“I think it’s a dog”

Relayed to us from a night-spotting trip in Cuc Phuong National Park,

Guide: “I think it’s a dog.”
Guide: “… or maybe a pig.”

Guest: “Really? It sounds bigger…”

Guide: “Maybe it’s a bear.”

Amazingly, despite blaring karaoke, a conveyor belt of honking tourist buses through the center of the park, and staff whose primary concern is money, we were astounded by the abundance of wildlife and natural beauty we saw in 3 nights in the jungle. Wandering on our own, we found stick insects, frogs, millipedes, a centipede, a giant worm, centipede and beetle, an endangered silver pheasant, a flying squirrel, countless varieties of scarily large spiders, and other things we can’t recall right now. On a 4-hour hike, our mandatory guide found one frog. At all possible points, we skipped the guides and the treacherous poorly-marked trails that the guides were required for. Instead, we discovered plenty of unadvertised easy-to-follow trails and their abundant resident wildlife.

Cuc Phuong’s single greatest failing is that it’s located in Vietnam. We don’t know how the combination of limestone cliffs, unsurpassed diversity of life, and mysteriously misty rainforest still exists in Vietnam, but we do know it’s unlikely to survive. More likely, the staff will be eaten by bears or dogs or pigs. They won’t be able to tell the difference.