Central Highlands

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For our two day drive from Saigon to Nha Trang via Dalat our tour leader choose the less travelled route thorough the Central Highlands.  It was a great choice with plenty to delight,  we climbed a waterfall,  visited a hill tribe with a giant concrete chicken as it's main claim to fame and gate crashed a wedding

                                       Dambri  Waterfall  

 

  Lunch break                                  

Catholic Church

K'ho Montangard tradition tells us the waterfall was created by the tears of a maiden whose love had been sent away.  She sat where the water now pours over the rock face and cried as she waited for him to return.   Dambri means 'waiting'

Giant Chicken Village 

A giant concrete chicken towers over the village of Lang Con Ca.  When the K'ho nomadic hill tribe were being persuaded to make a permanent settlement the powers that be agreed to build them a giant concrete chicken which still presides over the village well, the children greatly enjoy scampering in and out of a hole in the chickens rear end 

Villagers  eke out a living growing rice, tobacco, squash, corn and pumpkins.  They also work in the coffee and tea plantations.  Fish are caught using traps and spears coated with substances to stun  the fish.  The village was and remains very poor though the women now weave brocade to sell in the village and nearby Dalat

Sons and Daughters of the K'ho Hill Tribe

The K'ho are obviously a romantic people, having heard the sad tale of the weeping girl, next morning we heard the even more tragic tale of a bride who went to the mountain to find a nine spur chicken for her dowry and died from grief when she could not find one.  A giant wooden chicken, later replace with this concrete one, was built so no future bride would need to go to her death looking for her dowry, or so the story goes

How quickly the weather can change in the mountains                                            

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