As I write this, I can’t hear a single car horn. It’s been hours since I saw a scooter, let alone having to hope they don’t hit me as I cross a road. There are geckos running around the wall, and a river flowing 10m away from me. We’re in Cat Tien national park, and it’s proving to be the perfect counterpoint to Ho Chi Minh City.
But before I tell you more about this place, I should back track to last night. We hit the street markets for dinner, and after dragging Holly around for a while, I found somewhere suitable (i.e. somewhere that Vietnamese people were eating, not just Westerners). All manner of things were being cooked in a simple kitchen set up on the pavement, but given we’d eaten heaps at the cooking class we just had a few smaller items, including the best fried spring rolls I’d ever eaten.
Bidding farewell to Ho Chi Minh this morning, we started the journey to Cat Tien. If you read recently about the last of the Vietnamese javan rhinos being killed, this is the park where it was. Checking the map, it didn’t seem that far, but turns out that even out of the city the traffic still doesn’t flow that fast. A combination of some pretty rough roads, plenty of slower trucks, and the ever present motor bikes made for slow going, and we were very grateful to get out of the car some 4 and a half hours later.
After a brief river crossing, we were then taken by buggy to Forest Floor Lodge, a luxury eco-tourist resort. These couple of nights are bit of an indulgence for us – we’re staying in a tent, but this tent has a solid floor, glass windows, full bathroom and air conditioning (still a fair amount of canvas though, so it still counts as camping right?). It’s an amazing location, and it’s impossible not to be relaxed.
We were taken for a walk through the forest by Roy, who is one of the owners. He’s a quintessentially British entomologist, with a great knowledge of plants as well – it was a little like wandering around with Attenborough. A lot of the forest was sprayed with Agent Orange during the war, and there’s also been a lot of logging, but now that it’s a national park it’s slowly recovering.
Just prior to dinner we went on a spotlighting tour, but only managed to see a few birds and some deer well off in the distance. Tomorrow we’re planning to visit a bear rehabilitation centre, and also a primate centre on an island (yes, it’s a real life Monkey Island), so our animal quota should have improved by then.
Forest Floor Lodge
Cat Tien National Park, Tan Phu District, Dong Nai Province 3, Vietnam
(0) 613 669 890
www.vietnamforesthotel.com
Don’t let Holly fall in love with any orphan animals!
Sounds like the antithesis to the last week.
What a contrast! But no. This is not camping. This is a hotel suite with canvas walls. Holly might have stayed behind in the city if it were really camping.
Actually the walls weren’t canvas either, at least not on the inside. The roof was though…