By Linh Nguyễn
Special Features Correspondent
In a remote corner of Gia Lai province, where the mist clings to ancient lava plateaus like a child holding its mother’s hand, there lies a rock that defies both geology and silence. They call it Hòn Đá Mẹ Quăn — “The Curled Mother Stone,” but the elders know it simply as “The One That Speaks.”
Hòn Đảo Ma Quái có sức hút lớn với khách thích mạo hiểm, nhiếp ảnh gia, và người yêu huyền thoại. Lợi thế:
At first glance, it looks like an accident of nature: a massive, curling basalt formation resembling a woman hunched in eternal grief, her arms wrapped around a smaller boulder — the “child.” But touch its surface on a humid afternoon, and legend says you’ll feel a faint vibration, like a lullaby humming through volcanic rock. hon dao ma quai thuyet minh
Locals don’t call it “đá” (stone). They call it “bà” — an honorific reserved for grandmothers and spirits.
Hòn Đá Mẹ Quăn sits at the confluence of two seasonal streams near the village of Plei Tơngia. Its name breaks down into three evocative parts: Hòn đá (stone), Mẹ (mother), Quăn (curled, bent, or twisted). Geological surveys note the stone’s unusual spiral striations — rare for columnar basalt — but no report explains why the rock’s magnetic signature fluctuates unpredictably at dusk.
“The stone explains itself,” says Ajar H’Rinh, 68, a Rơ Ngao ethnic priestess. “You don’t need science when the rock speaks. It tells you when the rain will come. It tells you when a child is lost in the forest. And sometimes… it tells you stories of war.” The Whispering Stone of the Central Highlands: Unraveling
I visited the stone on a moonless night with permission from the village head. At 11:37 PM, I pressed my ear to the “child” stone.
For twenty minutes: nothing but stream noise and insects.
Then, faintly — or perhaps my mind creating meaning — a low hum. Not words. But a frequency I felt in my molars. My guide, a young Rơ Ngao man named Rok, whispered: “She’s explaining how to find water in the dry season. Listen for the second tone.” In a remote corner of Gia Lai province,
I heard no second tone. But my voice recorder, when played back later, captured a 7-second anomaly: a sound like a woman humming a lullaby backwards. Audio engineers called it “wind and microphonic cable noise.” I called it… possible. But not impossible.
Maybe some stones really do have stories to tell. And maybe, just maybe, a curled mother still speaks for those who were never given a voice.