Buon Ma Thuot

Buon Ma Thuot City today is a large, spacious and beautiful place with many new works and architectures as: the Post-office, City Party committee, the Central Cultural house, Broadcast-Television Station and net Communication upgraded from 1995 up to now. In chief, the quarter on the north-west of the city includes the Sport Central, buildings…Besides; some typical features of ancient architectures are still remained with a construction-design after the lines of Long house of the Edeh as: Bao Dai Palace, The See of Buon Ma Thuot has an original architecture imitated under Long-house with materials made of wood and film tiles.

Visiting and getting more and more our knowledge on history and culture of Buon Ma Thuot, we easily enjoy the Revolutionary Museum, The Nation Museum, Buon Ma Thuot Penitentiary, Lac Giao Communal-house and many Ede villages as: Ako Dhong, Kosia…Going performance, taste jar-wine, harmonizing with the natives, etc.

1. Lak Lake 

The mysterious land of Lak not only attracts tourists but also is considered as the symbol of Dak Lak's unique culture, which expresses in the sound of lithophones - a product of the traditional culture of the Central Highlands.

Lak Lake is one of the most famous landscapes in the Central Highlands. The Lake covers more than 500ha at an elevation of 500m above sea level. 
It is on the National Road 27 – about 50km from Buon Ma Thuot. It was this lake that gave its name to DakLak province. "Dak" in M’nong language means water, river, stream or lake.  "Lak" is the name of a young man with over whelming courage and strength who found the water resource for the villagers in the area.  So Dak Lak means Lak lake in the M'nong language.  

The lake legend is told by locals as follows. Once upon a time, for reasons unknown to man, the God of Fire and the God of Water declared war on each other. After a fierce fight, the defeated God of Water had to hide by turning himself into a boulder. Consequently, a huge drought came.  It did not rain for many years, plants and animals all perished, and the villagers were waiting miserably for rain.
Then one day, a poor youth name Y Lak started on a quest to find water for the village. He walked endlessly until he became too tired to continue and sat down on a boulder to have his meal.  His eyes happened to fall upon a small eel coiled in a deep crack in the rock. He caught it and put it into a pan from which it could not escape. The next morning, Y Lak noticed a water drop, like a pearl, from the eel's mouth, at the bottom of the pan.

The youth had the premonition that the eel was the God of water transfigured, so he released it and followed the eel's slither. After a very long journey, the eel disappeared and an immense lake suddenly appeared in front of the youth's eyes. Lak Lake had come into being.

At Lak Lake, you can row a dugout canoe, ride elephants and sightsee in the villages and the mountains of the M'nong.  Alternatively you can go trekking through the streams and forests, witnessing the beauty of the diverse flora and fauna while listening to the sounds of birds and wind.

Fascinating extras include enjoying traditional dance performance and the local specialties. If tourists get a chance to listen to the lithophones, they feel more interested in exploring this mysterious land.

Lak constitutes the hometown of Dinh Puoc Pa, lovely Kong Tua dance, Khan Tunes, Tam Pot songs, ancient stories, and legends. Lak has won kudos for its apricot forests and traditional villages. Lak Lake has inspired many couple, artists, poets and musicians. Uphill one finds the Residence of Bao Dai, the last emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty. Next to Lak Lake are Jun Village, and the Dak Phoi Revolutionary Base. Here, the traditional culture of the E De and M'Nong is still preserved, which attract tourists near and far.

2. Jun village - a landscape of ancient villages on the Highlands

Nestling by the romantic Lak Lake, Village bears the pristine beauty of villages in the Central Highlands and it is still considered as a mountain girl who always preserves her traditional identity.  

Despite historical upheavals, Jun Village still preserves and promotes its traditional, cultural identities and customs. The road leading to Jun Village is asphalted but it still preserves its pristine of the traditional village. The houses on stilts, the daily life’s activities as weaving brocade, knitting, fishing, water farming are the beautiful culture of the ancestor, which present clearly.

Coming to Jun Village, tourists can visit the traditional long houses, or watch young girls weaving brocade, to feel as if they returned to the past to immerse themselves in the peaceful, legendary and poetic long poems or can ride elephants to go sightseeing amidst the magnificent landscape. There is nothing more interesting than sitting at the door of the long house, admiring the legendary moonlight and enjoying the cool wind from Lak Lake.

Sitting around a jar of can alcohol, visitors may learn about Khan Story, legends, long poems of this land. Getting drunken by the alcohol, one soon has a sound sleep. Fascinating extras include rowing a piragua on Lak Lake, enjoying lam rice (rice cooked in bamboo tube) and other specialties as fish, eels, and snails. During festive time, visitors will be attracted in pleasant atmosphere of Gong sounds, voices and traditional dances of charm and romance.

As the above-mentioned, this will be the place of getting knowledge and researching the cultural features of the Central Highlands villages. Please come to Jun Village once, many things are looking for visitors here.

3. Buon Don village

The village of Don, or Buon Don, in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak is the only place in Vietnam where you can see elephants walking leisurely on the roads like motorbikes driving on the streets in many other cities.

Don Village is located in Krong Na Commune, Buon Don District, Dak Lak Province close to the Cambodian border, approximately 42km from the northwest of Buon Ma Thuot.

People often mention about Don Village as the home of wild elephant catchers and tamers, whose fame was once echoed throughout the whole of Southeast Asia. Let’s take some for example. Kru – the powerful elephant tribe leaders is well known in India and France for its elephant; Y Pui, a 102-year-old man (1883-1985) who tamed over 450 elephants, spent part of his life as King Bao Dai’s Mahout. Elephant training and hunting has been passed down through generations. It takes 67 months to domesticate a wild elephant.

Here, the trade of wild elephant catching and taming has made it completely different from any other village. The Edeh, the M'nong, and the Jarai villages in the past were very prosperous. Buon Don’s myth sung from generation to generation that those miniature houses built in fresh grave of architecture was beautiful sculptured as many monumental pictures and several of long-poems. The Village founder, the hero of hunting elephant, called the elephant hunter’s King whose name is talent Khunsunop. For preventing the tradition, they launched the hard Law on Hunting and Feeding elephant with many anecdotes infatuating most of tourists, researchers…
In 1890, the French appeared in this land and schemed to form Buon Don. Since then, this beautiful village spreading along the gently running Serepok River was marked on the map as “the kingdom of elephants in Vietnam.” After 14 years, the French moved the Metropolis from Buon Don to Buon Ma Thuot.

Coming to Buon Don today, visitors are able to witness the daily life, culture and custom of the ethnic minorities. To visit the architectural tomb of Khunsunop, trek by elephant with sightseeing to the Serepok River, Yok Don National Park with the preserving zone of zoology and botany are classified as rare and precious.

If tourists have demands for getting their knowledge on culture-custom, the owners of Buon Don will hold the Night of culture for them to have a drink of jar-wine and enjoy folk culture activities. Besides, visitors are able to row piragua along the Serepok River as well as to visit waterfall of 7 tides.

Last but not least, Buon Don is known for elephant races, which are organized annually in springtime, normally in the third lunar month. At the festival, tourists will have a chance to indulge in the boisterous atmosphere of the festival, of the echo of gongs and the spectacular performances of the elephants from the Central Highlands forest.

Buon Don, the homeland of elephant hunting and taming will dote on tourists when they come here.

4. Yok Don Nation Park

Located in Buon Don District, Dak Lak Province, YokDon National Park is proud of its bio-diversity, which attracts both tourists and scientists.

 Whenever going to Dak Lak, tourists usually stop at Buon Don, a famous tourist attraction. This is the very land possessing a large area of preserving nature environment, including Yok Don National Park. As the largest national park in Vietnam, it covers 115,000ha, not including 10,000ha of its belt zone. Its jungles bear the characteristics of tropical forests in Southeast Asia. According to primary survey, YokDon boasts 464 species of flora, most of which are Michelia (ngoc lan). In dry seasons, it is still cool, just like the climate in Dalat, and orchids are still in full bloom.

The most attractive thing for tourists to see in this park is its diverse kinds of forest. Among them include broad-leaf forests, which are evergreen and humid on low mountain topography; sparse woods, and semi-deciduous forest, to name a few. Broad-leaf tropical forests (khop forest) have many precious woods such as: cam lai (Dalbergia Bariensis), trac (Delbergia Cochinchinensis), giang huong (Pterocarpus SPP), ca chit (Shorea Obtusa), and so on. Its biodiversity makes "the pearl of Yok Don” become a precious forest.

Nowhere in Vietnam preserves so many species of precious birds and animals as in YokDon National Park. This natural park is home to 62 animal species, 196 bird species, 46 reptile species, 15 fresh water fish species and thousands of insect species. Of the 56 precious animal species of Indochina, YokDon National Park preserves 38, of which 17 are listed in the World Red Book. This park is the only place in Vietnam where great numbers of precious animals are still preserved: elephants, wild bulls, gayals, sambar deer, peacocks, water varans, and so on.

Visiting YokDon National Park, tourists can ride on elephant's back to perambulate in enormous cool green forests or wade across Serepok River. They can enjoy traditional specialties or drink can alcohol together with the locals while listening to village patriarch's stories about legends of this land.

Coming to YokDon National Park, visitors will have a chance to discover fascinating things, which surely leave unforgettable impressions on their mind.

5. Dray Nur Waterfalls

Located about 25 km from the center of Buon Ma Thuot city on the South, Dray Nur waterfall is the most impressive waterfall in the Central highlands. Dray Nur waterfall is a combination of 2 rivers named Krong Ana (female river) and Krong No (male river), these mix each other creating the legendary Serepok river in the Central highlands. Dray Nur water fall has over 250 meters of length and 30 meters of height, linking two banks of Daklak and DakNong provinces.

Come to Dray Nur waterfall, you will enjoy mighty landscapes, special and distinct food of local minorities with silent and fresh air. And more, you can find strong feelings when creeping into rock cave under the waterfall, going on a hanging bridge…or visiting the life of minority’s village, discovering traditional culture in Kuop village.

Come to Dray Nur waterfall, you will enjoy unique essences of nature with beautiful landscapes here.

6. Buon Ma Thuot Penitentiary

Nowadays in this exciting Buon Ma Thuot City, many young people are probably surprised when they are told that over 50 years ago the city was thinly populated, surrounded by great wild jungle and considered as unwholesome jungle, malarial water, few people in plains wanted to set their steps on this place. At that time, there was a penitentiary (special jail for political prisoners) where had many cruel measures applied by French colonialist. If visitors want to learn about the area, the people here, they cannot help visiting this historic vestige classified by the Government. At this penitentiary, they are told stories about glorious revolutionary tradition of former communists.

Buon Ma Thuot Penitentiary is not only a crime evidence of French colonialism but also a significant training school of many persistent revolutionists of Vietnam such as: Ho Tung Mau, Phan Dang Luu, Nguyen Chi Thanh, To Huu, Hong Chuong, Bui San, Tran Van Quang, Ngo Duc De and a lot of talent revolutionists all the country. Buon Ma Thuot Penitentiary played a great important role in the August Revolution in Dak Lak. The communists who were put into this penitentiary became men of sowing revolutionary seeds on the highland.

Presently, coming to Buon Ma Thuot Penitentiary, visitors will witness such cruel evidences of French colonialist. Thereby, visitors will think of the penitentiary under the former cruel and hard regime as a hell of French colonialist. When the time passes by, those evidences still impress deeply in everybody’s mind. During visitors’ visitation, they will surely grieve, thrill because of observing many bilboes as well as more admire manly revolutionists who were no afraid of sacrifice, resolvedly defeated their enemy and contributed to disenthralling of nation.

7. Ako Dhong village

Ako Dhong village is 2km from the center of Buon Ma Thuot city in the North. Going along Phan Chu Trinh street and turn left 300m, we come to the village. Founded in 1956 by the chief Ama H'rin from M'Drak district, it is also called Ama H'rin village.

The village is designed as the Ede traditional model: the village main road runs from East to West. The East with the sunrise, the direction of life, is the village entrance. The West with the sunset, the direction the death, is the cemetery. Along the road, 30 houses 12m - 15m long each with graceful red tile roof (260 people total) lie in Sound-North direction separated by straight hibiscus fences and colorful flower garden.
When we come into the village, our first impression is tidy and clean. It's no exaggeration that it is the cleanest and most civilized village in the Central Highland. The villagers are highly aware of community hygiene. The village road, gardens, yards, houses are carefully cleaned.

Next to the residential area is the cultivated land. The villagers live mainly on planting coffee so it's not surprising to see coffee gardens with branches, sagging under the weight of their fruit hiding on hill slopes reflecting their shadows in the blue fresh stream water.

With 26 ha of coffee tree, villager income is fairly high the remaining 26 ha is forest and lakes making the landscape more beautiful. Ako Dhong means the origin of the streams Ea Nuol, Ea Giang, Ea Dung, Ea Ding, Ea Pui Thun Mnung.

Coming here, besides the green of nature, we hear streams babbling and the wind singing. The stream water is so clear. If you have time, don’t forget to call at the village well to enjoy the freshness of the water. The well water is clear and cool. It's never been dry ever in drought.

Now besides planting coffee trees, villagers raise cattle, and breed catfish and tipalia fish in the lake. Every young person goes to school, some study in universities at different faculties. The living condition is improving day by day.

Chief Ama Rin usually holds many festivals, featuring activities of singing, music performance, and traditional dances. Ama Rin also intends to develop sidelines for villagers in order to promote their living standards. However, he and villagers hope that Ako Dhong’s culture and handicraft will be preserved and developed well. The best things in Ako Dhong Village are glad to see visitors.
Coming to Ako Dhong – Will bring you good memories.