10/29: Ninh Binh: Hikes to Prehistoric Man, Ancient Tree & Van Long Nature Reserve

Toan and his driver picked us up at 8:30 for our last day of sightseeing around Ninh Binh (NB). Only 2 places planned for today: Cuc Phuong National Park and Van Long Nature Preserve before taking the train back to Hanoi. The park is northwest of NB so we had time to chat and see lots of the countryside on the way.

Photos of government owned pineapple plantations and yam crops:

Formerly coffee was grown here but it wasn’t easy to export to other countries til 1985 because the Vietnamese economy was closed to other countries. The crop was switched to pineapple which is now exported to Russia and the US, Toan said. 

Yams, above on the right, are also grown in large quantities here. The 2 crops are rotated yearly for better soil use. 

The trees in the background are mantioch, Toan said.

Just as we had to do in so much of Indonesia, we had to pay to enter the village and could not leave it til the gate was unlocked to make sure no pineapples were stolen as we drove through.

Road work: Below, tar was heated up before being applied to road.

We arrived at Vietnam's 1st national park, Cuc Phuong, at 10. The park was established by Ho Chi Minh in 1962. We only had a few minuted to walk around the small Visitors Center above and read the poignant 'Why do you shoot me?' piece below.

Photos from the Endangered Primate Resource Center:

Toan told us he would wait for us at the Visitors Center while we then walked down the long road to the Endangered Primate

Resource Center, the 'highlight of a visit to the park.' 

Run by a team of international primate experts and supported by zoos worldwide, the Center houses some 120 animals in cages, large monkey houses with swinging bars, and, at the back, a semi wild jungle enclosure. The goal of the center is to create stable captive populations of endangered animals and eventually, through socialization and acclimatization in the semi wild habitat, reintroduce some of the animals to the wild.

A compulsory guide met us at the gate and took just us on a guided tour around the center but mostly showed us the langur monkeys. She said that the primates come from illegal trade and are rehabilitated at the center. 

The Black Langur normally live in the limestone mountain behind the Center and use their long tails to balance.

The Golden Haired Langur is from Cat Ba in Halong Bay; there are only 60 left in the country in their native habitat, according to our guide.

The Center has 10,000 foreign and 3,000 Vietnamese visitors a year.

There are over 1,500 Red Shank Langur in Vietnam and Laos. People keep them as pets because they are so cute.

The gibbons put on a trapeze act for us flying through the air like acrobats. Never before this have I truly understood the meaning of 'monkey bars.' I could have watched them for ages but the guide made us move on.

She pointed out the semi wild 7 acre area behind the center I mentioned above where some of the primates are released after being injected with a microchip so that Center staff always knows where they are. The guide said 80% of the langurs can survive in the semi wild but the gibbons cannot because their food is so specific and they are unable to find the fruits they need. Often earlier in the morning, the guide said, visitors can see langurs in the semi wild here but it was too hot then for that.

The Gray Langur with white lips like a mustache – generally he shies away when photos are being taken of him but I was fortunate he didn't this time.

Walked next to the Turtle Conservation Center that we’d passed on the way to the Primate Center; we saw a few exhibits and a number of turtle ponds before walking back to meet Toan.

Back in the car after that to drive to the Con Moong Cave aka Prehistoric Man parking area. We walked from there to the site where in 1966 people digging found limestone axes and tools in a natural cave.

Hike to Prehistoric Man Cave:

Toan pointed out the stick insect.

Very steep climb up to the cave.

Toan showed us the dry snails that Vietnamese still eat.

 Bones from people living here 7500 years ago were found in the burial sites in the cave.

After the long enough hike to the cave, we drove to the only restaurant in the park for a welcome lunch break. One the way, we kept seeing lots of signs for Ancient Tree but Toan assured us they were not the Ancient Tree we were seeing! Right next to the restaurant was the path to Ancient Tree, our next destination. We had another 2 hour long hike return to the Ancient Tree to look forward to!

Hike to the Ancient Tree:

These wild bananas are good when soaked if suffering from diarrhea, Toan said.

Like in Tarzan movie as Toan said!

He pointed out the two trees in one; bats live in the trees.

Crabs live here in the little pool of water at night, Toan said.

A welcome sight since it meant we had come halfway!

A Hmong family hamlet til 1988 here til they too were displaced. That’s why there are no large trees.

Toan talked about Vietnam’s ‘brothers,’ with Russia being its first brother and China its second and Cuba a distant third. Toan indicated that there is little love lost for China among Vietnamese people because the Chinese are viewed as exploiting Vietnam’s resources.

Sign at rest area: If a hunter shoots the animal on the seesaw, he, i.e. the hunter, will fall down into the trap. The message is everyone needs to protect the environment.

The rest area 'furniture' looked like tree stumps but everything was actually all made from concrete.

Finally, after an almost an hour’s walk/hike we arrived at the 1000 year old, 45m high tree called the Terminalia Myriocarpa! It would take 20 people holding hands to encircle the tree.

Part of the tree had been heavily damaged in a huge wind storm, Toan said.

The tree was initially named after a general and then renamed Victory Tree when Vietnam won the war. But that wasn’t good for propaganda and relations with the US so its named was changed again, to 1,000 year old Ancient Tree, its current name, Toan told us.

After resting for a few minutes, we hiked back which took less time. I had been the one holding things up as my left foot still hurt a lot from when I had sprained some toes back in Hanoi.

It had been another neat hike to the Ancient Tree but it was a long way to go to just see a tree, we thought!  

Got back to the car around 2:30 and then we were off for our final destination with Toan, an hour long boat ride in the Van Long Nature Preserve arriving there after 3:30.

Photos from Van Long nature Preserve:

We’d never been in a wood and concrete boat before so the boat ride was sure to be another novel experience. Wonderful seeing gorgeous blue skies here at the preserve and no other tourists until almost the end of the ride.

The scenery was just stupendous throughout the Preserve and we both wished we could have enjoyed it more and stayed longer. But we were both looking at our watches pretty often as we needed to return still to Ninh Binh and catch the 5:30 train back to Hanoi.

 Heard the late afternoon wind whistling through the grasses here.

Our rower was a delightful woman always pointing out something we should look at and then saying in English ‘Vietnam #1.’ She stopped to show us river snails – we had seen the pale pink ‘things’ while on the boat yesterday through Trang An Grottoes but had no idea what they were til our rower showed us.

The rower pointed out rocks that had broken off into the water from the mountain above. It was amazing how much she was able to convey and how much we understood even though we had no words in common except for her 'Vietnam #1.'

We entered a cave where there were more incredible reflections. The woman gestured to Steven to point his flashlight to the cave walls where we saw writing and indentations that looked like people had once lived in the caves.

The rower had taken us on a circular tour through the Preserve; saw lots of magnificent lilac flowers on our return. We were saddened when the ride ended as the journey through the Preserve had been a perfect end to our 3 days in Ninh Binh.

We did get to the train station in time although Steven particularly was sweating bullets for the last few minutes of our car ride back to Ninh Binh until we actually saw the station. It was an ‘exciting’ 2.5 hour ride back to Hanoi as we were sitting on the hard seats as we had been a couple of weeks previously when we took the train from da Nang to Hue. 

Then, though, there had been lots of empty seats so we had had the luxury of not having other travelers in close proximity. That was NOT the case all the way back to Hanoi where every seat and every inch of space was taken. There was no air conditioning, of course, just a few fans to languidly move the dirty air around. I say 'dirty air' because the train paralleled the road almost the entire way back to Hanoi which meant that we breathed in all the cars’ and trucks’ fumes just inches away from the train. I could just feel the dirt and grime cake on my face and every piece of open skin! Oh well – we just chalked sitting on hard seats up to another ‘experience’! IF we’re ever back in Vietnam, which we doubt, we’ll remember to get soft seats on trains.

Posted on 11/4 from Nong Khiaw, Laos.