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Published: January 30th 2012
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Girl with Kite
I took this travelling at 60kmh on the back of the back. Not bad... The next day we were back on the bike and headed deeper into the highlands, this time to check out some of the minority villages on the way and offer a chance for me to learn a bit about the history of the area and how people make a living there. Quang recounted a little of his life also for me and of his family. His father had moved to the South before the Viet Nam war and was an officer stationed out of then, Saigon. His Uncle remained in the North and was a General in the Viet Cong. A family feud ensued as brothers essentially battled each other across enemy lines, but thankfully lived to tell the tale. Quang was only about 11 in the war and remembered that everyone was so poor they could barely afford to eat; not like today where food and water are aplenty in Viet Nam (after the war Viet Nam actually became the third poorest nation in the World if you can believe that!). In his 20’s Quang joined the Vietnamese army as a nurse and fought the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and sent a few years stationed in Laos.
Our first
Rickety Bridge
Quang and I pulled over at a small minority village and I took a walk into the forest to check out the river and mountains. stop was a minority village about 50km South of Kham Duc. Up a forest road the people there live from the land. In the day the men are supposed to hunt, while the women tend to the fields, home and children. The reality is a little more stark as the men tend to play Vietnamese billards and sit around drinking rice wine and beer all day thanks to Government subsidies meant for maintenance on their homes – very lazy indeed. I took a walk through the village down a forest path to a small river, over a very rickety wooden bridge before joining in with the locals at billards (I sucked).
Deeper into the Central Highlands towards Kontum, the landscape changes dramatically as the lush green of the rainforest is cleared for agriculture. On the mountainside people here (relocated from the coastal regions to help the ethnic minorities) grow rice and taro. There are many small towns here along the way and people literally stop and stare at you as you pass by, not used to seeing foreigners. Just South of a small town called Dak Glei on the Ho Chi Minh trail was a minority village near where
Rickety Bridge River
A bit of false colour but I'm just learning how to use my camera. the French had been stationed. Over 100 years ago the French 'invaders' had mingled with the locals (for some sexy time) and spread their Gaelic seed. To this day the French influence is evident in the children that are born in this village as some of the kids have white skin and blonde hair. They were extremely poor, some with no clothes or shoes so I dished out a bag of sweets I’d bought in the morning for them to eat. Homes in the village were mainly made from wood, bamboo and mud although on the fringes of the village Government grants were being used to construct more sturdy homes with metal roofs.
A little further into the mountains we reached Cha Noi near to which was another minority village. When I turned up all the kids were in school and a few of them came out to greet me (one literally jumped into my arms and started pinching my nose and pulling my hair). Here the local community congregate in large thatched community shelters, where all activities from eating to praying to marriage take place. The kids had a pet monkey which they chased around the shelter and
The Main Road to Kontum
Seriously, this narrow path is the main Ho Chin Minh trail from Kham Duc to Kontum... would amazed to see themselves on my camera once I’d taken a few photo’s.
The afternoon was spent cruising down the Ho Chi Minh trail through the valleys (Ca Nhay) with a brief stop in Dak To to see a war memorial there. Quang also took me to a number of different plantations to see how the locals farmed coffee and rubber. At one stop off there were a bunch of Vietnamese kids playing football by a rubber plantation. I kicked off my shoes and joined in, scoring two goals and helping my team to a 5-2 drubbing. By the end of the game we had quite a crowd as local people on their way home to Kontum had stopped off to watch.
When we arrived in Kontum it was early evening so we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed to the river for a beer. Food was unbelievably cheap here with two beef noodle soups at just over a dollar and it was really great. Quang was understandably tired after a marathon day on the bike so he called it a night. I fancied staying up a bit longer so I grabbed my book and
Into the Central Highlands
The landscape changes from forest into more arable pastures. Ho Chin Minh ordered city dwellers to move to the mountains to help farm the land. headed to a bar just on the corner of my road by the riverside. It looked like a lively place and was banging out some music (if you could call it that).Vietnamese soft rock and power ballards are an acquired taste. I ordered a beer and spent a few hours just chilling trying not to catch the prying eyes of the other people in the bar clearly fascinated by a foreigner in their domain. A few more beers down and a bunch of Westerners turned up – a few Dutch guys and an English girl Roz. We all got chatting and the beer started flowing. Roz was working in a local orphanage and invited me over the following day, which was handy as that was part of the next day’s itinerary anyway. This way though I would get to sit in on a small part of the class. Once midnight loomed it was time to depart, I had an early start with Quang the next day.
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