NB 08: Cuc Phuong - Kenh Ga Floating Village for 1 day

Cuc Phuong National Park is one of Vietnam’s most important protected areas. Though wildlife has suffered a precipitous in Vietnam in recent decades, the park’s 222 square Km of primary tropical forest remains home to an amazing variety of animal and plant life: 307 species of birds, 133 species mammal, 122 species of reptile, 2000 plant species and counting.

 

Excellent hiking opportunities abound in the park and we will walk to see Endangered Primate Rescue center where some native animals – deer, monkeys, civets, gibbons & langurs and another short trail leads to a steep stairway up to the archeologically significant cave of Prehistoric man, after that walk to the massive 1000 year-old “Big Tree” (Tetrameles Nudiflora).

 

Kenh Ga (chicken canal) Floating village gets its name, apparently, from the number of wild chickens. That used to lived here, but it`s the riverine way of life that`s the main draw. While it`s on a the smaller scale than in the Mekong delta, the Delta doesn`t have the stunning limestone formations that so dramatically punctuate the landscape here.

 

The local people seem to spend most of their lives on the water: watching over their floating fish-breeding pens, harvesting river grass for fish feed or selling vegies boat-to-boat. Even the children commute to school by boat. The river is used for everything from bathing, to washing plucked chickens, to defecating in. Particularly, here people row boats with their feet.