The Beauty of Vietnam...

Is Found in Her Natural Parks


In an attempt to avoid the feeling of being funnelled into the highly touristic and pre-determined cities on the route of the open tour bus that transports the majority of Vietnam's tourists between the Northern city of Hanoi and the Southern city of Ho Chi Minh, we have tried to blaze our own trail. Although we aren't really blazing a trail, seeing as we're getting everywhere by the guidance of the Lonely Planet Vietnam book, we do seem to have the benefit of a very loose itinerary that has allowed us to go further and see more than the average backpacker I've encountered along the way.
On the first leg of our journey, rather than take the lengthy bus ride from Hanoi to Hue, we opted instead to stop in Ninh Binh. Although it rained the majority of the time we were there it proved to be our first glimpse into the true beauty of Vietnam. Cuc Phuong National Park was about an hour long motorbike ride from our hotel in Ninh Binh. We originally planned on overnighting in the parkbut thought it might be more miserable than fun with the dreary weather. The scenic ride into the center of the park was a tasty appetizer for the feast that was to come. We ended up following the trail for a 17 kilometer trek into the jungle with a 1000 year old tree being the halfway point. It was just drizzling a bit as we set out on the trek but the palm canopy above us provided a suitable shelter.
I tried desperately to tap into Jane Goodall's knowledge of primates as I searched in vain for the elussive and endangered Vietnamese gibbon and langur. Despite the absence of any seriously cool wildlife, I did see some pretty remarkable things. What with all of the rain there were a couple of crabs that seem to have lost their way. I wasn't aware that there was such a thing as a jungle crab but they were aplenty and surprising to see. In addition I did see the furry butt of some animal as it jumped from a tree but I was unable to properly classify the species. There was also an abundance of extremely beautiful butterflies of substantial size flitting around for the first half of the day.
The park ended up being so beautiful and expansive and untouched that I was thrilled that we stopped in Ninh Binh. Having seen the beauty of one national park we decided to try our luck with another one further south.
We were having lunch at a travel shop in Hue and aimlessly flipping through a book describing various tour options. We saw that the shop offered a trip to Bac Ma National Park, about an hour and a half outside of Hue. The tour didn't seem too expensive and I thought that it would be fun given my fond impressions of Cuc Phuong. The following day we boarded two guided motorbikes and drove to Bac Ma. The tour ended up being a total scam job because the fee we paid the travel shop was solely for the guided motorbikes. It didn't pay entrance to the park nor did it pay for the expensive yet mandatory taxi ride to the summit. With such a bad taste in our mouths about the whole affair it seemed as though the whole day was doomed.
This, thankfully was not the case at all. After bargaining with the taxi driver we got a pretty fair deal on the ride to the highest station. From there we had to trek a number of kilometers to the summit where we enjoyed absolutely breathtaking views of the valley and the towns below. It felt as though we were the only people on the entire mountain, which after the hustle and bustle of Hanoi and Hue was pretty welcome.
Within the grounds of Bac Ma National Park are a number of waterfalls to which we made our way next. The first was a series of five waterfalls called Five Lakes Falls for the pools of water that collected beneath each fall. The beauty of this series of falls was in the surroundings. To have such crystal clear water move so quickly and violently through such a tranquil and lush landscape was such an odd juxtoposition that would only be acceptable in nature.
The book said that the water coming from these falls was some of the coldest in the country and that no living thing inhabited it except for a recently discovered species of frog. Despite this we were eager to strip down to our swimming suits and test it out ourselves. Afterall we had been hiking all day and had worked up a pretty decent sweat. Nothing could have prepared me for the shock to my system as I took the plunge and stepped off of a rock into the deepest part of the pool. The coldness wrenched the breath right from my body and I clambered up the mossy rocks in less time than it took me to take that overzealous step in the first place. Needless to say we didn't do much swimming. We just snapped a couple of pictures and took turns daring each other to stand under the icy waterfall as it pounded down on our heads.
Afterwards we took off in the direction of the Rhododendron Falls. With our map in hand we made our way along the trail. The walk wasn't too strenuous but it was no walk in the park either and by the time we got to the top of the falls we were pretty sweaty. Notice however that I said the top of the falls. The trail leads everyone to the very beginning of the waterfall, where the river rushes over a series of rocks and then disappears over the edge. There is a stairway to the left that leads only the most insanely in shape or the simply the most insane to the bottom of the waterfall. I certainly don't fall into the first category but either way we walked down the stairs, all 680 of them. The decent wasn't too terrible but already you could tell this was something you weren't going to want to do in reverse. By about the halfway point my knees were already feeling how uncomfortable unevenly spaced stairs are to walk down. By the time we got to the bottom we were sweaty and short of breath. We had plenty of time so we took a bunch of good pictures and tried to work up the courage to start our way back up.
On the ascent we stopped after one hundred steps. Both of us were clinging to the railing and sucking down every atom of air we could. The steps are so tall and akwardly spaced that it makes it more difficult than just the sheer numbers alone. We divided the rest of the stairs into one hundred step increments and started on our way. Every time we got to about 85 it became seemingly impossible that we could climb another stair and by then our arms had to do most of the work.
I was sore for the next week but I don't regret even one of the 680 steps to the bottom and back up again because the sight looking up at that enormously long waterfall is not one I will soon forget.
Vietnam has quite a number of national parks all down its length and I fully intend to stop at as many as we can along the way.