Merry Christmas, Part II

Eventually we arrived at the Park Visitor's Center. The park cooperates with zoo's in both Columbus, Ohio and Frankfurt, Germany, so there's quite a lot of research being done there.

Roadway through the park

The park itself was hot, humid and all jungle. There were surprisingly few people there, perhaps due to it's relative remote location. There were, however, several very nice guest houses which looked to be a great way to enjoy the park for more than just a day or two.

While in the park, we hiked to Chrystal Palace Cave, did a second, pretty intense hike and visited the park's Rescue Garden (which is where most of the cooperative research is done and where the park takes in injuried wild animals, primarily monkeys, and assists them during their recovery before releasing them back into the wild). Unfortunately, there was no guide available to take us through the Rescue Center, so we only got to see the monkeys they kept there from afar.

Aside from the Rescue Garden and the cave, the park has a couple of huge noteworthy trees. The first was along the side of the road and, according to a sign nearby, the tree is nearly 150 tall and more than 8 feet around.

The sign also made clear that this was a very "big tree".

Our hike took us to the second tree of note in Cuc Phuong National Park, involved a six kilometer loop and included a stop at the "1,000 Year Old Tree".

A second visitors center

(My shirt is soaked and at that point,  it hadn't rained a drop.
Suffice it to say, it was very hot.)

Thanh said this sign said something about taking care of the park.

It was a beautiful day to do some hiking and be outside.  Amazingly, there were very few people in the park so it felt like we had it all to ourselves.

Around 4:30pm, we began the long trip back home.  Along the way, we encountered another traveller who was taking Wilbur on a trip of his own (and my guess is not a good trip). 

Our trip back to Hanoi was spectacular.  We travelled through a beautiful valley full of limestone karsts and green rice paddies as far as the eye could see.  The sun was low in the sky and it was so peaceful.  Unfortunately, since we were using my cell phone for GPS guidance, it died shortly after leaving the park, so I wasn't able to get pictures of the most beautiful portion of the trip.



Making the trip even more spectacular was a late evening thunderstorm north of Hanoi.  The sky was filled with huge bolts of lightening which lit up the sky.

Unfortunately, that same storm made for some interesting driving, especially once the sun set.  We drove back to Hanoi on a small, two lane road which was rain soaked and partially flooded.  Between that, the darkness and way too many fast-moving heavy trucks, the drive back was pretty stressful.  We were able to dodge the rain until we actually got back to Hanoi.  Just as we arrived in the city, it started to pour, so our timing was actually pretty good.

It was another great Sunday trip and I'm so grateful to Thanh and Van for spending the time each weekend to share with me the beauty of their country.