March 31 - Easter Weekend - Part I

I woke up to a pleasant, sunny day - and was on the road by half past six. Similar to the other day, I had breakfast off a motorbike, together with a bunch of school kids - was quite tasty.

I woke up to a pleasant, sunny day - and was on the road by half past six. Similar to the other day, I had breakfast off a motorbike, together with a bunch of school kids - was quite tasty.

A bridge in the rising sun

Breakfast with kids

It was a pleasant road with little traffic I was riding on that day, pretty much at the middle of the country. Suddenly, I spotted a very strange-looking house, with a long, narrow roof.

Hmmm...quite an interesting roof

In the afternoon, I reached a Kon Tum, a town with strong Frech history. Around the 1850's, a number of missionaries spreaded the Catholic faith, one manifest of which is the wooden church.

Wooden church built by the French

It being the Easter weekend, there were a large number of folks on the church grounds

An ongoing confession

The town on Kon Tum is surrounded by a number of villages with hill tribes people. Both of my books recommended me on going to one of these. As I was leaving town, I found yet another house with a tall roof - and crossed another cool bridge.

House just outside Kon Tum

A bridge too far

The "road", which was really a pothole dirt path, led next to river, luckily, it was only 5 kilometers to the village I was heading to. Getting there, was the third building with the tall, narrow roof - the most impressive I had seen so far. Opposite the church was a smaller wooden church.

Impressive

Wooden church

While it was only four in the afternoon, I decided to spend the night at this village. The people were very friendly, and I had a blast playing with the kids.

Kids at the village

Who is this guy?

I went down to the river and took a nice, refreshing dip in the water.

Women weaving

It was time to find some place to say - just next to the house with the tall roof, I found a so-called 'homestay', where you get a room with a bed somewhere in the house and the dinner is with the family. It cost just Eur 5 or so - was really nice. Dinner was kind of a vegetable stew, similar to a Hungarian lecso, with rice. The only problem was that the mattress was hard, very hard, so did not really get a refreshing sleep, kept waking up. My landlady explained she would wake me up next day at 4 am, as there would be a Catholic mess in the wooden church.

My bedroom

Dinner on the floor