Cúc Phương national park - Kênh Gà - Tam Cốc

Landscape in Tam Cốc

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Ninh Bình is called "Hạ Long bay on land".

16 November to 19 November 2012 – The photographer and I got a bus from Hải Phòng city to Nho Quan town, then we hired a taxi to Cúc Phương national park (182km in total). The taxi driver was a military doctor who owned a private car. As he knew I was worried about leeches, he gave me medicine.and cotton which can help me stop bleeding in case of leech bite. Actually, these leeches only appear during the wet season and now it’s very rare to see them, but it rained the night before we went to the jungle, so I had to be careful.

Cúc Phương national park is located 120km southwest of Hanoi. I went to this park 16 years ago, but the road inside the jungle was under construction at the time, so I had to stay outside the jungle and only got to a cave which is 7km from the entry gate. The remaining 13km of road was under construction and tree density was very thick at the time which made the road dark. This is my second visit to the national park and I planned to visit the thousand year old tree.

Root of the thousand year old tree

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At Cúc Phương national park.

Next day, we rented a motorbike and traveled 20km from the entry gate of Cúc Phương national park to the center of the park. There is a stilt house which is restaurant at this place. Then we had to walk 3km in the jungle to the thousand year old tree. According to the map, there are several things to see including caves, other ancient trees and villages of the Mường ethnic minority people, but tourists must have a local guide to visit the village. On the way back to the entry gate, we stopped at Mạc lake and relaxed there. We left the park and took another road. There are villages and countryside landscape along the way. It was getting dark, so we went back to the guesthouse. In the evening, it was very dark and quiet on the road, so we couldn’t go anywhere.