Tuesday we made a tour to a Bunong village, that’s an indigenous tribe which is living near the border to Vietnam. This tribe has also it’s own language, which is spoken but there is no writing of it. There are 5 groups living in actually 3 villages with a total population of 1,200 people. Our guide picked us up at a cafe in Sen Monorom in the morning. After a drive of less than one hour we arrived at his house, where he lives with his family and his parents in law. Originally he’s a farmer and he told us about his plantation. For sure he’s growing rice, but opposite to the lowlands he only can harvest once per year. And after five years he need to change the field due to the soil. Then he has banana, papaya and some other fruits. All in all it’s mainly for self consumption as far as I’ve understood.
In the morning we took a walk through the village and stopped at several houses, when someone was at home, or just on the street when we made other villagers by chance. I was a bit surprised when I even saw a Catholic Church in the village, but there seem to be only a few catholics in the village. A few Vietnamese people are also living in the village, which seem to have money. At least there houses are quit large compared to others. One of them is doing business with wood and furnitures in Vietnam.
We had lunch in our guides house. The food is still cooked the same way as in the last few hundred years on open fire. The drawback of open fire is, that the whole house is full of smoke. If you’re not used to it, you can get easily headache from the soot, particulate matter, carbon monoxide and other fine stuff. After lunch we could have a small power nap, before we continued to the nearby waterfall. I was awake from the power nap as there was a strong rain and a small cat looked for a shelter near my head, as the rain was a bit loud. On our way back from the waterfall to the car it also shortly started to rain. In the late afternoon we were back in the town.
B' on Tour 