Kontum – the rites and rongs

The Central Highlands in Vietnam is a raised area of plateaus and rivers, mountains and jungles in the southern central area of the country, on the borders of Cambodia and Laos.

Traditionally it was a very poor area, but the realisation that coffee could be grown there – Vietnam is now the world’s second-largest coffee exporter – and that cassava was useful for more than just eating its roots as yams, in particular for bio-ethanol, has brought more money, although not great amounts of it, into the region.

The central highlands start about a 3 hour drive north of Saigon in the Cat Tien national park. Just north of there is the delightful town of Dalat. A couple of hundred kilometres north brings you to Buon Me Thuat, which is the heart of the coffee industry, and another couple of hundred brings you to Pleiku. Kontum is about 50 kilometres north of Pleiku.

For a long time Kontum was the end of the road. A road took you from the south to Buon Me Thuot, then north to Pleiku, and east down the mountains to the coastal town of Quy Nhon. Kontum was a dead end along a rough road to the north of Pleiku.

 Few people had a reason to go there. During the War it suffered some of the worst battles. The Ho Chi Minh trail, which was actually a maze of roads, supply routes, walking paths and bicycle tracks, all of which were carved out to provide supplies to the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army in the south, went through this area. The Viet Cong were largely supplied through these highlands.

The region around Kontum was the scene of major fighting. The first battle of Dak To, about 40 kilometres north, was fought in November 1967, and the second in 1972. A couple of kilometres south of there is Charlie Hill, where Colonel Minh from the South Vietnamese army refused to surrender and endured 6 weeks of a siege, leading to the deaths of 140 of his troops as well as his own.

In recent times a decent road has been built north from Pleiku to Kontum. It continues on linking Kontum to the north. From Kontum a second road goes north-west to Laos, and a third north-east to the coast.

If Kontum is no longer isolated, it is still very quiet. The only acknowledgement of tourism is the new and incongruous Indochine Hotel, which showed no significant signs of life while I was there. I saw no other tourists until I had a late lunch at a local restaurant, where there were 4 French backpackers.

Kontum has mountains around it and sits on the pleasant Dakbla River. The town and the region are dominated by the many villages of mountain tribes. The town has central markets that are good fun.

It also has an extensive living history of the Roman Catholic church and its numerous traditional rites and rituals. There is a large old church and a little further along the old largely mostly Kontum cathedral. Both buildings have surrounding gardens and buildings, although those of the Cathedral are in much better condition. There is also an old seminary, which as built by the French about 80 years ago, and 2 catholic orphanages.

The hill tribes are known as Montagnards, a French word meaning “people of the mountains”. There are 54 hill tribes in Vietnam, comprising about 10% of the population. The most common in Kontum is the Ba Na. The Montagnards are ethnically unrelated to the Viets and speak different languages. They are not bound by borders and range across the highlands into Laos and Cambodia. They have often been treated as second-class citizens, and worse, by the Viets. Most are poor and health is a major issue.

Their traditional houses are on stilts, rather like the old Queenslanders, with an open dirt floor underneath for animals and storage and keeping the house cool. An early form of air conditioning. On the living floor there is an outdoor balcony, and inside is one large room. At one end is an area for sleeping which will be curtained off with rough material, and the rest is for cooking and eating, and for the men to sit around and drink beer. There is a romantic side to this, but for children it is not conducive to study or to privacy.

One of the features of the hill-tribes in Kontum is the Rong, which is a community meeting place. They have unmistakable very tall and steep thatched roofs, which I am told are built without using any nails. The night before I went to Kontum I had read that in the village of Kot Kor a large new rong had been opened the previous weekend to replace one that had accidentally been destroyed by fire a little over a year ago. I did not know where it was, as the village was not named on my basic map, but one of the people I spoke to in Kontum told me that it was close. “Go straight down here”. “Is it far?” “No, no. Just down here.”

I went where I had been directed to go and came across a rong in a very quiet, narrow part of a village. The rong was very impressive but not large by rong standards and obviously had not been opened the previous week. The wrong rong (couldn’t resist that).

A short distance further I asked someone else. I was told to go straight ahead and turn right. It was 30 kilometres. “Are you sure? Thirty kilometres?” “No. Not that. Sorry. I don’t know. Not far. Two kilometres. You can walk”. Someone else said something about a red light.

I got back on to what is loosely called the main road, found the red light – there is only one set of traffic lights this far out – and walked another kilometre or so to where I saw a much more splendid rong.

“Kot Kor? No, this is not it. Kot Kor is further on. Next to the bridge where the road crosses the river. How far? Maybe 2 kilometres”.

It took a long walk on a hot day to find it, but there were endless smiles and waves along the way from the very young to the very old. I found Kot Kor. It is splendid. It is worth every step of the walk.

The world’s biggest propaganda poster

You can have a snooze in a hammock anywhere

A nice quiet private place for the kids to have their lunchtime nap

Express transport

Rong roof Kot Kor

Rong door Kot Kor

The brand new rong at Kot Kor

Typical rong house. I was invited into the one room upstairs by a very insistent man, only to find out that he and his brothers had been ripping into the beers for several hours. It was then 11.30am. I politely declined.

The cattle need to be moved before kick off

She was delighted to get out of her hammock, sell me an iced tea for 50 cents, and pose for photos. Great fun.

Rong at Thang Loi

Family yam peeling

The family jewels

Rong at Kontum village

Ba Na village

Shop owner in Ba Na village. She has probably run the shop for 100 years.

Weaving in a Ba Na village

Cathedral of Kontum

St George never realised he’d be on display in Kontum on a French church.

The market organiser. “Photo her… then her… then her… now me”

The most fun I’ve had all day.

This is the place to buy your veggies with a smile

Tea with a view

Nice place for a cuppa