Lak Lake

Seen from a high point at first light, Lắk Lake looks like a huge mirror holding the sky and the mountains. Far off rises the Chư Yang Sin range. Fields and M'Nông villages lie around the shore. The M'Nông are one of the peoples of Vietnam's Central Highlands. Beneath the water lies the soul of a community that has lived beside the lake for generations. That is why Lắk Lake is a place where people live, as well as a sight to see.

The lake lies near Liên Sơn in Đắk Lắk Province. It is about 56 kilometers south of the center of Buôn Ma Thuột. The lake has another name too, Lạc Thiện. In the M'Nông language, the word Lắk means water. The lake covers more than 500 hectares, which makes it one of the largest natural lakes in the Central Highlands. On its southwest side it joins the Krông Ana River.

The state recognized Lắk Lake as a national scenic site on May 11, 1993, by Decision 534. Its value goes beyond scenery: the lake is also a source of water for fishing and farming across the whole region.

The lake is bound up with the M'Nông community in the villages along its shore, among them Buôn Jun and Buôn M'Liêng. Buôn Lê is another. For many generations the lake has been where the M'Nông gather, a source of livelihood and a place for community life. Each village has its own stories, its own rituals and customs. The dugout boat is the thread that ties the villages together across the water.

The dugout is a distinctive way to experience the lake. Local sources describe the boat as made from a single block of wood, and tied to the M'Nông people of the shore. The paddler stands at the back. The wide lake lies ahead, and the paddle makes a soft sound as it strikes the water. No other craft takes the place of the dugout for getting around and taking in the view.

Near the lake stands the Bảo Đại Palace. Bảo Đại was the last emperor of Vietnam. The building sits on a hill north of the lake, at an elevation of 422 meters, and looks out over the water. Local sources record that it was built in 1951. From that height the whole scene spreads out in one wide view: the lake, the fields, the villages, and the mountains in the distance.

The M'Nông tell a legend of the water god and the fire god, linked to the origin of the lake. It has been handed down from generation to generation, and it is part of the soul of this land. It is a folk legend, not an account of how the lake was formed.

On an evening when gongs are played, a visitor touches a part of the Space of Gong Culture of the Central Highlands. UNESCO recognized it as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity on November 25, 2005. The sound of gongs at night beside the lake, under the sky of the Central Highlands, is a sound that belongs to this land.

Where elephants are concerned, Đắk Lắk has turned to elephant-friendly tourism, and elephant riding has ended. It is a change worth respecting in how people treat elephants, the largest friends of the highland forests.

Lắk Lake is most beautiful at first light or in the late afternoon. Then the light on the water turns gold or pink, the sound of gongs drifts in from a faraway village, and there are not too many people on the lake. That is what the lake gives best: space, and time to stop. Here the lake and the people around it still go on together, as they have for generations.