The Chicken Village

Concrete chicken menaces village

If you book a day tour of the Dalat area, there's a fairly good chance that the "Chicken Village" will be on the itinerary. It's a minority tribe village with nothing to recommend it besides a very large, very bizarre sculpture. Like almost every feature of the landscape in Vietnam, there's a love story to explain why this bizarre thing is here. It used to be that for a young woman to get married, a large dowry had to be given to the young man's family. In one case the man's family (but not the man) didn't want the woman, so they told her that they required a dowry of a rooster with nine spurs on its legs (which the sculpture has). Because she loved him so much she went into the woods to search, but could never find such a rooster. Eventually she died, still searching. The village built the sculpture to honour her.

The locals sell woven silk cloth and items in several huts nearby.