Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [146]
The central highlands | Through the highlands | Plei Ku and around | Practicalities |
Eating
There are no outstanding places to eat in Plei Ku, though the Acacia Restaurant at the HAGL Hotel serves up a good range of Vietnamese and a few Western dishes. The basic My Tam at 3 Quang Trung produces tasty staple rice dishes, though you’ll need your phrasebook, while the tiny Nem Ninh Hoa at 66 Nguyen Van Troi churns out delicious nem. Thien Thanh is a pleasant garden restaurant about a kilometre north of the town centre, at the end of a steep lane off Le Loi: look for the sign on the right. This attractive place has a landscaped garden with small ponds and sweeping views over rice fields, as well as a good range of Vietnamese food. For a decent coffee, the Café Tennis at 61 Quang Trang is a reasonable spot.
The central highlands | Through the highlands | Plei Ku and around |
The Jarai and Bahnar villages
North of Plei Ku, Highway 14 probes the coffee, tea and rice crops that hem the road to Kon Tum. A right turning at a roundabout 7km north of town will take you after just 500m to Bien Ho, a volcanic lake which is also the town’s reservoir; it’s pretty enough viewed from the observation point, but doesn’t warrant much more than a five-minute stop. About 16km north of Plei Ku, a left turn leads through some pretty countryside and some Jarai villages and continues for 23km to the hydroelectric dam at Ialy.
To visit the Jarai village of PLEI PHUN, you’ll need to be with an official guide from Gia Lai Tourist, who will show you around the headman’s house, the local graveyard and village spring. The only real interest is in the graveyard, where roughly hewn hardwood statues depicting figures in a range of moods are placed around each family grave. In the past the Jarai would stick bamboo poles through the earth and into a fresh grave, through which to “feed” the dead, though now they tend to leave fruit and bowls of rice on top of the grave. If you’re interested in the workings of the hydroelectric dam, it’s possible to take a tour, lasting an hour and a half, for a small fee at the Ialy Hydro Electric Plant, which marks the end of the road. The reservoir created by the dam covers 650 hectares and produces 720 megawatts of electricity, making this the second-largest plant in the country (after Hoa Binh). It took nine years to build and was completed in 2001.
There’s also a group of four secluded but easily accessible Bahnar settlements, lying 38km east of Plei Ku, en route to Quy Nhon. The villages of DEK TU, DE COP, DE DOA and DEK ROL all rub shoulders with one another across a small area of forests and streams. Small split-bamboo and straw houses on stilts proliferate through these orderly communities, and each one boasts an impressive, steeply thatched rong, or communal house, where ceremonies are performed, local disputes are resolved and decisions taken.
At Dek Tu, there’s a good example of a Bahnar cemetery where the practice of feeding the dead is prevalent. Curiously, unlike the Jarai, each of the deceased has his own individual grave complete with a small sloping roof. Ladders made out of bamboo poles leaning against the graves will aid the journey to a new life. As at Plei Phun, you need to be accompanied by a guide, and it is also possible to arrange a home-stay in the largest village of the four, De Cop. Gia Lai Tourist have commandeered a house on stilts here, from where you can visit each village on a one-day hike. A two-day programme visiting both Plei Phun and these villages works out about $30–35 a head for a group of five people. Further afield, to the southeast of Plei Ku, there are even more remote settlements, such as AN KHE and AYUNPA, which can be incorporated