Cuc Phuong

Katie and I decided to spend a night in Cuc Phuong National Park, about 3 hours south of Hanoi. It was a trek to get there (a 2 hour bus ride followed by a painful negotiation with a xe om driver to take us another hour to the park headquarters), but it was totally worth it. At the park headquarters, there is an endangered primate rescue center, which rehabilitates monkeys who have been rescued from poachers (monkey brains are both a delicacy and an ingredient in traditional medicine). They were the cutest monkeys I've ever seen. If that experience won't convert someone to vegetarianism, I don't know what will.
After the rescue center, we ventured out into the park itself. It is 20 kilometers from the park headquarters to the park center, where we were sleeping in a stilt house. Mostly because we didn't want to pay for another taxi, we chose to rent bicycles to get to the house. After a 45 uphill ride, however, we realized that we had only gone a few km and decided on a new plan to rent a motorbike. It took about 45 minutes to arrive at the park center on motorbike and I can't imagine how long it would've taken us on bikes. Driving a motorbike is so fun. I can't believe I don't own one. They are super small and have 4 gears, but no clutch, which you shift with your left foot. The other foot has the brakes and the right handle bar pumps the gas. There were only a few hills that gave me trouble. The tour buses passing me on narrow dirt roads also were terrifying. We stopped along the way at a few caves that were so dark you needed a torch after the first 10 meters. At night we went night-spotting, but besides bats, moths and a dead snail, we only spotted flying squirrels. It was one of the most beautiful and non-commercial sites I've seen in Vietnam so far.