Cuc Phoung National Park

The bus took me as far as Nho Quan town. From there I had to hire a motorcycle for the last 13km to the park. I arrived at the park entrance and set up my tent. It was a busy place with busloads of Vietnamese visiting the park. This is because it was sunday and I had read that the park is really busy on weekends. I wanted to come on sunday so I would be here monday morning and spend most of the week here. The weather was overcast and not too warm at all. I spent the day around the visitors centre. I visited the Endangered Primate Rescue centre. This much needed centre houses primates rescued from the illegal animal trade and breeds them for future release back into the wild. They had most of the primates that I wanted to see in the wild here but knew that it would be very difficult to see them. I also went to a botanical garden but it was more like an arboretum with lots of labelled trees and no flowers or shrubs.

That night it began to mist heavily. When I woke up the next morning, everything was wet and it was still misting. My plan was to go Bong, 20km deeper into the park by road, where I could camp and be closer to the trails and further away from everything else. I stuck with my plan and rented a mountain bike to ride to Bong and keep for the time I was there. I left most of my unneeded luggage at the visitors centre. I was able to send my large park which was still heavy with my camping equipment, up with a tour bus and just rode with my day pack.

My first stop on the way to Bong was at the Cave of Prehistoric Man. They had found bones, tools and burial mounds in this cave that were over 7500 years old. All the artefacts had been removed though but it was still an interesting cave to explore. I love big trees and there were 5 big trees scattered throughout the park and I wanted to see all of them. I stopped at 2 on my way to Bong. They were big and impressive. Unfortunately due to the large numbers of non-nature respecting Vietnamese ( there was always litter along the trails too and I'm sure it didn't come from Western visitors), there was a concrete chain with poles to deter climbing and carving on the tree. It was easy enough to climb over but didn't look so natural in my photos!

I finally made it to Bong and got my pack from the large van. The roads were wet and I was being careful all day on the mountain but I had a small accident at Bong. I was coming down the road, not too fast either, and I had to turn right onto another road. I put on the brakes and I started skidding. I was holding myself up with one leg and hopping with the bike waiting for the skid to pick up some friction and finally stop, but it didn't. It looked like I was going to skid the whole width of the road, after skidding about 2m, I couldn't stand any longer and went down on my elbow and hand. It didn't hurt much and I was back up quick, but it did look like 2 nasty cuts. I couldn't believe I was fine all day and then crash at my destination!

It was still misty and wet but I set up my tent anyway on a big circular green. There are actually 2 sections of Bong, 1km apart. The furthest away,Bong B was just some accommodation (where I was) and the closer, Bong A, had more accommodation, staff quarters, restaurant and a parking lot were most of the buses waited for their hiking passengers. Bong A was busy compared with Bong B. It got even colder at night. I was just borderline warm in my tent when I dropped to 12C overnight. I had hope that it would get warmer and drier so my tent and my things would dry out.