National Park: Day 2 (Plus Watermelon Socks)

This morning I awoke at 6:45 am in the guest house at Cuc Phuong National Park after sleeping like a rock. After brushing my teeth I discovered that water was not coming out of the faucet of our sink. On the bright side, the air conditioner had done a bang-up job of drying my shoes overnight! I was extremely excited to wear dry shoes for our long trek. I donned my beloved watermelon socks and paced some water and my camera in my backpack. We met for breakfast at 7:15 and had coffee and pho bo, which is soup with beef, noodles, and greens. At 8:00 we packed up all of our stuff and said goodbye to our rooms. Meggie and I dismantled our expert clothes drying system because I imagined a small Vietnamese cleaning woman struggling to stand on our chair in order to get the other heavy wooden chair down from the top of the armoire. By 8:15 am our group was on our van with Dong and driving into the jungle for half an hour. We arrived at another guest house in the middle of nowhere at 8:45 and began our trek up this mountain. After an hour or so, we reached this “Cave of Prehistoric Man.” It was very dark and our tour guide, Dong, ventured straight inside. None of us had a flashlight, so we just held hands and used our camera flashes to periodically light the way. After getting nowhere for ten minutes, I decided to take a picture of the cave floor directly in front of us. To our collective dismay, shock, and horror, the moment of light produced by my flash lit up the gigantic hole we were about to walk straight into. At that point, we were only able to go a bit more into the cave before my fear of the dark, Cathy’s fear of tight spaces, and Meggie and Brittany’s fear of bats forced us to go back. I was laughing a bit because that’s how I deal with my fear, but I really was having a hard time believing we were going to come out of the cave without gangrenous gashes and Ebola.

We were all extremely glad to be back outside the cave after about 15 minutes of intense fear and communication that we can only label as team-building. We continued on our walk up millions of stairs and through huge mud pits and finally reached a 1,000 year-old tree. We took some pictures next to it (photo evidence included on this site, as a matter of fact) and marveled at how huge the tree really was. We continued on our way and started to hear monkeys and really cool birds in the trees, which was our reward for being so quiet as we walked. I took some video of the sights and sounds of the jungle for you all:



I’m pretty sure the animals were saying things like “Hey Harry, are they gone yet?” All I know is that the sounds of the jungle were really cool and the birds had some elaborate songs. By 10:45, we were done with the first loop of our trek. We had gone up the mountain and come down the other side, which was a total of seven kilometers. It was a good thing the weather was nice and cool and barely humid at all. It would definitely have been miserable if it had been any hotter.

We reached the bottom of the mountain and turned right onto this flat path. That was a nice change from the semi-vertical stairs and streams we had been hiking thus far. Our next trek was “only” six kilometers and thankfully featured totally different scenery. The path was flat and we then got the view of the mountains as we walked next to them through the jungle brush. We finally reached another extremely old and gigantic tree, took a short break for water and pictures, and hiked back through the tall grass and butterflies. At noon, we walked straight into a different guest house and our van! I was so glad to see it there. The 30 minute ride back to our guest house gave me ample time to shut my eyes and reflect on our journey. I decided that our hike was so nice not only because of the scenery but because our group stayed so quiet. This was initially in order to enable us to see and hear more of the animals and nature around us, but for me it ended up being a great time for introspection.

At 12:30 we arrived at our compound and thankfully found the bare necessities: bathrooms and lunch (not at the same time, though). Lunch was egg, tofu, pork, and rice. Lunch lasted until 1:30, when we stretched and then bought t-shirts from the souvenir shop right outside the restaurant. Most of us bought matching collared shirts with the park name on the front and the park logo, which features a monkey, on the back.

From 1:30-1:45 we made our way down this small side-road to the botanical garden only to find it padlocked. At the house next to the gate, Dong asked for the key but they didn’t have it. We then walked back down the road and boarded our van to go back to Hanoi. I had to use the bathroom at 2:30 and we stopped at this shabby gas station. I went around the back and found short walls on three sides of this pee-smelling slab of cement that featured a slant towards a little hole in one corner. Good thing I had brought a small pack of tissues with me for instances just like that. I relieved myself carefully, laughed a lot about it, and then got back on the bus to listen to music and talk with the others.

On the way home I looked out the window and missed people at home, since most of the songs on my mp3 player have memories attached to them. I also spent time considering whether or not these months spent here in Vietnam will effectively create a new lifestyle and home that I’ll miss when I get back to the states. This idea began, of course, since I was sitting in the van and craving my xao bo, my favorite Vietnamese meal. Some pasta and ricotta cheese would be nice too.

We were dropped off at the dorm at 4:30 and said goodbye to our driver and to Dong. Everybody else in our group greeted us warmly and I then went back to my room. Jill was at dinner with some of her coworkers so I turned up my music, unpacked, and uploaded my pictures from the trip. I then took a long shower in order to wash off all of the mud and bug spray that had been caked on for almost 30 hours.

I went and found DiDi and we talked for a bit before I headed to the internet café at 6:00 pm. I ordered my my xao bo and a coffee. It took quite a bit of time to check emails, reply to all of them, as well as post lots of pictures and blog entries. The little street boy to whom I regularly give a bit of money also visited me and looked at some of my pictures from this weekend. He’s usually really shy so I was pleasantly surprised.

Time to go find DiDi and plan something to do tonight! It’s time for you to leave some love!