Central Highlands
Located along the Cambodia and Laos border, the Central Highlands (Vietnam) are among the most remote areas and ignored in Vietnam. The region is filled with authenticity and has more than 30 distinct ethnic groups, some of which have preserved their ancient traditions. A series of picturesque landscapes, from Kontum via Pleiku to Buon Ma Thuot, this region, although not very well visited, is a fantastic destination worth seeing.
Besides the pleasant city of Dalat, it is the scenery and the ethnic minorities living in the Central Highlands (Vietnam) that draw travellers to this region. Although most people around here, different to their counterparts in the north-west highlands, only don their traditional clothing for special occasions, the shape and structure of the housings is much more diversified and striking. From long houses to bamboo huts, stilthouses and large communal houses, every region and ethnic has its own distinct style. Everyday life is the same simple agricultural routine, and you are likely to get invited for a mug of rice wine rather often.
If you’d like to get off the beaten track in Vietnam, this is the place to do it. The bulk of travellers shoot along the coast to the east, and even those who prefer mountains to beaches usually head to the larger, more spectacular ranges to the north of the country. The central highlands can’t quite match the northern mountains for scenic beauty, and its minority groups are far less colourful, but there’s a lot to see here – thundering waterfalls, mist-laden mountains, immense longhouses and barely a tourist in sight.
Bounded to the west by the Cambodian border, and spreading out over the lofty peaks and broad plateaux of the Truong Son Mountains, the central highlands stretch from the base of Highway 1 right up to the bottleneck of land that squeezes past Da Nang towards Hanoi and the north. The region’s fertile red soils yield considerable natural resources – among them coffee, tea, rubber, silk and hardwood. Not all of the highlands, though, have been sacrificed to plantation-style economies of scale – pockets of primeval forest still thrive, where wildlife including elephants, bears and gibbons somehow survived the days when the region was a hunting ground for Saigon’s idle rich and Hué’s idle royalty.
