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By Rolf Potts

July 27, 1999 | My last and perhaps most redemptive act as a tourist in the Vietnamese central highlands was to visit the Montagnard church in Kontum. There, perched innocuously on the back wall of the parish office, was a large painted-ceramic crucifix unlike any I had seen before.

Whereas most images of the crucifixion depict a Jesus agonized and exhausted by the pain of the world's sins, the Montagnard Jesus looked downright chipper -- his hair feathered back in the manner of a 1970s rock star, his mouth spread into a huge, toothy grin, his hands (which had somehow pulled loose from the crossbars) stretched out in a gesture of neighborly goodwill.

"Never mind the stigmata," the Montagnard Jesus seemed to be saying. "Let's have a barbecue!"

For devout believers, the notion of a Jesus so distracted and nonchalant in the face of his own crucifixion would seem a tad blasphemous. But for me -- after a rather bewildering experience in the central highlands of Vietnam -- the sight of Barbecue Jesus came as a kind of relief.

"Forget about your expectations," Barbecue Jesus seemed to tell me. "Forget about what you think you're supposed to do. Look at me. Run your hands over my ceramic finish and you'll see: I am just as real as you are."

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My trip to the central highlands of Vietnam had started on a note of euphoric optimism on Route 13, around the same time half the people on my bus started vomiting.

Granted, watching a bunch of motion-sick Vietnamese farmers puke into plastic bags wasn't all that pleasant, but I enjoyed the quirky feeling of otherness, as I was the only foreigner there. I was intrigued by the details of the experience: how the women dabbed a green salve under their nostrils to ward off the stench of gastric acid; how the men squatted on small plastic stools in the aisles to compensate for overcrowding; how everyone shared water from a grimy Mickey Mouse cup that floated in a jug at the driver's feet; how the rounded corners and metal vent windows made our small bus look like an ice cream truck.

Route 13 is the main road through the central highlands, and I have since learned that it gained distinction as being the home of some of the heaviest fighting in the waning days of the Vietnam War. Portions of the road, which to this day are virtually impassable to anything bigger than a motorcycle, were once part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply route from the Laotian frontier.

In retrospect, the sole reason I had for traveling Vietnam Route 13 was because it wasn't Vietnam Highway 1. The sole reason I was headed to the highland town of Kontum was because it wasn't the highland town of Dalat. And the sole reason I wanted to travel a potentially dangerous stretch of the Ho Chi Minh Trail was because it wasn't part of the Circuit.

In southeast Asia, every country has a standard (though largely unspoken) Budget Travel Circuit. In Thailand, the Circuit involves any combination of southern islands and northern hill-tribe treks, with a few intermediary days in Bangkok. In Laos, the overland Circuit almost always includes stops in Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng and Vientiane. In Cambodia, no Circuit is complete without stops in Angkor Wat, Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville.

Vietnam's Circuit roughly follows Highway 1 between Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. This largely coastal route features comfortable and convenient transportation, plentiful tourist facilities (from cheap motels to moped rentals) and sightseeing stop-offs from Haiphong to Hue to Hoi An. The problem with this, of course, is that so many travelers frequent this route that a person can go for weeks on the Circuit without having any legitimate interaction with the locals.

Perhaps no place illustrates this better than Nha Trang -- a southern coastal city whose most famous citizen in backpacker circles is a small, visor-wearing woman named Mama Hahn. For about $7, Mama Hahn takes foreigners on all-day boat cruises that feature sightseeing, snorkeling, a nearly limitless supply of cheap beer and a floating lunch that features a man in a rowboat handing out marijuana cigarettes. Mama Hahn's cruise has proven so popular with backpack travelers that she has already spawned a couple of imitators (one of whom, confusingly, also calls herself Mama Hahn).

I joined Mama Hahn's boat trip one day after arriving in Nha Trang on the Circuit from Ho Chi Minh City. My seven Canadian boatmates (all of them friends, traveling together) were gregarious and funny -- and the cruise through the bay was enjoyable enough -- but I lost all sense of being in Asia within minutes of leaving the shore. It didn't help that Mama Hanh carried a loudspeaker, and continually used it to squawk such non-traditional Vietnamese aphorisms as "Let's party!" and "Who's ready to get fucked up?"

As usually happens when travelers get together, the Canadians and I shared our road tales. Various members of the Canadian crew had been to places like Tibet, Goa, Samarkand and Tanzania. I hadn't been to any of those places, but my southeast Asian experiences seemed to meet with their approval. "I could tell when I met you that you were a seasoned traveler," one of the Canucks confided at one point.

The thing is, sitting on Mama Hahn's boat, I didn't feel like a traveler at all -- let alone a seasoned one. And -- considering that my companions' travel experiences seemed to center around sampling drugs in various far-flung corners of the earth -- I began to wonder just what defined a "seasoned traveler."

I came ashore from my Nha Trang boat excursion with a sunburn, a mid-afternoon hangover and the vague feeling that I could have experienced the exact same thing in Ontario.

Suddenly filled with the urge to do something different, I visited my guesthouse travel office and scanned the map, looking for a southern region that was as far from the Circuit as possible. I put my finger on an area near the Laotian border. "I want to go here," I said to the Vietnamese woman who ran the office.

"That's the central highlands," she told me. "A very wonderful place. We can get you a ticket to Dalat for tomorrow."

I knew plenty about Dalat. Dalat was a Niagra Falls-style highland resort town that boasted waterfalls, swan-shaped paddleboats on the local lake and a "minority village" that featured a giant concrete chicken. Dalat -- on kitsch value alone -- was already a part of the Circuit. "I don't want to go to Dalat," I told the tour woman. I tapped my finger on the northern stretch of Route 13. "What's on this road?"

She thought for a moment. "Buon Ma Thot, Pleiku -- but those places aren't so interesting. Kontum is good. It's like Dalat -- lots of nature and hill tribes. But the road after Kontum is very bad. It's only for motorcycles, or maybe army trucks. Nobody ever goes that way. Kontum is kind of a headache. I think Dalat is better."

The next morning I went to the Nha Trang inter-city bus station and headed for Kontum.

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