[monumentum]

Day #12: From Buon Ma Thuot to Pleiku (11-May-2010)
We couldn't get over the rice cake fever from yesterday, so breakfast today was also rice cake deliciously prepared with deep fried spring roll & that Vietnamese ham again. The portion was big & the price affordable. Sweet. Anyway, the 'Banh Cuon' refers to the rice cake thing.

Being all touristy, the shot in front of the BMT City monument was a must. So there I was being squinty & burnt but shamelessly having a photo taken of. A Vietnamese photographer who was hanging around the site offered to take it for me (Thanks (:), ok but just an advice from Chung, if non-photographers offer to take photos of you with your camera, DO hesitate about it. They might just run off with it, usually with an accomplice. This guy who took this photo below, had a Nikon DSLR slung around his neck, which probably cost more than my very camera, so it wasnt much of a concern for me in this case.

Even the showroom of the Trung Nguyen brand of Vietnamese coffee was surrounding with these coffee plants. They probably form fences of hedge around the building itself.

At the showroom there was a range of exhibits. Coffee beans. Weasel coffee. Coffee machines. Trung Nguyen range of products etc.

The weasel coffee is probably worth mentioning. Expensive stuff. But supposedly more 'tasty' (I'm doubting), since it's gone through the digestive tract of the weasels who ate the coffee beans. How does it work I wonder, but what I was told by Chung was that this coffee could cost a hefty US$30 per cup! What a kill! By this I mean the poor buyer. I forgot the price of this exhibited 500g of weasel coffee though.

Being a coffee place, there was this exotic-looking cafe. Unique architecture eh?

Within the same compound of the Trung Nguyen showroom, there was this minority people museum, where equipment, traditional tools, weapons etc. were displayed. No I couldn't include everything, not that you'd wanna toil through these poorly taken photographs too anyway. Just to kick off would be this rope below made out of buffalo's skin. Exquisite eh?

Look at the whole range of these baskets, to be carried on the back, each tribe used a different design, each design consisting of baskets of different sizes, some for kids, some for adults. Use for? Carrying harvested crops, or anything to be brought to the fields from home, & vice versa. Basically, like our backpacks aren't they? Intricately designed.

Among the musical instruments displayed were these gongs. I was told that the gong with the protruding centre, was made to symbolise the women's breasts, since most of these minority tribes form matriachal societies where female is the dominant gender & possessed most authority.

The below photo shows a ceremonial drinking pot with several straws sticking from it, from which the villagers would drink wine during festivals etc. Ok they really do share those few straws, but I guess it's ok since they're likely more healthy than us. The pot itself was easily as tall as me, sizes of which depend on the villages' population.

More equipment. The above being leather shields (reminds me of those MMORPG's avatar) used during wars between tribes, the below being cangkul (big spades? What're they called in english?) used during farming.

The kitchen utensils...

That's my chiobu guide around the museum. She herself belonging to the minority group - Jarai (or Gia Rai in Vietnamese).

So after the museum we went over to take a look at the interior of that out-of-the-box cafe, & it was like.. The below photo. Very dark inside indeed! Hip huh? They've got live bands playing there too! Imagine, this is BMT city! & many country bumpkins belonging to the supposed '1st world countries' think that Vietnam is ulu!

The cafe's furniture adds to the very 'coffee' ambience too. Chairs made of coffee plants' barks. Irregular, & probably no 2 chairs would look the same. I think the Vietnamese are very creative people.

More of the delicately sculpted details within the Trung Nguyen compounds. The below caught my attention as a retarded-looking head. Nevertheless, I still am not able to make up what it is. Abstract?

The photo below kicks start a series taken at Nam Thien Pagoda, somewhere on the outskirts of BMT city. One of the most memorable pagoda I'd been to on this trip. The whole range of golden religious statues was something you wouldn't get to see so often.

Am guessing that these are the 18 Lohan of the Buddhist belief, guarding the compounds of the pagoda. Each has His name engraved on the pedestal on which He sits on, donning a different posture altogether, telling of Their respective specialties. Of course, like many other temples in Vietnam, this one isn't short of the Buddha, & the Goddess of Mercy as well, each towering on either side of the temple's main building.

I adore the sculptor of this Goddess of Mercy. Such intricate details, talent indeed.

The Laughing Buddha & the Buddha respectively, above & below photos.

Along the roads we came across these women's planting dyed seeds into the ground, the sweltering heat not a deterrent for wearing such attire.

Some jackfruit-heaped bikes, riders of which have stopped at a roadside stall for a break of cold coconut drink. They're really refreshing!

Next we stopped by a metal ware factory. Not really a 'factory' per se. Just a larger than normal shop, ran by a pair of siblings - a brother & a sister.

How many days of their lives have been dedicated to form the picture below? Who cares about workplace safety in this region? They've got no eye masks, despite the welding sparks, neither did they have have any hearing protection, despite the deafening noise of scraping metals from the welding process.

No gloves on to hold those boiling hot tongs, so who says people like us aren't blessed? We do a little 'hard' labor & we'd end up whining to the Kementerian Sumber Manusia, or the media. That's a true culture shock. Though I truly hope someday soon these Vietnamese would do something to protect themselves at work.

Knives (above) & Animal traps / farming tools (below)

This nice lady of a minority tribe allowed me to take a photo of her & her little sleeping baby. I love the colors here, though I wouldn't say that the clarity of the photo is outstanding at all.

More shots along the way, when we were somewhere along towards An Khe village.

More remnants of the war, holes that were used as trenches by the troops, which had once been much deeper, but after countless rain-washed years, have become mere ankle-deep burrows like these.

More jackfruits on bike. I wonder how they ensure that the each individual jackfruit doesn't roll off along the way.

Another Vietnamese rice product - thin rice noodles, out to dry in the sun on bamboo racks. Something of striking resemblance to our local beehoon.

The lady boss (in black) working with her hired worker (in blue). That's communism for you! Everyone's a worker & they work side by side, packing the dried rice noodles into bags to be transported for sale in the city markets.

So this is how cashew nuts grow! I said 'ORRRRH!' I'd never have known if I didn't come wandering out of the protected nest of my family, country. No wonder these nuts are so precious, looking that the layers to be gotten rid off before the actual nuts are extracted. The sweet, fragrant smell of the cashew green fruit was simply misleading, for it did not taste as nice as it smelt.

Another creative forte of the Vietnamese. Carving. A wooden pottery factory we stopped at. Exquisite handmade wooden furniture, on which bore detailed abstract, or otherwise, designs. Their resilience, I admire. The lack of a 'comfortable' environment wasnt a disincentive towards working hard. Look at the clutter, & the likely stuffiness they could've been experiencing.

& still they came up with such lovely works, with only hands & simply tools.

It would moo: "I feel hot & sad.." Look at that face, such lack of self-confidence? ;X

A cart-packed of people & sacks full of crops. Camera-friendly Vietnamese. (: Thanks for the smile.

Lunch was at this tiny stall along the roadside which served beef noodles. We ate the rice noodles that was a specialty of that area, & which we've seen earlier. It tasted just like our beehoon. Probably why I hadn't gotten any diarrhoea episode in Vietnam, since our diets are so similar.

The little boy who stared so much at the camera-looking thing I had. So I had to snap a photo of him with this very THING. Excited he was, to see himself on the little screen called the LCD.

Pepper plants opposite where we had lunch. Cool, lanky things. Even each bundle of peppers was like a mini version of the lanky plants.

Some unknown waterfall that we stopped at along the highway. Which required some climbing, more than I was comfortable with. Those weren't real staircases, just a muddy path down made out of rocks. Thank goodness for the grip provided by those shaky branches weakly planted into the ground. They did help a significant bit.

That's the foot of the waterfall (above). No I didn't get to go really close. What a shame (literally!). It started drizzling large drops of rain the minute I reached the bottom of the cliff, & *blushes* I panicked, because nothing is worse than climbing wet rocks, they're really slippery! I'm speaking from experience. Besides I didn't know how heavy the rain would get. So I frantically scrambled across the large rocks, back up the cliff so much faster than I'd came down. Was amazed at how fast I could climb. LOL. Cowardice manifested eh? Or was that just plain survival instinct?

We sped along the roads on the Honda to outrun the dark clouds, & thankfully we did, so we had time to stop by this rubber plantation, for me to gawk at these fascinating trees dripping white blood. Yes I'm aware that my home country's full of these, but being a country (or city?) bumpkin on my part, I never really saw how rubber trees are tapped. This was a good chance. Chung sliced the bark with his army knife & there it was, the white sap oozed nicely out, following the pre-cut slants into the porcelain cup.

Affixed to each tree is a shade-like plastic pieces like the cones that dogs wear around their necks. Those were to prevent rain water or dew from collecting in the cups, mixing with the rubber sap, but nonetheless, they do. So I'm wondering why they'd even bother..

Random plant I saw along the way. As usual, I do not touch these, but I do not find them particularly hideous either. Their color appeals to me though, despite them being something like 'flowers'. Hateful things.

Boundless coffee plantations along the mountain roads. Clearly a nice way to draw a close to the day's journey.

We arrived at Pleiku town this evening, with storm clouds looming above. It was peak season for local tourist I think, so it was hard finding a place to put up for the night. First we came to this 'hotel', of which the room's condition was horrendous & I couldn't imagine myself surviving the night in. This discovery was made after I'd carried all my packs up to the 3rd floor room by stairs.

Then about a moment later Chung came knocking on the door, announcing the awesome news: This 'hotel' did not have permit to accommodate foreigners! How kind could God have been to me? We switched to this other hotel which was a tad better than the previous, but still....

Nevermind the room (I wasn't there to indulge in luxuries & comfort anyway), dinner was great. 'Chicken thigh with rice'. What an unseemly name indeed! But it was delicious, though it didn't come cheap. Ok, there goes, it was 38k VND. You really do pay for what you get.

Vietnam's never short of fruits to keep you busy trying them out. So I tried the Vietnamese version of Mandarin oranges, or tangerines. Simply, highly recommended! Greenish skin, but it was really really sweeeeeet... But they do a good job in keeping you away from constipation. Something you definitely wanna avoid, before you have to trudge along with a heavy abdomen, it's uncomfortable! (One of the most important thing during travel, I discovered, is keeping a healthy diet, & a smooth flowing digestive tract) The end for the day's 'worth-mentionings'. I had my washing yet again, dreadful! Portable washing machine, anyone?!