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 We
left early in the morning on the 100-plus mile drive to Kontum down
Highway 14. For the first 50 miles out of Kham Duc, the road dwindled
and “highway” became a euphemism for buffalo trail. Mau said there
was a “five-year plan” in place, renewable, of course, to repair
the road—the socialist prescription for anything that needs to be
fixed. The road was flanked on the west by a steep ridgeline, forming
a natural border between Vietnam and Laos, and on the other side
by verdant rain forest and the wilds of the Dak Po Ko River Valley.
Rivulets poured down the embankment, at times in frothy cascades,
and washed through the macadam like feathers slicing steel. The
forest was thick with old teak trees growing stronger, dew-laden
ferns and palms, and more of the colorful flowering lianas. A fog
hung over the valley in puffy piles like steam rising from a cauldron.
A savage silence pervaded, cracked only by the faint warble of birds.
Until recently, the valley was the home to herds of wild elephants
and an abundance of tigers, outnumbering people. Deep in the strangling
maw of the valley’s jungle, a few tigers still stalk their prey
in the webbed gloom of night. But for the recurring appearance of
power lines, the metallic pylons of progress, the luxuriant valley
had all the elements of a Conradian scene of darkness.
 Soon
after we arrived in Plei Chot village, we walked to a stilted home
near the perimeter. The majestic lines of the nearby holy mountain
were etched through the steamy sky. An important Gia-ria man had
died a couple of days before. Preparations were under way for the
funeral ceremony later in the day. The ceremony was an expensive
undertaking for an impoverished family and village, yet it would
be sacrilege to do anything less for the ancestors. Two notched
tree trunks leaned against the stilted porch as ladders. Blank stares
washed across the many destitute faces that packed onto the porch.
The corpse lay just inside the door. On the earthen front yard,
a flowered pavilion of bamboo was being raised to place the coffin
under. Nearby, two woodcutters with coup-coupes chipped
away at a tree trunk, hulling it out for a pirogue-styled coffin.
The tree trunk appeared to be too narrow a fit for the flattened
corpse. When asked by Huynh about the dimensions, the coffin makers
explained that they couldn’t find a bigger tree. The corpse would
have to begin his journey by pirogue to the afterlife squeezed in
sidelong. The mood was lightened as a ripple of laughter flowed
around us. Most of the village had gathered around by then. Meanwhile,
two guys with wooden clubs had a scrawny cow tethered to a ten-foot
mast. After several glancing shots, one of the guys scored a direct
head shot. The legs buckled, and the cow fell listlessly to the
ground. It wasn’t dead. That would take a while. The other guy then
clubbed two pigs into an unconscious state and kicked them over
into the fire. The fire cracked and popped as it slowly singed the
pigs black, and they quit moving. Someone threw two chickens onto
the fire. Two women armed with long pestles pulverized banana stalks
in a half-barrel sized wooden mortar. The banana mush would be mixed
with the fresh cooked pork. Several hyena-looking dogs scoured the
parched ground in packs of two and three. They seemed to be following
a scent as they darted about in quick movements. The Gia-ria not
only eat dogs; they also eat snakes, rats and mice. Men sat on a
porch across the way drinking fermented cassava out of a shared
clay vessel, drinking through long bamboo straws, like the communal
hookah.
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