Vietnam Bike Tour: Yok Don



	Photo essay: Vietnam Bicycle Tour: Cultural Collage of the South
		Buon Ma Thout (elev 580m) - Yok Don NP (elev 300m) – Buon Ma Thout (elev 580m) (80km, 50mi roundtrip) . Ride to a M’nong community. Points of interest: M’nong, Nung and Tay ethnic groups, elephants, Yok Don National Park
	Jan 2006	On the right is the forest fire risk gauge during this visit. On the right is the forest fire risk gauge during a visit almost exactly a year early. If you miss the nuance, current conditions are saturated and a year earlier there were severe problems with wild fires in the forest and tree plantations.	Jan 2005
		The Boun Ma Thout area is known for its peppers (left). There are grown on high stacks. Another product of the more temperate climate is honey. This large group of hives (rights) was not far from the road.
		Signs seem to be a commonality of communist countries. At lot of the signs in Vietnam address health and environmental issues, but there are also a fair number that praise the success of the government and the people.
		Further down the road there were distinctive signals that we were in a minority ethnic community; the buildings were built on stilts and tended to be longer than resides elsewhere. Several ethnic groups live in this area the come from the Mon-Khmer and Tai-Kadal linguistic groups. The largest group is the Mnong, from the Eastern Mon-Khmer, South Bahnaric, Sre-Mnong, Mnong, South-Central family.
		While the main economic activity in the area is agriculture, a few families along the road were involved in commerce. The woman at the left had a small packaged food boutique and was cooking fried sweet potatoes that had been dipped in batter.
		At Yok Don, while on the edge of a nature reserve in a minority community has more in common with Niagara Falls than traditional agricultural community. The village was dominated by a half-dozen souvenir shops -- not seeming run by locals -- with a restaurant where the TV was on almost constantly. The whole complex was noisy until late into the night (or morning).
		Tourists sampling the local rice wine.
		If you do much bicycling in Yok Don it probably won't be too long before you find yourself sharing the road with an elephant. This one is on his commute home after a days work.
		Things get underway in the morning with the arrival of a bus of tourists. There immediate interest seem to be the curio shops. The elephant jockey, and son, set out to meet the tourist and see if they can sell a few elephant rides.




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