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Published: January 30th 2012
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Wooden Church in Kontum
Kontum is famous for wood sculptures and this wooden church was built in 1911 by the French. Kontum is mainly famous for its wood sculptures and for being a main staging post for the French during their time in Viet Nam. Here the main religion is Christian and everywhere in the town are churches, but more often than not you will see a Buddhist temple next door. One church in particular, a wooden church, was built by the French in 1911. The mix of Christianity with Khmer and ethnic minorities is very evident here in the carvings and stained glass windows. Inside the church you can see elephants pulling logs, a community shelter and Jesus blessing the fisherman.
Out the back of the church is the orphanage, home to over 200 kids from new-borns to 18 years old. The previous night I’d met Roz from London, a volunteer teacher there and she’d said to stop by to see the kids. When I arrived they were learning their salutations, before heading off to conventional school to learn subjects other than English. The orphanage was huge and had dorms for all of the children, a nursery, medical centre, pond and play area. Roz was telling me that when she arrived with a Canadian girl a few weeks before that
Inside the Wooden Church
This stained glass window combines Christianity with every day Vietnamese life. See the elephant pulling the log, the fisherman being bless ed by Jesus and the community shelter. the children had no shoes. Roz went to the market the next day to buy as many pairs of cheap shoes as she could to make sure the children had at least that. The poverty here is quite stark and although the children may not be able to afford some of the basics like shoes and new clothes, they do at least have food and plenty of clean water.
The road from Kontum to Pleiku was shorter than I’d ridden the past few days but it gave me time to stop off and explore some of the ethnic minority villages on the way. There was one just immediately outside Kontum where we pulled over and took a walk through. All the men were out hunting while the women were all down by the only water supply for the village, washing, bathing and tending to the rice paddies. I also met a lady who was harvesting rice and she showed me how they get the rice husks off the straw before grinding the husks to get the rice. Even the children muck in here and froma very early age. The girls were helping the women with washing and cleaning whilst
Kontum Orphanage
I took a trip here after Roz invited me the night before. The kids are learning their salutations. some of the younger boys were foraging in the local area with machetes and sickles. It’s quite an eye opener and makes you realise how much Western kids are molly-coddled.
A little further down the road I was treated(?) to a rather bizarre display that was clearly manufactured for tourists but seems to prevail. I met this very small and old Vietnamese guy who used to play in the army band when the French occupied Kontum. While he spoke no English he was fluent in French so I managed to amble by with my broken Franglais. Outside he had a bamboo musical instrument, kind of like a xylophone. He jumped to his feet and grabbed the bongers (that is actually the professional term) while his grandkids tended to the drum. He bashed out a few tunes (no Oasis, Losing my Religion or Stairway to Heaven) and then it was my turn. Sadly pre-GCSE music class taught me many things but not music, so I resorted to the age old classic – chopsticks. He seemed to love it as he was dancing around, smiling and laughing (presumably at the gigantic foreigner failing miserably at making a melody.
The rest
Minority Village in Kontum
A mix of the old mud and wood and the new concrete and metal. of the morning and early afternoon was spent travelling just soaking up the sunshine and scenery before arriving at Pleiku. There’s not much to do in Pleiku itself despite being the biggest city in the Central Highlands. Its main function is to serve as a base to farm the very fertile surrounding countryside, thanks to the old volcano that used to reside at the city’s heart. Nowadays the volcano crater has filled in with water and is a large lake with a fairly impressive backdrop of the mountains. There’s a nice little rotunda of sorts at the end of the main path where a birthday celebration was taking place when I arrived. There’s no tourism of any sort at the lake and the main activity is grabbing a pole as a make shift rod to go fishing. After a quick look and wander around I headed back to a road side shack for a coconut.
In the early evening and headed out to grab a quick bite to eat. On the way we walked past a pool hall and sensing the need to redeem my pride, I challenged Quang to a few games. I always play pool better with
Rice#2
Separating the husks from the stems. a beer in my hand (although only marginally and the effect is short lived) so it was only natural to order some’Ba Ba Ba’ (333). I was doing well, being 2-0 up when my luck took a turn for the worse. A few fouls and an accidental potting of the black drew us level. The last game was a marathon of tactical genius (or rather sheer fluke), but Quang pulled it out of the bag after I missed an easy black.
For food Quang took me to the most unlikely of places. What looked like a small reception area with some small plastic tables and chairs outside with people drinking Vietnamese coffee and green tea, was actually a very good (and cheap) restaurant. We walked through the reception area around the back and through a small corridor. We then ascended up a narrow stairway before climbing a ladder into the upper floor. Up there was a few rooms filled with metal chairs and tables and packed with people. They only served one dish here, beef. You got a griddle over a few hot coals, a plentiful supply of herbs and greens, several dips including chilies, fish sauce, tomato with
Rice#1
Before the husks are separated. something in it and some rice paper. Basically you grilled the beef yourself to your liking then made a big spring role. I think it was probably one of the best dishes I had in Viet Nam and a very unexpected surprise. I was absolutely stuffed afterwards.
Just sat behind us was a table of Vietnamese having a very rowdy celebration. One of the guys sat on the table caught my eye, rather unintentionally, but he took that as an opportunity to invite me to join them. Quang just sat there smiling as they bantered in very rapid Vietnamese and left me to it. I looked at him quizzically as I am sure I was getting myself involved with something that would end with a Vietnamese bride to be… Sure enough I was handed a shot of very strong rice wine followed by something that tasted like tequila and then was ‘cheers-ing’ Vietnamese style… “Mot, Hai, Ba, Yo! Hai Ba, Yo!, Hi, Ba, YO!!!!”, which basically means “1,2,3, Cheers, 2,3, Cheers, 2,3, CHEERS!” I caught a few snippets of a conversation between the Vietnamese host and Quang, something about age and married (typical!) before Quang leant over and told
Ethnic Minority Village
Traditional horse or buffalo drawn carts are still used here. me that the man at the table thought that I had a very prominent nose, one of prosperity and he was interested in seeing if I was married as his sister was of good marrying age and needed a husband. It turns out this was the initiation ceremony to see if I was a worthy husband, which apparently I was. Given she was a bit of a minger I opted to finish my drink, cheers one more time and hot-foot it out of their, Quang in tow, laughing his ass off.
As Pleiku was nothing more than a rest stop and despite its size there really was not much to do (or at least no time for adventure). I’d like to write something noteworthy of what happened here after dinner but we arrived late at night and only had time for a walk around the city through the night market although we did stop at a small roadside café – more like a shack to be honest with tarpin and metal as a roof, serving only cold green tea. No one spoke English, but I conversed through Quang with the little Vietnamese I did know, which was the usual
standard fare of how old I was and was I married (always age and married or single)!
As it had been another long day and I was feeling the after effects of the previous night’s drinking with Roz and the Dutch guys (why is it always the Dutch?) and the pre-marriage ceremony so I headed back to my room to watch a film and get an early night.
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