Written by Jonathan SmylieHer wave caught my attention. Standing 50 feet up the side of a steep slope, the little girl could not have been more than six. Behind her moving hand and her shouted “hello” was the dark open mouth of a cave at the base of a giant boulder the size of a 5,000 square foot house. From the switch-backed steps carved into the clay earth that angled up and away from the highway, I believe she was standing in front of her home.
Even though we whizzed by her in seconds, while in the middle of an 18-mile descent on our bicycles thanks to a new road that was cut through the mountains from Da Lat to Nha Trang, I believe she was a member of the Cham civilization. All day during our 57-miles ride we passed through their villages. The evidence of their old ways was everywhere. They are farmers and weavers using a slash and burn approach to prepare steep mountain slopes for their crops. We passed irregular shaped corn fields, stretching up mountainsides that any westerner would need a harness, rope and repel seat to safely descend. Other bits of land, again almost vertical, were black from recent burning. Occasionally we could see a straw hut. Other small structures were roofed with the blue plastic awnings we are use to seeing on homes damaged by hurricanes. None of these structures were close to each other and none easy to spot. I believe these people try to live an invisible life. The government does not like them burning the mountainsides. They have laws against it. And they have, in many places, moved the Cham and other indigenous tribes into villages off the mountains.
In these villages, we receive the now familiar “hello” repeated by children who stop whatever they are doing and run to the side of the road to watch us pass. There is an explosive joy in their greetings. Often the sight of us sets off so much energy in them that they can’t control their jumping and arm waving. Many reach out a hand to be touched. On one day, I must have tapped 50 different hands. These people are not used to seeing such funny looking foreigners.
All over the country, the Vietnamese use the road in front of their farm or home for drying rice, potatos, fish, or the sliced up round disks of cassava which are laid out in long, narrow stretches on woven beds or plastic tarps. We tried hard to avoid running over these crops.
The guild books say that the Cham lived as a strong organized civilization in the south-central coastal region of Vietnam from about 600 AD to 1471. They worshipped Hindu gods and their temples and art are of India influence. The Cham tower that I walked around in Nha Trang was built to pay homage to the 10 gods who taught this civilization its two great skills, farming and weaving.
The tower is one of three that sit on a bluff overlooking the sea in the northern part of Nha Trang. The tallest tower is seven stories high. The method of its construction is still a mystery. It is built of red bricks, about the same size as we use, but there is no mortar between them, yet these towers have lasted more than 1,000 years. The guide who walked me around said the most popular theory is that the Cham constructed the towers while the bricks were still wet, filled the inside with wood and stacked logs over the outside and then set the thing to fire. The heat fused the bricks together.
The interiors felt like the inside of a chimney, since they were covered with soot from the burning of incense. In the main tower is a headless statue of one of their gods, which the French, who ran Vietnam as a colony for more than 100 years until 1954, chopped off its head, and brough it to Paris, and replaced it with the head of a Vietnamese looking surrogate. The Cham are used to this type of punishment. They lost their power in 1471 when the then Vietnamese emperor decapitated 40,000 of them. Decapitation has also been a modern horror in this country. In the war atrocities museum in Ho Chi Minh City, we saw a real guillotine which the French apparently trucked all over the country, last using it for an execution in 1960.
The guild books say that the Cham lived as a strong organized civilization in the south-central coastal region of Vietnam from about 600 AD to 1471. They worshipped Hindu gods and their temples and art are of India influence. The Cham tower that I walked around in Nha Trang was built to pay homage to the 10 gods who taught this civilization its two great skills, farming and weaving.
The tower is one of three that sit on a bluff overlooking the sea in the northern part of Nha Trang. The tallest tower is seven stories high. The method of its construction is still a mystery. It is built of red bricks, about the same size as we use, but there is no mortar between them, yet these towers have lasted more than 1,000 years. The guide who walked me around said the most popular theory is that the Cham constructed the towers while the bricks were still wet, filled the inside with wood and stacked logs over the outside and then set the thing to fire. The heat fused the bricks together.
The interiors felt like the inside of a chimney, since they were covered with soot from the burning of incense. In the main tower is a headless statue of one of their gods, which the French, who ran Vietnam as a colony for more than 100 years until 1954, chopped off its head, and brough it to Paris, and replaced it with the head of a Vietnamese looking surrogate. The Cham are used to this type of punishment. They lost their power in 1471 when the then Vietnamese emperor decapitated 40,000 of them. Decapitation has also been a modern horror in this country. In the war atrocities museum in Ho Chi Minh City, we saw a real guillotine which the French apparently trucked all over the country, last using it for an execution in 1960.
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