Termites and Gibbon Songs in Cat Tien National Park, Vietnam
We sat on long benches in the middle of large flatbed trucks with 50 of our closest friends as we trundled along a lightly paved road in the fading dusk. Our night safari tour guide at Cat Tien National Park stood at the front of the flat bed, leaning on the back of the cab of the truck, his searchlight scanning the landscape and the lower branches of trees that sometimes came rather close to our heads. Large termites, drawn to the light, joined our tour.
They landed in people’s hair and pelted us on the forehead and cheeks. We should have known that this would be our closest wildlife encounter. But no one wanted photos of the bugs. Cell phones were trained on the landscape beyond, where we occasionally spotted deer – large and small – grazing in the wide-open grassland. I only managed to get photos of the termites.
This was our first encounter with Cat Tien National Park in south-central Vietnam. The park is about a 3.5 hour drive north of Ho Chi Minh City, and a four hour drive south of Dalat. In our last few days in Vietnam in June 2023, we had to make our way back from Dalat to Ho Chi Minh to catch our flight home. A stopover at Cat Tien – known for its wildlife and natural beauty – sounded right up our alley. We arranged our transportation, lodging, food and tours in the park through Green Hope Lodge, a small, family-run lodge alongside the river that serves as the national park boundary. To get into the park, you walk 10 minutes down the road from the lodge and cross the river on a ferry.
An opportunity to experience a rainforest after dark is never something I will turn down. Generally, you don’t see too many mammals or birds – but the insects are wild, and there’s something exciting about walking through a quiet forest in the dark.
When I signed on to join Cat Tien’s ‘night safari tour’, I guess I was hoping for a similar experience. When we arrived at the park headquarters, we found that we were the only ones there with a family of four from Saigon. They spoke English and were very helpful letting us know that the ranger said the tour would begin soon. We thought this would be the extent of our tour group. But then the ferry arrived with more people. And more people. Maybe 50 people in total, all Vietnamese tourists. They piled us into the flatbed trucks, and after a short speech from the guide telling us that we may or may not see anything (our new friends from Saigon kindly translated for us), we were on our way.
While this is not the tour I would have chosen, had I known we would be in flatbed trucks, I felt the excitement of all the people around me, and it grew on me. Many of these people were from the city, where nature encounters are probably rare. In many natural places that I visited in Vietnam, nature encounters were a bit staged. For example, in Dalat, you can ride a roller coaster to a beautiful waterfall and have your photo taken with a statue of King Kong. But despite the many people, Cat Tien was all natural. I wondered if this was the first nature experience for many people in a long time. How does one perceive nature if they have spent their life in a city? It’s hard for me to imagine.
It makes me wonder how perceptions of the natural world, and our place in it, impact people’s perceptions of climate change. In Vietnam, climate change is a fact (unlike the US, where it is, for some, still a controversy). But do people really understand what that means? How do people perceive the impact of human-induced climate change on a place like Cat Tien?
I also wondered: can I even begin to understand the impact people have already had on a place like this?Cat Tien National Park was established in 1978, when three parks were combined. It has been home to a wide diversity of animals, including elephants, and, until 2010, the Javan rhinoceros (apparently, the last one was shot then).
The park is situated in a place where there should be thick tropical rainforest. But much of the park is carpeted in grassland and patches of bamboo. More than 50 years ago, American bombers rained the herbicide Agent Orange across the region to denude the forest so that they could better see enemy soldiers. The impact of Agent Orange is ongoing in a lot of places. In fact, if you are a US citizen, you should know that millions of dollars of US taxpayer money is going to clean up Agent Orange each year. We are obligated to do this. Agent Orange is an environmental catastrophe and its use violated international law. The land that encompasses Cat Tien Park will never be what it was before the war. So, while climate change will certainly have an impact here, as it does everywhere else, the effect will be slow and, possibly, small in comparison to the rain of Agent Orange by US bombers more than 50 years ago.
The park was also heavily logged until the mid-1990’s, and is now under threat from illegal logging and poaching of wild animals in the park and along the lands that border the park. But what amazes me is that despite multiple ecological catastrophes, Cat Tien is a wildlife haven and a beautiful nature reserve. It clearly plays a huge role in educating visitors, and I imagine it makes a big impression on kids who may not have had other opportunities to see animals in the wild.
The morning after our ride on the flat-bed truck, we found ourselves waiting for the ferry to cross the river back into the park at 5am, before the first light of day touched the sky. We had signed up for another tour: a hike through the forest, with an opportunity to spot golden-cheeked gibbons. Our guide, Vu, and the ferry driver showed up right before 5am, and we motored the short way across the river as the sky turned from black to pale blue. Maybe it’s not a surprise that we were the only people who signed up for a 5am guided hike. None of the city folk from the night before were there – nor were there any other Westerners – just the two of us and our guide.
I felt a thrill as we stepped off the gravel road in the park and on to a trail. Our guide pointed out stick insects, and had us listen to the hum of bees in a gum tree. This was the hike I had hoped for the night before, but happening just before dawn. As the sky grew lighter, we could see a bit of the canopy overhead, and the chorus of birdsong grew louder. We passed ancient ficus trees with roots that sprawled outward along the forest floor.
Then we heard the sound we had been waiting for: a high-pitched metallic whine, followed by rapid chirping. It sounded like gunfire in a Star Wars movie. It was far away and our guide said these were the gibbons at the visitor center, where there is a small refuge for gibbons that are unable to be in the wild. But then we heard it again – much louder. Vu started moving through the forest, off the trail. We followed as best we could. Vu moved quickly and smoothly, while we stumbled on roots and hanging liana vines, or snagged our clothes on sharp spines. Occasionally he stopped, holding up his fist to signal for us to do the same, and we would listen to the whining and whistling and staccato cry of the gibbons, while we craned our necks to scan the tree tops. And then we saw one – a glimpse of orange moving through the canopy far above us.
There were others – mothers with babies, juveniles, adult males – all chomping leaves, chirping out their morning song, and swinging smoothly through the canopy. They would appear for a moment, dangling from a thin branch, looking relaxed hanging by one arm, then they would swing off again. We followed them as they circled around the forest for the better part of an hour.
Cat Tien is home to at least six different types of primates as well as many different types of carnivores, including bears, mongoose, civets (which I’ve I only seen in photos and looks like a cross between a wildcat and a raccoon), and leopards. We saw blue macaques (Black-shanked douc langurs) across the river from our lodge – a whole family, working there way among the treetops, nibbling a few leaves then moving on.
It amazes me that there are so many thriving bands of primates here, considering that they all have dioxin in their blood. Dioxin is the byproduct of Agent Orange, and there are still few studies that examine dioxin poisoning on wildlife. We know that the impacts on human health have been catastrophic for millions of people over three generations, given its role in cancer, birth disorders, and long-standing health complications. Only recently (the last five years), has attention turned to the long term impacts on wildlife, and the few studies that have been done do show evidence that dioxin has had an impact on wildlife as well. But somehow, they have survived, and even appear to thrive at Cat Tien.
Back at our lodge, watching the blue macaques leaping among the trees across the river, I felt grateful that we could enjoy nature in a place that was once completely devastated. I realize the Cat Tien is a testament to the resilience of the natural world – in many ways, similar to the resilience of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people. Cat Tien will likely never return to what it was before the war, or before intensive logging. Like most natural areas around the world, it is under threat from encroaching development, climate change, and the tidal wave of visitors who hope to touch the natural world. But there is resilience.
And this gives me hope for the broader world in the face of climate change. Earth can never return what it was before humanity left its indelible mark. Nothing can be restored to what it was before the Industrial Era, or before the era of big wars and unrestrained resource extraction. But if we can set aside spaces and let the heal, something will survive. Even if it is not the same.