On from Ho Chi Minh City for our first outdoors adventure on this trip, specifically, Cat Tien National Park, only about 2.5 hours by road. Cat Tien is 720 km2 of lowland tropical forest, home to a number of endangered species. 
After reading the reviews about the long distance buses in Vietnam, we ponied up for a private car transfer, not that the buses themselves are a problem, on the contrary, they’re modern and comfortable, rather it was the language barrier, the inability to buy tickets in advance, the reported “show up at the bus office and have to shuttle to another place for the bus” routine, reported theft of belongings in stowed baggage, getting left off in the wrong place(!) etc. Regarding theft, it’s possible but we saw no issues like this during our stay, unlike, say, Brazil or Costa Rica. Whatever, we took the easy way and enjoyed it: After crawling through the chaos of greater Saigon, there’s a brief zip along a deserted toll highway, then onto the provincial roads. It’s immediately noticeable that there is rural and rustic development almost continually along the road for a 100 kilometers and it continues until we get to the village of Cat Tien and our destination, the Green Hope Lodge. Initial impressions are a little disappointing, a bit sparse and browned out, it being the height of the dry season, and certainly nothing fancy, but we go with the flow. In Vietnam, unless you go out of your way to pursue luxury, things are going to be cheap and, generally, cheerful. 
The place grows on you, simple cabins on the river, chickens and dogs running around, tours in the National Park being arranged and simple, healthy meals available on site. Also, we’re not roughing it that much as our cabin has A/C of sorts, a mosquito net, a small refrigerator and resident geckos large and small.
We’re awoken at 6am by the twice daily PSA from the village, blasted over loudspeakers, a remnant from the full-on communist times, detailing who died recently, the latest on the coronavirus and football results, we’re told. It’s OK though because we’re doing the Gibbon Trek in the NP and we need to be up early. The park is on the other side of the Dong Nai River, a one minute crossing, but another world away. 
Courtesy of the C-virus, its only us and one English naturalist on the tour and our park supplied guide is relatively hopeless, but we do see gibbons and macaques and amazing, huge Tung trees.
After the gibbon trek it’s onto the Bear Rescue Center, which only has a couple of recovering Sun and Moon bears, as they’ve built a new place for them a few km down the track, but there are a number of gibbons. Also, other recently released gibbons still hang around the area so, when the captive females let out their distinct call sequence, they come flying through the trees right at us. Gets your attention. 
There’s also a resident, super cute otter and we get a glimpse of a highly endangered pangolin. Great place.
The next couple of days we hike to Crocodile Lake passing enormous 600-1000 year old trees – You could swim there, the crocodiles won’t bother you but the giant leeches will, and take a boat trip down the river to La Tai, an indigenous village. 
The latter isn’t the greatest day out but the boat stops along the way and the captain’s friends hop on, bringing the beer and it doesn’t take long before we’re invited to dinner at Mr. Duong’s place. We’re picked up at 6pm at the lodge and both of us ride as passengers on a motorcycle, a first for us in Vietnam. 
We arrive intact at Vu’s house, where an amazing dinner has been prepared by his wife and the extended family is assembled. After eating, its time for Karaoke! Now, karaoke originated in Japan, and is huge in the States, but in Vietnam it is the national pastime. Home systems are very common with big amps and bigger speakers, typically facing directly out onto the street, enhanced by the fact that the usual house design utilizes two enormous front doors that are always open when someone is home. 
So, you can hear who’s doing karaoke from, at least, half a mile away. It doesn’t seem to be a problem here, in fact, we have competition from next door tonight. We hold our own in the battle before, regretfully, having to leave earlier than we’d like for the motorbike ride back, promising to look up Vu when we return to Vietnam.
It’s time to head on from Cat Tien, we’ve enjoyed staying at the family-run Green Hope Lodge where, I failed to mention, a double room with breakfast will set you back about $15 per night and a 4 dish dinner less than $5. Da Lat in the Central Highlands is our next destination, the honeymoon capital of Vietnam and city of flowers. Till next time.
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