Cuc Phuong National Park, the first national park in the country, is a
relaxing place for tourists to enjoy a few days exploring tropical
rainforest and a wonderful place to escape to and provides the perfect
backdrop for profound thoughts and musings about life.
Established in 1962, the 22,000ha forest stretches across three
provinces: Ninh Binh, Hoa Binh and Thanh Hoa. Cuc Phuong hosts more than
2,000 kinds of plants, 2,000 kinds of insects, 122 kinds of reptiles
and amphibians, 65 kinds of fish, and 133 kinds of animals.
Before reaching the forest, deep inside the Tam Diep mountains, the
local motorway leads tourists through Ninh Binh’s karst mountain ranges,
where they can enjoy scenic lakes, caves and rice fields and glimpse
the lifestyle of northern countryside farmers.
A stop at big
fields feasts the eyes on immense green young rice paddy and scattered
lakes where herds of ducks and buffaloes swim. The peaceful villages are
bordered with ranges of karst mountains.
Yet the most relaxing
moments are inside the forest, whether they are riding a bicycle along
the lanes, jogging around Mac Lake near the entrance of the forest or
trekking to the 1,000-year-old cho xanh (East Indian almond tree, or
Terminalia Myriocarpa).
The pleasant 3km walk to the tree
offers some interesting lessons on wildlife. Equipped with trekking
shoes, long-sleeved shirts, hats and water, necks and arms soaked with
mosquito repellant, the tourists followed their guide Nguyen Duy Hien
along the path.
The smell of wild grass and the moist air and
absolute quiet of the old forest drew them in. It seems that time had
stopped. There was no signal in our mobile phones. Deep in this forest,
they were one with nature.
A green twig was moving in the
green. Hien explained that it was an insect called bo que, or walking
stick (carausius morosus), famous for its capability to camouflage
itself in the environment.
“Such an insect can disguise itself
as a green twig or a brown one depending on the tree that it lives in,”
Hien said, adding that there are 25 species of that insect in Vietnam,
of which 20 can be found in Cuc Phuong. An adult “walking stick” can
reach 60cm in length.
Through a vast land populated by wild
banana, the guide said it was the most reliable source of fresh water in
the forest. “Water from wild banana trunk tastes pretty acrid but it is
safer than water from streams,” he said.
“If you get lost, you
can cut a wild banana trunk 20-30cm from the ground, make a horisontal
hollow in the middle of the trunk and wait a few minutes. The water will
soon come through the banana root to fill the hollow,” he said,
pointing to a wooden climber running along the path, flying from tree to
tree, and said it was called day bam bam (woody liana). The longest one
in the forest runs 2km long, he said.
Passing some small
springs, deeper into the dense forest, Hien stopped at a banyan tree
that almost completely covered the weak tree below. He explained that
many banyan seeds were brought by birds to host trees. The seed grew
thanks to nutrition from the host tree, which it gradually swallowed.
For this reason, banyans were sometimes called “tree killers”, he said.
The environment might look friendly to tourists, but for
animals and plants there was fierce competition to survive. After more
than one hour, they finally reached the famed thousand-year-old tree,
which measures 45m in height and 5.5m in diameter. From the wide root
emerge two steady trunks, which stand firmly on the ground and grow
stunningly tall.
Tourists enjoyed the scarce rays of light
leaking through dense layers of leaves as they returned to the car park,
felling happy that we had done exactly as the forest management
reminded: “Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but
photographs.”.-VNA