Pleiku – Between the Dragons

Our time in Pleiku felt like standing between two ancient forces of the land.

On our first morning we travelled out of the city to Chu Đăng Ya, an extinct volcano rising quietly from the Central Highlands. The road wound through small villages and farmland before climbing toward the slopes of the crater. What was once a place of fire has long since softened into fertile soil, its rich volcanic earth now covered in crops and fields. At the summit an ancient tree stood like a silent guardian, watching over the crater that has witnessed countless seasons of sun, rain and turning stars.

Just a short distance away lies Biển Hồ, the deep volcanic lake often called the “Eyes of Pleiku.” Like the volcano, the lake is also the remnant of an ancient crater, but where one holds the memory of fire, the other holds water and depth. Walking out along the narrow strip of land that reaches between the two basins of the lake, I felt the calm stillness of the highlands settling around us. Pine forests leaned gently toward the water and a quiet serenity filled the air.

Yet as we left Pleiku the following morning something unexpected occurred.

In my inner vision I saw two dragons lift their heads from the landscape. One belonged to the lake itself, a deep water dragon resting beneath the still surface of Biển Hồ. The other felt older still, lying beneath the dormant volcano nearby. They did not appear dramatically or threaten our passage. Instead they simply acknowledged our presence, as though recognising that we were moving through their domain.

It felt like a moment of permission.

Two guardians of the highlands — one holding the memory of fire, the other the deep waters of the earth — granting safe passage along the path ahead.

From Pleiku the road began its long descent toward the coast. The journey wound through forests and mountain valleys, sometimes clinging precariously to narrow ridges where the land dropped steeply into deep ravines below. Trucks roared around blind corners and at times the road itself seemed barely wide enough to hold us, yet our driver navigated the twisting passes with calm confidence.

High in the mountains we stopped briefly at an old mission building where an antique map of Vietnam hung on the wall. Tracing the line of mountains running down the centre of the country, we realised we were following the very backbone of the land itself — the Trường Sơn Range. The ridges formed a long chain of peaks that looked uncannily like vertebrae along a spine.

Vietnamese mythology often describes the country as the body of a dragon descending into the sea, and standing there in the mountains it suddenly became clear how that image arose. The mountain range truly forms the dragon’s back, stretching from the highlands toward the northern sea.

Leaving Pleiku behind, we continued north along this living spine of the land.

Somewhere behind us the two ancient guardians remained — one beneath the volcano, holding the memory of fire, and the other beneath the waters of the lake.

Their quiet acknowledgement felt like a blessing for the road ahead.

The path now led toward the valley of temples hidden within the mountains of central Vietnam.

Toward Mỹ Sơn, where the dragon’s inner fire would awaken.