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Picturesque Lak Lake

Huyen Tran — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:47:04 +0000

Located about 50km south of Buon Ma Thuot City and along National Highway 27, the 550ha Lak Lake is the largest body of fresh water in Dak Lak Province. Beautiful as a white silk strip and with picturesque natural scenery, the lake is surrounded by forest and attracts many visitors who come to explore and relax after a long journey through the sunny and windy Central Highlands.

The immense lake is thought to stage miniature representations of the four seasons each day. The clear blue skies and the Cu Yang Sin Mountain silently reflected on the blue mirror of calm water in the mornings are thought to represent the spring. The mid-day sun with its intense light and heat is thought to represent summer, the sinking sun in late afternoon with its flickering yellow light the fall and the night blanket of cold stars the winter.

M’nong (ethnic minority group) folklore says that once upon a time a serious drought plagued the region. A local hero named Y Lak sacrificed his life searching for water to save his people. He spent days and nights scanning the region for water until, exhausted, he found the lake and saved his village. The lake was named after him.

The legend represents the long history of M’nong settlement and development. The lake is considered a cultural-historical site for those who want to review the history of the Central Highlands as a whole and the large province of Dak Lak in particular.

The lake is a well-preserved environment for biodiversity with the 12,000m² surrounding forest containing hundreds of species of plants, animals, birds and reptiles.

King Bao Dai, the last ruler of the Nguyen Dynasty, realized the stunning beauty of the area and had a villa built atop a 200m hill overlooking Lak Lake. Today the villa is a tourist hotel.

Jun, a typical M’nong village, is also a place for tourists to learn about the locals. The word Jun, which means inheritance, can be explained by the way the lake offers its specialties and water for irrigation.

M’lieng Village, a special community on an island in the middle of the lake, is funded to preserve its cultural characteristics as one of the first rice-cultivating minority groups in the region.

Tourists can explore the area by elephant or bike to see some of the daily life patterns of typical ethnic minority groups of the Central Highlands. Boat excursions, kayaking, canoe trips and swimming in Dak Phoi Stream are also favorite activities.

Evening tourist parties feature grilled meat, bamboo-tube rice, ruou can (wine drunk out of a jar through bamboo pipes), dancing around the fire and gongs.

The new Lak Resort with its 16 bungalows and 32 rooms and services is a good choice for accommodations.

Buon Ma Thuot City

Huyen Tran — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:57:24 +0000

Buon Ma Thuot is a destination in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. While it can be a bit warmer than Da Lat, it’s also very windy and attracts a lot of clouds covered even in the dry season, which tends to cool things down.

There are some decent places to stay, and some sites to see which are worthwhile, but not exactly first rate. It’s enjoyed by travellers who want to get away from the circus of tourism that characterises the more popular destinations in the region. Most importantly, Buon Ma Thuot has some great coffee.

There’s a heavy concentration of ethnic villages in the region, and while the Vietnamese government has been trying hard to encourage them to assimilate into mainstream society, their efforts have been only partly successful. Most of the Montagnards now speak Vietnamese, but retain a strong sense of their separate identity, leading to an uneasy relationship with the powers that be. In 2004 they all made their way to Buon Ma Thuot and filled the streets in a mass demonstration against government policies.

Since then, the government has been particularly paranoid about any westerners visiting these villages. Without a permit, the only villages you can visit are the ones close to town, and Ban Don to the north, little more than a Potemkin’s village giving tourists a taste of Ede culture while steering them away from the real thing. Buon Ma Thuot is also referred to as Ban Me Thuot or Buon Me Thuot all the same place.

Buon Ma Thuot spreads out from its central roundabout where a large victory monument and a replica of a tank are on display. It makes sense to base yourself in the roundabout area, where services, cafes, and basic eats are within easy walking distance.

Buon Ma Thuot Culture and Tourism Week 2009

Huyen Tran — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:45:07 +0000

The 2009 Buon Ma Thuot Culture and Tourism Week under the theme ‘Legend of the Central Highlands Elephant’ will be held in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak’s Buon Ma Thuot City and Buon Don District from December 16 to 22.

The week long jubilee will feature a fire festival, a street festival, a wood carving contest, a photo exhibition called ‘Central Highlands in the past and in the present’, elephant racing, a food festival, the ‘Green Central Highlands Tourism’ program, a performance by an Asian theatre group, a religious ceremony on the river by the Ede ethnic minority group, a trade fair, gongs and folk games.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism will hold a seminar on boosting and being prepared for the rapid and sustainable development of regional tourism.

The event also aims to honor elephants and gongs, two prominent cultural features of the Central Highlands, and the world class coffee of Buon Ma Thuot.