Vietnam Vacations – Gia Rai

To Nung Lake
Gia Lai province is a mountainous – border located in the north Highlands on high 600 – 800m compared with the sea. The northern border with Gia Lai province of Kon Tum, the southern borders Dak Lak province, the western border with Cambodia, with a 90km road border country, the east borders of Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh and Phu Yen. Gia Rai is a great destination for ones who like adventure tours during their Vietnam Vacations stay.

Climate Gia Lai has tropical monsoon of division two seasons: the rainy season from 5 months to 11 months of the dry season from 12 months to 4 years later. Average temperature in 21 º C – 25 º C. West Truong Son has an average rainfall year since 2200 – 2.500mm, east Truong Son region since 1200-1.750mm.

Potential for tourism development

Eco Tourism
Gia Lai is the source of many river systems that coastal and Cambodia as three rivers, the river will be happy and the other streams. Land of Gia Lai has many springs, the waterfall ghenh, deo and forest and fields create natural scenery majestic dreaming, it features bold original wild mountain forests of Central Highlands. It is the tropical forest of Kon Ka Kinh and Kon Cha Rang where many rare animals you; exploiting conflict Khoeng wild Text Prong district, Phu Cuong Waterfall dreaming movement in the district. Many of the streams as beautiful white springs, streams and Mo famous landscapes such as that party “Mong” on the river Pa., advocacy (a Nùng I) mountain immense flat and still – Ham Rong mountain high 1.092m which is mouth of a mountain fire was off. Viet Vison Travel provides the best Vietnam Travel Deals.

Gia Lai has traditional revolutionary exciting, with the Tay Son Thuong, based at the King Quang Trung, a hometown hero Nup. Many places in the past by Gia Lai as Pleime, Reo Cross, La Tooth went to history.

Ethnic, religious

New rice ceremony
Gia Lai Province have many communities living nation, the Economic occupy 52% of the population, the rest are elderly Rai (33.5%), Ba Na (13.7%), Gie Trieng, Xo Dang, Co Ho , Nhang, Thai, Muong …

Gia Lai is a land rich with history thick with culture ancient bring the unique identity of the cells of the nation, and is mainly Rai and Ba Na reflected through architecture home empty, the floor, crypt through traditional festivals, through italy and musical instruments. The festival featured in Gia Lai: Le Thi Po (Un-MA), buffalo pot festivals, dance … mediocre clothing festival is decorated in flowers colorful mysterious, the folk dance and sound wine expectation of the music of each individual nation and as imprisonment, has, the chieng … Gia Lai to visitors also see the crypt nation with all types of walls and the holidays is very wild with multi-religious spirit (Tô Tem) many original features.

Transportation

The province has 14 main national highway connecting Quang Nam provinces and Central Highlands, the Southeast; 19 main national highway linking the coastal provinces in the Central from Quy Nhon to Pleiku and northeastern provinces of Cambodia, Vietnam Highway 25 connects to Phu Yen.

Epic tales from the highlands

Known for the Gong, Central Highland is also known as the home of epics, such as the “ot ndrong” of the M’Nong people, one of the world’s longest tales.

According to the M’Nong people, ot ndrong is a form of oral history, which also helps keep them entertained in their labours.

Normally, ot ndrong is told in the fields, at the communal house, or round a fire. Villagers sit around of an epic teller and listen to the legends.

An epic tale teller, Dieu Lung, 64, at Ea Ver Commune, Buon Don, District, Daklac Province, is one of very few M’Nong epic artists who remember a swathe of ot ndrong tales. Ot ndrong epics include over 200 different stories, of which Dieu Lung remembers more than 100.

Dieu Lung’s brothers, Dieu Cau and Dieu Klut, also are good epic tellers, honoured as Folk Artisans by the Vietnam Folk Art Association in 2003.

According to Associate Professor Vo Quang Trong, deputy chairman of the Ministry of Culture and Information’s Culture Research Institute, who has spent years for researching Central Highland epics, it is quite difficult to find orators, and even more difficult to convince them to perform their works live.

“We had to invite one orator back from the forest, where he was earning a good living. He refused at first and I had to try very hard to convince him”, Mr Trong said of Xedang epic artisan A Ar, who he tracked down in 2001. Trong said artisan A Ar, 71, finally understands the importance of his work, and has recorded nearly 40 of his long tales.

Trong also found another artisan, A Luu, a Ba Na man of Dac Ro Oa Commune, who told a continuous 14 hours epic, the Gong Gio, in one sitting. A Luu, now 63, learned the tales from his mother. A Luu has not count of how many epics he knows, and how many times he has performed them. He just knows that he is likely to tell an epic any where at any time, as long as he has a few wee drams.

Since 2001, a number of cultural researchers have been dispatched to the Central Highlands to collect epics. Culturists have searched 530 communes in the region and recorded epics from 363 artisans, including Ede, Gia Rai, Ba Na, Xe Dang, M’Nong, Xtieng, Ma and Cham Horoi people. Parts of these epics have been translated and published into Vietnamese language, and 75 Central Highland’s epic books will be available by 2007.

The difficulty is, almost of the minority artisans do not speak Vietnamese, apart of artisan Dieu Kau, many other epics, such as of Gia Rai people, have no translator. Since the two first Central Highland’s epic founds and translated in 1927 and 1955, Vietnamese researchers have spent nearly eight decades collecting the Central Highland epics.

Exploring ethnic cultures and specialties in Ho Chi Minh City

Tribal minority peoples live throughout Vietnam, spreading from the far north to Mekong Delta in the south, but especially in the mountainous regions of the central provinces, such as Lam Dong, Gia Rai and Daklak among others.

One seldom sees them unless one travels to such regions, as they rarely come to big noisy cities, like Saigon. However, there are some of minority groups as close as Cu Chi District, HCMC, where there is a Minority Cultural Village in Nhuan Duc Hamlet.

The village covers over 20ha and is located not far from the renowned Cu Chi tunnel systems that attract many tourists everyday. But the area is also home to a prototype model village that tries to reflect the traditional cultural, daily activities and other specialties of ethnic people.

The main minority groupings come from the Bana, S’Tieng, K’ho, Ma and Chu Ru clans, but several villagers are also from others.

When one first arrives at the village, the first thing one recognizes is the nha rong or communal houses scattered around the site, that are built from traditional forest woods, with unusual floors that are raised about a meter above the ground.

Most of the roofs are sharply sloped and covered with coco leaves whilst walls are typically made from bamboo branches. As one climbs up the wooden stairs to get inside, visitors can see many ethnic and traditional wooden items that help one better understand the daily activities of the minority peoples.

The village also has an area where visitors can see young ethnic people manufacture traditional hand-made pottery or do typical brocade weaving.

Visitors are also encouraged to talk with them in their own dialects of the Vietnamese language since each of the different ethnic communities talk in different ways and styles.

Thus, by using Vietnamese, one is able to communicate with the whole village!

If visitors are lucky enough to be around at about 2:30pm, they can also see a demonstration by young girls of how to make a jar of Ruou Can – a kind of light wine, which is made by fermenting rice for around two months.

The brew is normally served in a partially filled jar with water, and drunk through long thin bamboo straws.

However, there is one regional specialty that no one who visits should go without enjoying. This is Com Lam or bamboo sticky rice. The K’ho specialty is prepared in a stick of bamboo around 50 cm long, after having been soaked over night in water to soften. The rice is then mixed with some coco water before being poured into the bamboo stick that is then grilled over fire until it turns from green to a yellowish color.

When cooked, the waiters use a knife to prize open the stick and the Com Lam appears in a cylindrical rolled form, which is served accompanied by grilled pork and coconut mixed with salt and sugar.

Apart from the delicious food, the village also has many other activities to help visitors relax and enjoy the surroundings. To help one potter around the village, one can jump onto a horse or buffalo cart and trundle around the place or, for the more energetic, leap into a rowing boat and paddle around the ponds.

As an additional bonus to groups of five or above who pre-arrange visits, the village will also arrange a bit of pig racing! However, there is always lots of singing and dancing as the Lach minority people perform their traditional routines, to which visitors are invited and encouraged to join in.

To get to the village go straight up Cach Mang Thang 8 Street to An Suong Intersection, then keep going straight on until the Cu Chi Overpass. After that just lookout for the sign on the right and you’re there.

Sea storm threatens coastal provinces

A tropical storm triggered by a low in the East Sea is expected to affect all coastal provinces from Quang Ninh to Ca Mau, warns the National Meteorological Forecasting Centre.

The storm – the fourth to threaten Vietnam this year – was fixed at 19.6 degrees north and 115.7 degrees east, or about 520km east of China’s Hainan Island, at noon yesterday.

Gusts near its centre ranged from 62kmph to 74kmph and were gaining strength.

Forecasters say the storm is expected to travel west north-west at 10 to 15kmp during the next 48 hours.

It should be at 20.1 north and 110.4 east between the Leizhou peninsular and Hainan Island by about 10am tomorrow and could generate strong winds and rough seas to the south.

The Flood Prevention and Storm Committee has issued urgent instructions for People’s Committee chairmen of coastal provinces and Hai Phong to prepare for the storm.

The message was sent after the committee met with Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai in Hanoi yesterday afternoon.

The provinces expected to be hit by the storm include Quang Ninh, Thai Binh, Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh.

These provinces must recall all vessel and warn their crew about the storm’s development.

The message asks the provinces and Hai Phong to plan the evacuation of people to safety when necessary, especially those on islands, in tourist precincts or near crucial dykes.

Efforts should also be made to harvest crops and drain those not yet ready to pick as well as protect fish rafts and aqua culture ponds.

Highland officials should prepare for flash floods and provide immediate and accurate reports to the Flood, Prevention and Storm Committee.

Southern floods

Flood caused by heavy rain have killed a boy, 13, drowned livestock and inundated almost 500 houses and 200ha of subsidiary food crops in Phuoc Tan Village of southern Dong Nai Province’s Long Thanh District.

The rain is likely to continue for the next few days, says the provincial Meteorological Forecasting Centre.

Rains accompanied by whirlwinds struck southern Bac Lieu Province during the past three days.

Fifteen houses either lost their roofs or collapsed; at least two people were injured and subsidiary crops were damaged in the Vinh Loi and Gia Rai districts.

Damage is estimated at VND60mil.

On Thursday and Friday, floods triggered by heavy rains submerged more than 200 houses and 200ha of rice as well as about-to-be-harvested vegetables for market.

Waters in all rivers of southern Vinh Long Province were expected to top 1.75m-1.85m, the province’s Flood and Storm Prevention, control and Rescue Committee’s deputy director Nguyen Van Thanh warned yesterday.