Pongour waterfall, the highlight destination in Dalat.
Name meaning:
There are two suppositions about the name Pongour. The first supposition is that the name Pongour derives from the language of an ethnic group, meaning theowner of white clay. Some French geological documents show that this place is rich in kaolin. So Pongour means the owner or the king of kaolin. The second supposition which is more common is that the name Pongour derives from the language of K’ho people and means four rhino horns (pon means four, and gour means horn). This supposition comes from one of the legends of K’ho, Cham and Churu people. The legend tells that in the past, the land of Phu Hoi, Tan Hoi, Tan Ha was owned by Ka Nai – the young, beautiful and powerful head of a tribe. She was capable of defeating wild beasts, especially rhinos. Her tribe had four rhinos and Ka Nai used them to plough mountains, forests, hills, streams and fight the enemy to protect the tribe.
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The waterfall is located at a deserted area, 40 km from Dalat. Take a turning at the km-post No. 260, keep going -6 kilometers more, you will reach the eco-tourism sute of Pongour fall, which recognized a national level beauty spot on 13 april, 2000.
According to the legend, in the legend in the old time , Phu Hoi- Tan Hoi- Tan Thanh commune now was managed by a beautiful woman named Kanai ( ahead of k’ho tribe). She was very good at conquering dangerous animals. Among those, there were four big rhinoceros which always obeyed her command: to change waste land to cultivate and to fight against enemies. Suddenly, one spring, she was dead on the full-moon day of fist month. That made the four rhinoceros very sad, they did not eat anything just sit by their boss until they died.
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Then, one morning, native people here saw that the place where she was born a splendid waterfall. They told that Kanai’s hair turn into the water and rhinoceros horns turned into fossil stones to be arranged into order. It symbolized the attachment of human and nature.
Every year, on the occasion of mid- January festivity ( lunar month), thousands of people come to the place to enjoy festivities and the atmosphere of spring . This is also occasion for young boys and girls to date each other.
In recent years, people also hold the festivities like Gong performance, buffalo-stabbing, folklore games, rice cooking contest, Thai dancing…with attract more and more tourists to the waterfall.
Source: Geography book about Lamdong.
