There’s something oddly nostalgic about taking a drive I used to hate. My weekly 6am drive to Đắk Đoa once felt like a chore, but over time, the small town grew on me. I started to appreciate its quiet charm—exploring its cozy cafés, like one with tiny tiled-roof huts and hammocks, or wandering through the …
Author Archives: Will Holland
Bien Ho
It’s still dark when I arrive at Biển Hồ 9km north of Pleiku City. I shuffle nervously through the large crowd, unsure of where to go or what to do. The PA crackles in Vietnamese, but I can’t make out the words. I’m surrounded by seasoned runners adjusting their gear and some people looking a …
Chu Dang Ya
“Teacher Will!” a small voice calls out. I turn and scan the bustling crowd to see a group of my former students grinning and waving yellow flowers, dressed in striking black Jrai clothes with intricate brocaded trim. They’re selling dã quỳ wreaths, made from the bright yellow tithonia diversifolia flowers. The occasion? The annual Chu …
Pirate Radio in Wartime Pleiku
House hunting in a small Vietnamese city, like I’ve recently been doing here in Pleiku, is pretty stressful. There are no letting agents—just a Facebook group that moves at lightning speed. Thankfully, getting out to actually view places has been rather fun for me to offset the stress; it’s given me a chance to explore …
Rocket Box
During the Vietnam War, Da Nang earned the nickname “Rocket City” because of the near-constant barrage of rockets launched by the Viet Cong. But what fewer people know is that Pleiku had its own version of this during the war, a place that became known to soldiers as Rocket Box. It was located about 20km …
Poste Robert, Kontum
While researching the story of Mereyna, I stumbled upon another curious episode featuring some of the same characters caught up in a rather different affair with the Sedang people—this time, a decade later. The deeper I dug, the more it became clear that this story deserved its own blog post. A place called Poste Robert …
Cinemas In Pleiku Before & After 1975
At VUS, where I teach, we have a lesson for secondary students on the topic of what their town was like in the past. Of course, this is perfect for me, a self-declared local amateur historian. But a recent comment from my teaching assistant stopped me in my tracks. She mentioned that when she was …
Looking for Kon Djéri Kong
In the course of my research for the two-part series on the Kingdom of Sedang, I stumbled upon references to a village by the name of “Kon Djéri Kong”, the site where Guerlach said he was based for his catholic mission at the time. I thought knowing more about the place might give me something …
Mayréna Part 2: King of Sedang
In part 1, we explored how Mayréna lead an expedition into the wild jungle near Kontum, Central Vietnam. Here he succeeded in thwarting a rival Prussian expedition and thus secured French dominance in the region by forging alliances with chiefs of the Sedang Tribe; the last tribe standing in the way of a road from …
Mayréna Part 1: Expedition to Secure Highland Chiefs
In this 2 part post I’m going to recount a remarkable episode in the history of Kontum province, central Vietnam. It follows the escapades of a French cavalryman turned confidence trickster, Marie-Charles David de Mayréna, who ventured beyond the frontiers into lawless winderness. When he got there he did something very unexpected. He declared himself …
Continue reading “Mayréna Part 1: Expedition to Secure Highland Chiefs”
Eastward Ho! 