Category: Ho Chi Min

Square peg, round hole. That’s what we say to each other a lot when we’re in a hot and humid place where walking is tough and sweaty and the constant heat makes us cranky. We always need to get some physical activity. Long walks, a hotel gym, or hours of bicycle touring keeps us calm and sane. Without that we quickly become out of sorts. And in some countries it’s really hard for us to get enough exercise, and when one of us gets extra cranky about it, the other says “square peg, round hole”. But, in Vietnam our occasional query of why, why do we do this to ourselves is silenced when we get to experience a place like Cát Tiên National Park.

Cát Tiên is not super popular with western tourists yet, but on weekends it explodes with Vietnamese up from Saigon to experience the countryside and jungle, and catch glimpses of gibbons, silver langurs, macaques, and crocodiles, and lounge by the river enjoying the wide open spaces while drinking beer and singing along to Karaoke. “It has an area of about 720 km² and protects one of the largest areas of lowland tropical forests left in Vietnam.”

Our lodge host explained that the park had gained some fame on Tik Tok recently, prompting loads more weekend visitors. It was great to see so many visitors, but we did find that our slightly expensive tours with park guides were mostly if not all western tourists since the prices were quite high for most local tourists. We are always game to spend money trying to spot wildlife since it supports conservation and provides jobs for locals, and, we are fine taking our chances seeing or not seeing wildlife. Our gibbon trek seemed to be going badly after a dark morning walk into the jungle and no sound from the gibbons who usually sing a pre-dawn chorus to each other.

The dominance of local tourists meant there wasn’t much in the way of food variety in town. Our lodge served food, much the same fairly simple menu served by other lodges and hostels in the area, so even when we walked out to eat somewhere other than our lodge, the food was very similar. There was very little flavor in most of this local tourist variant of Vietnamese Food. We decided that the first place to expand to even a slightly western menu would be super successful. We were there for five nights and by day three we were craving some variety from the fried rice and noodles. A pizza or burger would have been a welcome change.

The travelers to Vietnam who are motorbike or scooter competent or capable have a very different experience than those of us who aren’t comfortable driving a scooter, or who might feel uncomfortable as a scooter passenger. Scooters are the main form of transportation in Vietnam, with locals scootering literally everywhere. Why walk when you can scoot? Families of four, five, sometimes six or seven, all ride on one scooter. Dogs, shopping, all manner of goods are piled on. I do regret that we’re not scooter drivers, but I think that ship has sailed.

In our constant quest for physical activity we borrowed bikes from the lodge to ride out and visit some local sites – including a cacao farm.

We weren’t done trying to see wildlife so the next day we headed off for a hike to Crocodile Lake, to hopefully see crocodiles. Back to the ferry dock, a 20 minute ride in a truck to the trail head, and a 5 kilometer hike to the lake. We got going early since you have a better chance seeing crocodiles early in the day.

Our hike out to the lake felt fast as we had met up with a young Canadian cycle tourist and we chatted the whole way. She had flown into Saigon from New Zealand, bought a bike, and started pedaling. Much cycle touring chat ensued. When we got to the ranger lodge at the lake I waved at the three workers on the boardwalk to the dock and they gestured to come down and yelled “crocodile!”. We hustled down.

Our time at Cát Tiên was ending, a car and driver took us on the 3 hour drive to our hotel in Saigon, the Park Hyatt Saigon, where we were really looking forward to the gym and swimming pool. We like to mix it up when we travel. A basic but comfortable room at a lodge and then a fancy city hotel. Simple food in the countryside and then anything you could want in Saigon.

Handling the heat and crowded streets is still tough in Saigon. No one calls it a walkers paradise, that’s for sure. Our schedule was pretty set with a morning swim, breakfast, excursion and lunch out, then retreat to the hotel to relax, cool down, gym and swim, and then out again for dinner.

Riding around Saigon at night on the back of a scooter is amazing. A bit nerve wracking, but the ladies are so skilled at handling traffic and nervous visitors, all while pointing out sites and explaining Vietnamese life. After the dinner stop Hong took us up to the third floor apartment where she grew up with 15 or so other family members, and where her Uncle still lives.

Hong explained that the people living here always shared the space available. Families moved in to whatever space was livable, and some we western visitors wouldn’t believe was livable. The former trash room? Now an apartment. The final landing on the stairs? Someone’s living space. But we were greeted with smiles and waves. Hong explained that residents were glad that visitors took the time to come to District 10 and see how they lived instead of just staying in wealthy District 1, where our hotel was.

It was a good reminder that a country can be torn apart, face horrific destruction, pit citizen against citizen, and come out the other side and rebuild.

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