Located nearly 50 km northwest from the city of Buon Ma Thuot in Dak Lak province and between the two branches of the Serepok River, Buon Don is home to the M’Nong, J’rai, Ede, Lao and Thai ethnic minority groups and for the last two centuries has been the centre of all elephant hunting and taming in Viet Nam.

Initially, wild elephants were trained for domestic duties such as carrying firewood, water, people and food. However, during repeated wars of resistance against foreign aggressors, elephants were used and looked upon by local inhabitants for other purposes. Through necessity elephants had their job description changed to incorporate heavy lifting, forest clearing, road building and transportation onto their resumes.

Each year, in recognition of all of their hard work, Dak Lak province hosts elephant-racing festivals and elephant competitions that attract tourists to the region from as close as the hut down the road to the other side of the world. Some of the more imaginative games showcase the 100m-race, a swimming race across the Serepoc River , the heavy object pull and games of football.

Becoming something of a cottage industry, travel agencies have begun to offer elephant riding tours of the area like similar services found in Thailand and Laos .

Buon Don’s sleepy setting is evidenced in its stilt houses, traditional musical instruments, waterfalls, hundred-metre-long and century old Lao style homes, the York Don National Park, traditional dances, gong festivals and buffalo festivals also help to lure the visitors to a little corner of the country that is thankfully still off the beaten track.

Last year, Buon Don drew 124,700 visitors, an increase of nearly 9 percent from the same period of 2005. Ten percent of the figure were foreign visitors.

The Biet Dien, a local travel agency, recently decided to invest more than 33 billion VND in upgrading the Buon Don cultural-ecological tourist site.