Stairway to Heaven (or the pit for old, dead people)

We decided to start our weekend with a trip to Thy Son, one of the five Marble Mountains just outside of Hoi An.  The mountains are in fact filled with marble, and at the base is a village that specializes in marble sculpture (although all of the marble is now imported from China because they realize if they hack all of the marble out of the mountains, there will be no more mountains to visit and no more tourists to buy the sculptures).
Anyway, Thy Son is a picturesque, craggy, mountain topped with pagodas and filled with tunnels and caves.  I couldn't stop repeating "Tiki Tiki Tembo No Sa Rembo Chari Bari Ruchi Pit Peri Pembo" under my breath.  Around each corner I half expected to find an old man with a ladder running to a well in search of a lost boy. 

The setting was stunning.  The stairs were shocking.  Our guidebook had warned us that the initial ascent would be brutal (a fact I neglected to mention to the kids in anticipation of the fact that they wouldn't really need a reason to whine before they really had a reason to whine).  We took a long look at the first 57,000 steps and bought two bottles of water.  We took a whining break in the shade before we started the ascent to the first pagoda, the Linh Ong Pagoda.  "Kung Fu Panda" came to mind as we wheezed our way up the steep stone steps and flung ourselves through the gate at the top. 

Desperately in need of fresh air, we were met with a haze of incense (and its equally pesky vendor) that would persist throughout the morning.  Behind the temple was the first set of caves.  A very small, old woman with black teeth frightened John into buying some incense before we entered the caves, and then she attached herself to us for the next thirty minutes.  She showed the kids how to bow three times before placing the incense in the burner in front of the lucky Buddha.  They were obedient (fearing that she might smile at them with those teeth).  Naturally there was a struggle over the lighter.  Our guide wanted to light the incense for us.  The boys were having none of that.  Where there is fire, they are in charge.  No pesky little lady in possession of a Zippo is going to take away their torching fun.  They wrangled it away from her and perfected their lighter skills on a bundle of incense.  Then she taught them how to shake it "just so" to put the flame out but keep the incense burning.  We prayed to every Buddha that we could find in every nook and cranny before finally escaping from the incense infested cave gasping for fresh air and weeping from the smoke.

This was just the beginning.  There were more stairs and more temples and more Buddhas.  There were more caves and more tunnels.  It was really an explorer's wonderland (apart from all those stairs and the relentless yellow orb in the sky). At one point we emerged from a picturesque temple-lined pathway to find a drink vendor with tables and umbrellas.  We gladly plopped down and enjoyed her offerings.  We were speculating about what the perfectly round tunnel cave off to the left held, when our hostess came over and pointed at the cave, "This way to heaven,” she said.  Once she left, Foster muttered, "They just say that because so many old people die dragging themselves up all of these stairs that they kick them into that cave and say it's the way to heaven.  It makes everyone feel better."  We watched a few more explorers head into the cave destined for heaven, and we began to notice that none of them came out.

Stairway to Heaven

Naturally we had to see what heaven held for us.  It was hell.  More stairs through tight little sweaty tunnels.  Up and up they went.  We climbed.  We sweated. We sucked wind.  Eventually we popped out a hole at the top and found ourselves on top of the mountain with a beautiful view of the coast.  I wish I could describe the cool wind whipping through my hair, and the sharp scent of the fresh air that I gulped in.  Sadly, it would be a lie.  That yellow orb was still scorching.  My nostrils still stung from incense, and the only sharp scent was the sweaty odor of the other folks who had just popped into heaven with us.  Heavenly indeed.

We beat a path down the steps to hell as fast as we could.  At the bottom we found the day's real treat: the Huyen Khong Cave.  This one was like an enormous underground cathedral out of an Indiana Jones movie.  Light streamed in through a hole at the top to reveal an altar and various Buddhas and shrines scattered throughout the cave.  Vines seemed to dangle from the sky, and a single stalactite dripped from high above.  The rays of light shining in the darkness were so penetrating that I half expected one of them to illuminate the Holy Grail when the sun reached a particular point in the sky.  We didn't stick around long enough to see if this mysterious cave held the key to the secrets of the world, but it was a magical experience nonetheless.

Feeling all spelunked out, we headed back down the 57,000 steps to the village below where we listened to the screaming of saws as dozens of competing shops carved marble into sculptures.  We resisted the urge to purchase a twenty-foot happy Buddha for our Jericho garden and just rubbed his belly in hopes of sharing his mirth.  Then, inspired by our visit, we all went home and brushed our teeth for a very long time.