The road, raised on an embankment, cuts straight through the Vietnamese countryside. On the right are yellowish green fields with grazing cattle here and there, and a few scattered houses. In the far distance a row of mountains frame everything in, and up above pure white clouds tower majestically in the clear blue sky. To the left the square pools of the rice paddies are almost indistinguishable from the river that curves it’s way through the landscape; old barges that look too big to fit between the rice paddies floating lazily by. In the middle distance the karst cliffs rise dramatically out of the fields, their grey walls forming the frame on this side. Above them dark clouds cover the sun, their presence a foreboding of coming rains. A few rays  of light manage to penetrate the cloud cover, shining down on the landscape below, like the light of God.