The long house in Ko Sia

The long house in Ko Sia Visiting Buon Me Thuot City, people will enjoy a new form of tourism

of the Ede ethnic group in Ko Sia Hamlet (in Tan Lap Ward) - visiting Nha dai (long house) and enjoying the unique culture which has been preserved for thousands of years by the local people.

In the past, Ko Sia was a small hamlet with long houses of the Ede ethnic people.

 The Neu pole that can exorcise and bring good lucks to visitors to Nha dai.

Photo: Tat Son/VNP

Village in a rocky place

What appears to be a laundry cum washroom around a well at Lộc Yên In Loc Yen Village, Tien Canh Commune, Tien Phuoc District, in the central province of Quang Nam, 100-plus-year-old houses rest against rocky mountains among terrace gardens and shady, stone paths. The villagers are all farmers. Their mountain houses, paths, gardens, farms, hills and mountains are all in harmony. The path cutting through the village is relatively even but other paths are full of bends and they go up and down like part of an old fort. Artist Nguyen Thuong Hy, formerly manager of Quang Nam Province’s Relics and Attractions Management Centre, said, ‘During an expedition in Loc Yen with us in late 2010. Professor Hoang Dao Kinh [a famous conservation architect in Vietnam, see ‘Restoration as a danger to heritage’, page 6] said the old village of Loc Yen was an artistically excellent configuration . . . the arrangements of generations of the villagers were in harmony with natural ones.’ Loc Yen is no older than neighbouring villages but what makes it stand out is that it still has nine old houses.  The Loc Yen Village chief, Mr Dang Sanh, said that since the American war ended, in 1975, nobody had sold a house and in times of financial difficulty they had tried to keep their houses in good condition. Mr Nguyen Dinh Huynh, 85, said the old houses in Loc Yen were mainly of jackfruit wood. Loc Yen Village was more than 200 years old and its oldest houses almost 150 years old. Jackfruit trees were grown in large numbers in gardens. The house of Mr Nguyen Dinh Suu and his brother is perhaps the village’s oldest. It is near the foot of a mountain and famous for its giant columns with elaborate carvings. It is big, of strong wood and the carvings are beautiful, making it appealing to visitors. Mr Tran Anh Hao, owner of an old house in the village, said the Suus’ house was like a museum storing great skills of the carpenters. Mr Suu said his father had had difficulty refusing to sell his house to Ngo Dinh Diem [a minister in Emperor Bao Dai’s government and later president of South Vietnam] in 1939 and the then chief of Quang Tin Province, Mr Than Ninh, had come to his father’s house in 1960 to ask to buy it for the province for a temple, offering a million dongs or a new-styled house in the country or in the town. His father had said the house had been handed down in the family and so selling would be against moral principles. Mr Nguyen Dinh Man’s house is L-shaped and 200 square metres, large enough for cows and buffaloes to enter to help thresh rice by trampling. This kind of house is almost extinct in central Vietnam. To prevent fires, several old houses in Loc Yen have separate kitchens and earth ceilings under the thatched roofs. Over time, the villagers have stopped using earth ceilings, not replacing them when they replace thatch with tiles. Now only Mr Tran Cong Thiem’s house has an earth ceiling. To make a ceiling, Mr Thiem’s grandfather used a layer of board and put a layer of clay on it. The walls were made of wattle and daub, 15 cm thick to increase fire-resistance. There are also beautiful stone paths in Loc Yen. Mr Suu said the village was surrounded by rocky land and residents of the past had had to break rock and remove it in order to farm. The rock had been used for paths and retaining walls. Plants of different kinds are grown along the paths and mosses and ferns grow on the stones in the shade of big trees. Loc Yen villagers preserve almost all the rocky paths made when the village was formed. To avoid causing damage to the paths, Ms Tuyen and her younger brother built a garage away from their houses, and Mr Nguyen Dinh Hoan keeps his vehicle at a relative’s house.                                                                                                                                      By Huynh Van My

The Last Tunnel

Since 2010 we have documented the rediscovery of the now-defunct train line from Dalat to Thap Cham. A few months ago, the final, missing section was explored. Francis Xavier and Kyle Phanroywere on hand to document. Words by Nick Ross 

  

Curtis King is not just a musician, he’s a train buff, an obsessive in the guise of Eddie Van Halen, who has used his adopted home of Dalat to further three passions — playing the blues, doing business and thinking about trains. Recently his biggest focus has been the now mainly defunct train line running between Dalat and Thap Cham in Central Vietnam.

Completed in 1932, the train line transported passengers and cargo from the heat of coastal twin cities Thap Cham-Phan Rang to the cool, high-altitude hill station of Dalat. Thanks to its cog railway technology, it was able to traverse the steep mountain passes on its ascent to Dalat, making it unique among Vietnam’s train routes. Built with a central, serrated rail between the tracks that connected to a cogwheel under the steam-powered locomotive, the rail provided traction to allow the train to ascend steep slopes and keep it from sliding too fast when it descended downhill.

Finally closed in 1968 after repeated wartime bombing, now only one section remains — the increasingly touristy route from Dalat to Trai Mat. Most of the rest has been salvaged for scrap, and the stations that have survived the excesses of time and climate are in ruins.

 

The Final Section

Over the past five years Curtis, always with a rock star bottle of wine in hand, has walked the full distance of the now-defunct line. Earlier this year he found the last tunnel, the one section that had yet to be ‘discovered’.

Like a modern-era Columbus sailing to the Promised Land, he phoned me up excited. First I was invited on the trek to the last tunnel — I am also a bit of a trainspotter. And for me, there’s nothing better than shooting the breeze as you trek through the alpine-covered mountain countryside east of Dalat. I’ve done it twice now, written about the journey, and will certainly do it again.

Yet the timing was bad. I had to decline.

Then he called me in the aftermath. He was having convulsions. For five minutes I sat on our office balcony listening to his story about the trek and, of course, the last tunnel.

At the end of the day it’s just a tunnel, a black hole with light on one end, darkness in the middle and light at the other. But when you’ve made it your mission to trace the full route of the former train line, completing it is a buzz.

Once again I was tied up, unable to leave Saigon, unable to retrace the final route. So instead over the Apr. 30 weekend we sent two photographers, Kyle Phanroy and Francis Xavier, on the trip. Their photos of the surviving tunnels, the Dalat countryside and the ruined station at Da Tho are a testament to the journey started and now completed by Curtis.

 

So When Do the Tours Start?

The answer is, they don’t. And if Curtis has his way, they never will.

“I prefer to visit the tunnels with small groups,” he explains, “preferably train enthusiasts. Realistically, abandoned train tunnels — fortunately — are not the stuff of mass tourism.”

And there’s also an ulterior motive. Curtis is presently working with the Vietnam Railway Company and investors to redevelop the train line. Together with his wife Thuy, he’s already rented out some of the train villas close to Dalat Station, and converted them into a café and guesthouse. But the big picture goal is to rebuild the line.

Says Curtis: “We have assembled an international team of train, tunnel and bridge experts to advise us on reconstructing the rail line. We recently completed an initial survey of the existing state of the tunnels. Our next step is to prepare a full feasibility study. This is going to take time.”

He’s not alone in trying to bring life back to Vietnam’s railway system. Another investor, New Zealand-born Mike Gebbie, is setting up a steam train journey over the Hai Van Pass from Hue to Danang.

But if you are a train buff and want to see the old line right now, there is an option. Head to V Café (vcafedalatvietnam.com) or to the Train Villas (dalattrainvilla.com) and ask for Thuy or Curtis. If you ask nicely, they might just take you down there themselves.

For more information on the reconstruction of the Dalat-Thap Cham railway line, do a search on Facebook for the ‘Dalat Thap Cham Cog Railway Restoration Project’