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On the outskirts of Lai Chau, we stopped by a small
hamlet early in the morning. A Hmong woman with her baby girl on
her lap was stoking the fire beneath a half-barrel of freshly cooked
rice whiskey. I couldn’t resist a couple of shots of the warm, milky
concoction on a chilly morning. Nearby was a “factory” with several
young Hmong women surrounding a couple of sewing machines and making
clothes the modern way. All Hmong women know how to embroider, with
or without a machine. The Hmong women spend much of the year making
new outfits to wear during the Tet holiday period. Each one had
long, glistening black hair, bundled on top in a spacious bird’s
nest. They also each had a sparkling gold upper incisor that beamed
like a star from their already incandescent, ivory smiles. At my
request, one of them let her hair loose. It fell to the ground in
a curtain of burnished black, a wig maker’s dream.
Pac Bo was about an hour’s drive from Cao Bang.
A path was built of rock and concrete on both sides of Lenin Stream,
with bridges connecting the two sides, forming a loop. It is a small
park of indeterminate boundaries, a sanctuary of sorts, complete
with markers dedicated to various events occurring in the life of
Ho Chi Minh and the “people’s struggle.” I followed what appeared
to be a group of schoolgirls about 100 yards in front of me, thinking
they were probably on an educational pilgrimage, an opportunity
for them to commune with the spirit of Uncle Ho. I stopped by a
historical marker with Giap’s name and the year 1975 prominently
inscribed on the stone. It was apparently dedicated to Ho Chi Minh
in remembrance of reunification—he died in 1969, so he missed the
event. The stream was flanked by low-hanging trees arched over the
water, shading the translucent jade pools and the narrow, percolating
straits. Minnow-sized fish darted in and out of the shadows in the
deeper spots. I heard the cackling of young girls rising up the
vertical side of Mt. Marx, so I followed a freshly pruned path in
their direction. After the path ran its course, I found myself laced
into a forest straitjacket of nettle-covered vines and thorn shrub
with the stick of a stiletto. Quickly, I shed my navigational wings
of pride, shouted for the schoolgirls in English, then sat down
for a rest. After about ten minutes a young girl appeared with her
panga in hand and cut a little opening for me while laughing
at my odd dilemma. They were not schoolgirls. They were woodcutters,
chipping away at the mature forest in Uncle Ho’s sanctuary. One
pointed in the direction of where I had started my ascent and then
followed me about halfway down the slope until she was sure I was
no longer a danger to myself and could continue on the simple loop
to see the cave.
It was a short walk up a well-marked path to the
cave. Hidden behind a tumble of rocks and beneath the dense vegetation
of the forest were two openings. I entered through the arched rictus
on the right since it had steps carved into the rock and a natural
anteroom presumably used by a well-armed sentry. Uncle Ho’s bed
was balanced precariously on several boulders, the inner sanctum.
I sat outside on one of the boulders with a view through the trees
of Lenin Stream below. With the woodcutters out of earshot now,
the song and flutter of birds reverently punctuated the hush of
the forest. I enjoyed a place and a vicarious moment of history:
a chapter from the chrysalis period in the evolution of Vietnam’s
quest for nationalism.
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