Kontum Travel Guide

By Mark Bowyer / Last updated 24 Nov 2015

Introduction

Kontum doesn't make it to very many Vietnam travel itineraries. And I'm not saying you should drop everything and head there. It's a charming, modest little place with a friendly feel. The sights aren't spectacular - but they're interesting enough. I reminds me a little of Vietnam 10 or 15 years ago. And it's one of the best places to explore the ethnic minority villages of the Central Highlands. There are some impressive colonial era church buildings around as well.

As we approached Kontum, we stopped by the former US airbase at Dak To about 40kms north. Vietnam’s central highlands saw some of the heaviest fighting of the Vietnam War. Bordering on Laos and Cambodia, the highlands formed part of the Ho Chi Minh trail - a supply line of camouflaged jungle trails crossing through Laos and Cambodia, used by North Vietnam to supply their regular soldiers and guerrillas in the US-backed south. The trail was critical to the ultimate success of the North Vietnamese. What was once the Ho Chi Minh Trail is now the Ho Chi Minh Highway. When I first came to Vietnam I read most of the major books on the history of the war and Dak To frequently came up in accounts of battle. John Vann, the subject of Neil Sheehan’s masterpiece about the Vietnam War, A Bright Shining Lie, died around Kontum in 1972, when his chopper crashed. Australian Victoria Cross recipient Keith Payne was decorated for heroism in a battle near Dak To in 1969. Given it must be around 50 years old, the airstrip was in remarkably good shape. Around the airstrip, local minority women were planting cassava trees. We received a warm welcome - including from the woman pictured. They told us they are paid around $6.50 a day to work for a local landowner - the current owner of the former airstrip. There’s always something compelling about visiting former battlegrounds. Fifty years later in Vietnam, the idea that tens of thousands of young Americans, a much smaller number of Australians and others fought alongside and against young Vietnamese in these incredibly remote places is almost incomprehensible. And now, such contested land is so unremarkable. There were thousands of foreigners here back then. But it was pretty clear during our brief stop that very few pass through any more.
The old US airstrip at Dak To. So much blood spilt in the defence of this abandoned strip.
Local minority woman takes a break from planting cassava for a chat.
Vietnam's highlands have been comprehensively deforested. Loggers have turned their attention to Laos. These logs have travelled from Laos into Vietnam.
The wooden church, Kontum. Catholic missionaries arrived in the middle of the 19th century and had remarkable success in their evangelism.
The Catholic Church's landholdings in downtown Kontum are impressive. And there's some interesting colonial architecture too. This is the 1935 seminary.
I had a great chat with Father Nen, a 94 year old MEP Paris Foreign Missions Society, missionary priest who has worked most of his life in ethnic minority parishes around Kontum. I was told that he speaks 10 minority dialects in addition to Vietnamese and French.
The seminary is home to a museum dedicated to the ethnic minority cultures around Kontum.
Some of the classes of young seminarians in Kontum.
Wholesome country food, Kontum
Kontum country cooking.
Kontum market
Kontum market
The wonderful Ms Tam 88, lives near Plano Texas but returns to her native town, Kontum each year to visit family and friends. She saw the horrors of the Vietnam War as it swept through but now prefers the familiarity of her home town to her adopted home in the US.
Ethnic Ba Na women offered me a taste of sticky rice from these bamboo tubes.
Traditional Ba Na mud house with a lean.
Bridge across the Dakbla River, Kontum
Kon Ktu Ba Na village outside Kontum
Nha Rong communal house in the Ba Na village of Kon Ktu, 8kms outside of Kontum.
Kontum moves at a pleasant speed.
Ba Na woman, Kontum
Ba Na community, Kontum
Traditional dress is out for young Ba Na folk.
Ba Na woman cleaning snails, Kontum
Concrete on the Kontum riverfront. Kontum city officials seem to be following a common view in Vietnam that ubiquitous concrete is a sign of modernity and prosperity.
Young French students volunteering at Kon Ktu village outside Kontum.
Kon Ktu Ba Na village outside Kontum with nha rong communal house in the background.
On the Dakbla river at Kon Ktu.
Traditional mud house at Kon Ktu outside Kontum
Crossing the Dakbla River, Kontum
Sunset on the riverfront in Kontum

Quicklink - Introduction - Kon Tum

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