems that, if I just stand on tiptoe, I can disappear, blend into the stream of clouds, then disappear into the color of sunlight, disappear into the sacred fairy tale form, disappear into this life carrying the scent and color of migration. The bare feet given by parents, owe a life. Stepping into a life with a thousand paths, bustling with a thousand words, I owe life a silence.

I had time to repay my debt to life with a joyful silence when my companion placed me in the middle of a white cloud sky, on a mountain pass in a village of Tay Son commune whose name we forgot to ask.

My silence, contains the eternal nostalgia of "mountains looking at clouds, clouds looking at mountains sadly" (Hai Van, Pham Ngoc Lu)

The silence is so sad that the falling dust stings the eyes. Which dust is tormenting the tilted life? Which dust gently falls white in the endless dance of the clouds and mountains or the passionate heart of people.