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Published: April 14th 2012
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Pleiku to Kon Tum On our way to Kon Tum we took in a couple of beautiful sites, the ride wasn't long and we had some opportunity to explore some backroads. The main road had been fairly busy with trucks and buses, and we passed through a stretch of a rubber plantation. The hills in the distance were as bleak as ever but we decided to seek out a lake marked on the map. The back road that took us there went through Tea and Coffee plantations dotted with happy Vietnamese ladies toiling in the fields. It was the first time we have seen tea growing and Kathryn was quite excited! We also passed a seemingly isolated Chinese temple. The lake was very quiet and almost a little boring but we were happy to see a body of water again. We had a couple of sponge cakes we'd bought earlier then headed on to Kontum.
Exploring Kontum Kon Tum is famous for it's minority or “Montagnard” villages and many tourists come here to experience homestays with one of the various tribes. The tribes still live fairly traditionally though it's easy to spot Western influences reshaping their lives and
ambitions; while Vietnamese influences destroy the opportunity to continue living as they have. TV, music, mobile phones and motorbikes all captivate the youth, devaluing the traditional signs of wealth; wine jars, gongs and livestock. Modern agriculture , motorised vehicles and tools are all changing their lifestyles. All the while the land around them is being bought and cleared for timber by the Vietnamese in the towns leaving no jungle for foraging.
We stayed here a couple of days. On the first day we booked a tour through the only show in town. We tried to find their office but, as we later found out, the road had been renumbered so there was a vegetable patch where we expected to find it!
After overcoming the difficulties booking a tour we were met by two young people; one turned out to be from the minority villages (Binh) and spoke excellent English, the other was a hungover Vietnamese student (Li) who barely spoke English and kept trying to Google Translate everything. I wasn't too pleased to have paid to give an English lesson. We later found out that the hugely helpful and knowledgeable tour guide, Binh, was paid only a fifth
of the fee we had handed over, big grrrr to the fat cats. We had a great day riding across the countryside visiting villages of a variety of tribes.
We saw many traditional Rong Houses; a community hall where, traditionally, all the young boys of the village slept at night and the village elder would provide an education of sorts. Many other important ceremonies and parties are centred about the hall and within them they have displayed Buffalo skulls (sacrificed for good luck), drums and wine jars. The size of the Rong house and the number of skulls and jars of wine inside denote the wealth of the village. A village with no Rong house is considered to have lazy men! Aside from these houses, the people were living just as we'd seen many people doing along the road to the Central Highlands; a small amount of agriculture around a wooden stilted long house, keeping chickens and pigs and carrying firewood in woven rucksacks. The three different tribes we visited all had slight variations on their traditions but in the end they mainly lived very similar lives. A couple of the villages we passed had now converted to the
Catholic church from their animistic beliefs (a decision made by the village leader), and one had a very grand church built.
The Jarai tribe keeps unusual graveyards hwere the family visits regularly to bring food to the deceased and keep the grave tidy. Traditionally, they carve many sculptures into wooden posts surrounding the grave which itself is covered by a small roof and contains many of the person's favourite possessions (e.g. TV or cigarettes). The grave is kept tidy and 'fed' for anything up to 10 years depending on the wealth of the family and the importance of the individual. Sadly, due to the lack of wood in the area now graves were defined by chicken wire.
As we passed through this village we noticed that they were having a wedding celebration. Our guide was reluctant to take us to it as she (and her guests) is always required to drink copious amounts of jar wine and she had become aware that she was developing an alcohol problem. We later found that drinking is becoming a serious problem for many minority people. In the end, we went anyway but managed to avoid staying for long and our guides
were very diligent at keeping away from the wine. The tribe were incredibly inviting but since it was already late afternoon there were a large number of jabbering drunks trying their best to make us understand. The wine was essentially vodka diluted with herbs and water and we were offered some traditional food to go with it which was tasty but rather fatty meat. After a few shots and sips of rice wine Kathryn happily stepped forward to dance to the Western guitar band's playing and she was accosted by a very friendly old lady who turned out to be the only Buddhist in the village. She apparently offered us a homestay with her but we couldn't understand at the time.
We were invited by Binh to join her and her close male friend, Vu, to attend a 5th birthday party after our tour. This invitation later extended to the following day filled with Karaoke and a heavy drinking session with her friends, a village dance show featuring Vu and friends, a short boat ride and a wander through some village land, a homestay at a local village and we had to put our feet down
before we were invited to two further days of drinking and festivities as we had to keep moving to stay on schedule! Talk about welcoming!
We had a great time but found it difficult to know when/whether we were expected to pay for things or add any value ourselves. We did spend some time teaching children a few simple songs in English (“How much is that doggy” and “If you're happy and you know it”!). The grandfather at the homestay was keen to practice his French and must have been a little disappointed to encounter our feeble knowledge of the language, but smiles all round seemed to keep the discussion going. We're not normally trinket or souvenir buyers but we were bombarded by a mixture of free and charged-for friendship bracelets and necklaces and found it impossible to refuse. We ended up buying one but this was accompanied by another six free bracelets!.
We struggled to leave the village the following day as our hosts were a little worse for wear after the karaoke but eventually made it back to Kontum for a interesting plate of vegetarian 'meat' imitation food which was rather tasty. It was a welcome
change from the packet noodles and fried eggs we'd lived on in the minority village.
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