9 July 2016

Knowing that the hotel has a 12 noon checkout, and given the ride to Cat Tien national park is so short, we opt to lie in and relax. Pushing right up to the 12 noon checkout, with both a reminder phone call from reception asking if we wanted to stay another night, immediately followed by the cleaner knocking on the door to see if we were ready to leave. Once the bags are loaded on to the bikes and a few quick checks done of the basics on the bikes its 12:30 before we head off towards Cat Tien, where we are booked in for a wild gibbon safari at dawn the next day.

The wet weather that has been plaguing us for the past few days is still very much around as we start to ride out of town, past the lake, food stalls and supermarket we’d visited the night before.

Having skipped breakfast with the lie in, we are both hungry and in search of somewhere suitable to eat. Timing of meals in Vietnam is important, as outside of tourist areas the restaurants / Nha hang’s tend to only serve set food at set times. Miss this and you miss out on eating. We find a small restaurant a short way down the road and head in for Com Ga (rice with chicken). It’s a very local place and we stick out like a sore thumb getting tucked in to our delicious lunch.

After our brief lunch stop we continue south towards Cat Tien. The tea plantations are once again giving way to jungle, and we can see across to the hills and deep jungle forest of Cat Tien in front of us. As we turn off the main road and on to a very narrow back road we decide to double check the maps. The route via maps.me app says its 30 km left by road. However, looking at the map it appears that we can get there by turning right and going a mere 7km. This is however taking a gamble that there is either a bridge or ferry across the river. Experience has taught us that if there is a road approaching the river on either side, then there is usually a way to cross it. Even if the maps don’t show it.

As we wind closer to the river on the back roads, we pass through the small hamlet of Nam Cat Tien. A few shops and houses dotted along the roadside.

After getting down to the river we see there is a boat, which has a few small Cafes nearby, we opted to ride back in to Nam Cat Tien to arm ourselves with a few supplies before crossing over to the national park. A quick ride back up the road to one of the small shops we’d passed to water, snacks and an ice cream each to enjoy in the sunshine.

On returning to the ferry, we had assumed that the crossing would be a straightforward one of riding on to the ferry which appeared to have space for about one car, for the 100metre crossing. However, a local woman appeared alongside us and informed us we could park our bikes at her cafe before getting ferry across. Given we were going for the night, this didn’t seem like a great idea. So a quick call to the national park office, who confirm that motorbikes are not permitted within the park. The now very smiley local lady nods in an “I told you so” manner as we unload our bags and then ride our bikes into her small parking area. We then head to the ticket office next to her cafe and buy our entry tickets for the park and the ferry ride across (40,000VND each).

We stop briefly at the cafe to play with a friendly but sleepy local cat, before shifting out heavy bags on to the much smaller wooden passenger boat across the river. We are met at the other side by a friendly porter on his golf cart who helps us load up the bags then drives us up to our room for the night. A fairly basic room with a very large mosquito net, giving a clue to the level of bug life in the area.

Boat crossing

Mozzie net up!

Large bug

After a quick shower and change of clothes, we head off to the forest lodge about 1km walk away for dinner at dusk on the river side. On the walk along the road I hear a noise in the bushes to the left of the track, and after stopping for a minute or two we spot a small family of monkeys playing around. An awesome start to our Cat Tien experience.

Once we arrive at the forest lodge, we find it basically deserted but for one man downstairs who just sat in his hammock. We make our way to the upstairs deck overlooking the river and try and get someone’s attention to get a cold beer. After wandering around the property a bit, Tracey managed to find an Indian research student who was living on the property who got us a beer and then joined us for a chat. He showed us a snake that he was keeping that he’d found in the area, and various pictures and stories of the local wildlife. As we drank our beer on the deck we could hear the hornbills and there were loads of large dragon flies flitting around. We enjoyed a delicious meal of chicken and rice as the sun began to set, and then ordered a last beer for the walk back and early night before the pre dawn gibbon safari.

On our way out of the forest lodge we said our goodbyes to the Indian researcher and had a quick chat with an elderly British guy who was working to wire up some new lights. The walk back along the path was pitch black, but thankfully we had the torch in my camera bag. There were noises from all around, and very difficult to work out what they were. Tracey was not overly amused at this. The walk took about 20 minutes to get back, and then straight to bed with the alarm set for 4am!

Full days route here:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1250942008