Vietnam - Day 5 and 6 - Cuc Phueng National Park

Welcome to the Jungle. We got fun n games. We got everything you want. do do do!!!! So After Hoi An, we hoped onto the yucky alien pod so called night bus.....and they dropped us off in the MIDDLE of NOWHERE!! We were supposed to be dropped off at the Ning Binh Bus depot, but nope, at 3AM they woke us up and dropped us off in Tam Cuc which is 40 minutes away from Ning Binh at a Rando Hotel. commission was what they were looking for...hoping since it was so early we'd stay there until a more decent hour. Well TOO BAD!! We are not fans of being ripped off so we demanded taxis to take us to Ning Binh!! So we finally get to Ning Binh and take a bus to Nho Quon the closest place to Cuc Pheung National Park. We get to Nho Quon and we are attacked by motorcycle taxi drivers. and they agree to take us to Cuc Phueng National Park for 50,000 Dong Each, Good deal considering its a 50 MInute motorbike ride. Well it was rainy and wet but luckily I had purchased a lovely (hideous) poncho to wear and I sported my giant sunglasses. so I could actually look at the scenery. haha all the others were soaking wet and had their eyes closed the entire way cause it was raining so much. Go me go. My poncho had a little ducky hood thing so I was super protected haha. We get there and its an enclosed jungle. woot. So we book a little room for the night and then decide to go for a hike. We go into the jungle and there is this lovely stone path for us to follow. Problem is these stupid stone steps were stairs....going up......never endingly.....hahah....and they were not nrmal height stairs....they were like knee height stairs....so I really had to huff her up these stairs!!! Wowza. At times I thought I was making my way up to heaven, and hoping I'd just pass out rather then walk any further up!!! But it was totally worth it cause we saw some super beautiful things!! We entered this historic cave where the bones of cave men or prehistoric men were found!!! There were all these insences in there since the locals go there to send peaceful thoughts to the souls who passed away in there. So we had to be quiet - Din told me this - it would eb disrespectful to be loud and disturb such souls. So it was very neat to be in there!!

Also, for most of the walk, every 15 minutes or so we'd find these stumps and we decided that every time we passed one we would tell a story. But since Din is super funny - he ended up telling stories at every single stump. We talked about Tarzan for each story. And here is a photo of the school board that Tarzan and the others learned from. Good Math eh??? hahah

So yeah, we wandered around the jungle for 2 days trekking and looking at all the pretty things. we saw a tree that is over 1 thousand years old!!! We took pictures - on the others cameras!! So I'll get those photos up here sometime!! :)

This is us on the path walking up. A tree had fallen onto the path so we all had to climb on under it. Real Jungle Trekking! :) haha

Within the national park there was a Monkey Centre that rescued monkeys from illegal traders, from the black market, from circus trades, and those monkeys who were being shot at in the jungle for their furs and insides which are used to traditional chinese medicines. This centre helped the animals to heal and then to reintegrate them into the jungle in their natural habitat. They were very cute. There were about 35 monkeys in the centre all together, and about 8 different species. :) They were just swinging around all happy go lucky :)