Into the Motagnard Mist

The rugged terrain only got worse as this road slowly slithered up and over steep hills, through small creeks until, eventually, passing corrugated tin shacks that grew smaller and more feeble, I was forced to turn back. Probably for my own good.

(The Montagnards are an ethnic minority residing deep in the rugged, mountain highlands of Vietnam. The arid land they've been thrust into, far outside of a city that is itself unspectacular, pretty aptly tells the tale of their treatment by the Vietnamese government. Though there is land to be farmed, it's sparse and seems tenuous, as though hanging by a thread, scratching to not be consumed by the dusty roads, unforgiving rocks, and hills scorched dry by the suns' rays. A far cry from the land they were pushed off of to make way for lucrative coffee plantations; a fate befalling them as much for their minority status as for their collusion with the CIA during the Vietnam War.)

         'Hi ho! This be Montagnaaaard land!' my bike called out to me. His thick Southern drawl, origin indiscernible, was only getting worse. I was pretty sure he was butchering the name, but I said nothing.  

         We then crossed a small suspension bridge, bridging us, as it were, from the humdrum reality of Kon Tum's backstreets to these Montagnard hinterlands. They were, in the parlance of our times, decidedly more gangsta. 

          But here we were, in the thick of it.  Cold, even in this heat, and barren but for lonely dust clouds, these roads hinted at the solitude and struggle of this backwater. But, as Kon Tum is considered a backwater-- languid streets and nonsense city squares, dirty markets and nameless, shifty hotels. This place is the backwater's wicked stepchild. 

          The men trudge through the streets, hoes and shovels draped over their shoulders, dirty ( for everything is covered in dust here) wide-brimmed hats barely concealing bristling stares. Though the Vietnamese tend to keep a rougher edge than others, these men's eyes had a more hardened texture altogether. Their stony gaze asked what this fool was doing here. I felt foolish indeed as the unwanted often do. Ostracized to the hills themselves and why should they welcome a rich foreigner into their midst.(I'm surely not rich, but all that is in the eye of the beholder I suppose-- what man other than a rich one is free to aimlessly cavort around the hills shooting photographs in the middle of the day?)   

       I offered a man resting in the shade of a tree a hand-rolled and was promptly ignored with a sideways glance, like a child with a stupid question. 

          The women and children waved and smiled, yelling 'hello' at me. Probably because women will always look fondly on a foolish, lost man and children are too innocent feel ill will towards anyone.

           A trail along a slackened, muddy river twisted its way deeper into the cut. The Blue Beast performed admirably in tight paths up steep hills and over shallow creeks. But at some point we both knew it was time to turn back.

Everyone works in Montagnard-land. If there was a school, I didn't see it and many kids were engaged in some form of physical labor on this particular weekday. These young girls, perhaps 12 years old at the most, were busy collecting wood, roots, and other scraps.

    

A young boy grazing cattle.

The Blue Beast feeling very much at home, caked in dust.  This is the Montagnard's version of an affluent city center: solid structures, and even a traditional Montagnard house used a meeting place.

        

Friendly greetings were limited to women and children who seemed to see this foreigner as a harmless anomaly rather than intruder. At times, I felt like both.