Cat Tien - Jungle Vibes & Near Death Experiences

It was already so hot.

It was only shortly before 5:30 in the morning when it started.

Everything was still asleep.

It was pitch black.

A rustle here and there, now and then a bark from far away, but actually it was dead quiet.

We....no, actually just ME looked so stupid.

How I shuffled so tiredly along the path to the harbor.

We were told 'No bright colors' .

'Wear dark clothes.'

In theory I already understood that, but you have to know that there is a lack of options in my suitcase.

So I wore a light blue denim shirt, light green Adidas joggers and these hideously ugly knee-length overcoats against leeches that would probably attack us wherever we wanted to go.

Snow-white sneakers completed this picture.

I don't know if you noticed at the beginning, so I'll repeat it:

It was already so hot!

And I cursed the long clothes before I even put them on.

The alarm clock rudely woke us up around 4 and I briefly asked myself why the heck I kept coming up with such stupid ideas.

It was just really early.

Way too early!

Something inside me considered just lying there and pretending I hadn't heard the alarm. I could then blame Tatti for it later. ;)

It was really inhumane to get up now and put on (long!) clothes.

But of course the moment of doubt passed relatively quickly and I sat up.

Less than 40 minutes later we were on the river.

The river that separated us from the jungle.

A really short crossing and we were almost in the middle of the bushes.

2 guides accompanied this trip into this green other world.

Besides Tatti and me, there were 3 other crazy people.

So the seven of us ran into the jungle in a row like a little family of ducks.

The guides at the front and back.

No one was allowed to go forward or stay behind.

Before we set off, we received a short briefing.

We were asked if we were afraid of snakes...and that there was a certain type of monkey...

Monkeys that are small and cute...but would poison you if they bit you...

That the guides had no antidote and for heaven's sake we shouldn't touch any animals.

I knew immediately what species they were talking about.

They're basically prosimians and they're really so cute.

Cute and deadly when things go really badly.

They said it was a bit dangerous because we would be off the trails and that's exactly why the guides have to bring up the rear in both directions.

They warned us that we would have to run a bit because the gibbons would only sing in the morning. And only for a few minutes.

Then they fall silent for the time being.

So you have to try to locate them during this singing, because you would probably have little chance of finding them later.

So the gibbons were our object of desire that morning.

Singing monkeys. I had read about them during my research while preparing for the trip and I really wanted to hear about them and, ideally, see them too. Tatti was quickly infected by my euphoria.

That's exactly why we were only too happy to book this tour.

And we were so so so excited.

If I hadn't watched YouTube videos about these monkeys beforehand, I wouldn't have thought of animal noises when I heard the sound for the first time.

Gibbons sound more like a siren, an alarm.

It's hard for me to describe it, but if you're really interested, you can ask Google.

We had been hiking for quite a while.

It was quiet.

We needed a flashlight to see at all and avoid tripping over the many tree roots and perhaps landing unceremoniously in one of the prickly plants that grew everywhere.

All senses were tense.

It was actually a bit scary walking through the dark thicket so early.

We should be calm.

Don't talk much.

At this point I probably don't need to explain why.

Even the jungle was still asleep at the beginning.

It smelled musty.

Just like wet earth.

Just like mold.

It smelled of rare plants and sweet flowers.

But it also kind of smelled like an animal.

For a while we heard nothing other than our own footsteps.

Cracking branches on the ground, breaking under our weight.

The birds woke up first.

A quiet but ever-increasing concert of exotic bird calls.

Gently rustling leaves accompanied our every step.

The guides were absolutely focused.

Completely focused on their environment.

THIS is what someone looked like who didn't want to deprive the customer of this incredible and unique experience.

The first rays of sunlight made their way through the dense canopy of leaves as the morning jungle slowly came to life.

There were a lot of noises that I couldn't place.

I've never experienced anything like this.

Yes, I was damn tired that morning, but on the other hand, I have never been as fit and mentally present as I was in those moments in the Vietnamese jungle.

I wanted to soak it all up.

Don't miss out on anything, no matter how small.

Each additional step awakened my senses to new life - the rustling underfoot, the loud courtship of the cicadas, the quiet whispers of the guides, all these new impressions.

It was such an intense experience.

And that was it BEFORE we even heard the gibbons singing.

But I immediately got goosebumps when I actually noticed her.

They were far away.

Ka, that was the name of the female guide, pointed in one direction.

And from then on everything happened very quickly.

Suddenly she stepped up her game.

Of course we do too.

She said it was a young male and we had to hurry.

Then it was quiet again.

We stood on the spot for a moment.

Suddenly it started again.

Ka said it was a small group and ran.

We follow.

Every now and then a vine in the face, constantly stumbling over some bushes.

I almost laid down countless times.

It became quiet again.

No more singing to be heard.

Sometimes we waited for minutes without saying a word in a spot in the middle of the jungle and just waited.

Sometimes Ka exchanged ideas with the other guide.

Shrug.

Then it started again.

We sprinted off.

By now it was not only really warm, but so hot that I still have no words for it.

The humidity was unbearable.

At least level 9000.

My hair, already very wild, was out of control.

Plus dripping wet.

Tatti just called me Kurt Cobain that day.

I admit it openly, it was really (minimal) exhausting plowing through the jungle, especially when my favorite travel buddy and I were so perfectly prepared and the two of us could only share 400 ml of water because neither of us had it thought to take more with you.

But all the effort was worth it.

Because at some point, after what felt like a hundred attempts by the guides, I was finally able to see gibbons.

When Ka actually wanted to give up and she called her boss from deep in the jungle to tell her that unfortunately we didn't see any monkeys and that we would now break off the tour and try again the next day, the time had finally come.

The first thing she saw was one.

She looked into the treetops. Her neck bent back so unnaturally that you thought something was about to break off, she suddenly laughed almost hysterically at the sky.

She pointed her finger and kept shouting

'Monkey!! You see?'

' No!'

'He's black. It's very small. You see?'

'No!'

And it was like that constantly for the first few minutes.

Run.

To look up.

Laughing guides.

Happy faces of the other participants.

Cameras click.

And always just a disappointed 'No' from me.

No no no.

I just didn't see anything.

I craned my neck.

Got a stiff neck.

But no monkeys.

Even Tatti saw some before me, although she also had a hard time at the beginning.

But in the end, Fortune was kind to me.

My greatest wish was fulfilled, high up in the treetops a gibbon shimmied from branch to branch.

It all happened much too quickly.

And above all, way too fast for him

to photograph, but believe me, it's all saved HERE.

(Now imagine Vivi tapping her head with her index finger)

We followed the melodic calls of the funny monkeys for a little while.

The calls that felt and actually always came from a different direction.

I have no idea how many monkeys we actually saw at the end, high above us, but we were overjoyed to witness this crazy spectacle.

Do you know what was the funniest?

Every now and then they would throw food at us.

One guide even had feces thrown at him and was hit in the head.

Yes, that's how we deal with intruders like us in these areas.

Serves us right. :))

_____________________________

Breakfast afterwards was well-deserved and necessary and I was so, so happy to be out of my shoes, get rid of those ugly leech covers and put on short clothes again.

Oh, and guess who still found leeches IN THEIR FUCKING SHOES.

(The light arrows point to ME)

_____________________________________

In principle, you could also explore the national park without a guide.

However, it can get very expensive very quickly.

I read that they once spent a whole week looking for a German who got lost in the jungle.

He survived, but the subsequent reckoning made him wish things had turned out differently. 😜

Sorry, I haven't mentioned the place that was supposed to be our new home for 4 days and 3 nights.

It's CAT TIEN.

One of the last original rainforests lies in this national park.

Everything here was spared from the war, thank God, and that's why you can actually still see centuries-old giant trees with gigantic tree roots.

About 3-4 hours drive from Ho Chi Minh City, it opened up a completely different world to us.

You know, it took me a moment to really get there.

I was used to luxury accommodations on this trip.

And yes, I booked everything myself and knew exactly what to expect.

And yet it was almost like a culture shock when we were stranded there.

I knew that everything would be rather simple, but when we arrived it was already after 12 o'clock.

It was basically a dark night in Vietnam.

We heard a lot of indefinable noises.

And saw a lot of livestock in our bungalow.

The hosts were rather taciturn.

Completely different than what we were used to recently.

And we just couldn't see anything.

It seemed chaotic in the huge area.

Untidy.

The attached restaurant was simple.

The menu is clear.

The employees were unfriendly at first glance.

And basically we just ate, because the Gibbon Trek was scheduled for the next morning.

And you read it yourself.

It was fantastic.

And especially seeing everything in the daylight on the way home made everything shine in a different light.

The path from the jungle to the accommodation led through a small village.

Basically, it was so small that you probably couldn't even call it a 'village'.

A handful of small shops, people chilling in hammocks here and there.

3 or 4 small stalls with fruit and chichi, a few very simple dwellings, sometimes even real houses... That's it.

There was nothing more.

The whole vibe was most reminiscent of an island.

Here I would have to slow down my pace for better or for worse.

And somehow adapt to this place.

Rarely has something been as easy for me as this.

It was such a stark contrast to Saigon that it felt like a completely different trip.

We stopped at a small stand after the morning tour.

We bought water and replenished our fluid supply.

We really were almost dehydrated in the jungle and felt so good to finally have something to drink again.

And then there were dogs literally everywhere.

We already noticed it on Phu Quoc.

And also in Ho Chi Minh.

There were so many street dogs that we couldn't count them.

Did you know that after the Chinese, the Vietnamese are the ones who eat the most dogs?

Yes, you read that right.

They eat dogs there!

My friends from Google told me this before this trip.

And so often I asked myself whether every street dog I saw was potential food for the locals.

At some point I was so curious that I simply asked someone who crossed our path that morning.

I saw a sweet dog and his tired owner crouching next to him, scratching his head absentmindedly.

I simply did it:

'Excuse me, English?'

Here in Vietnam very few people speak English, so I wasn't surprised when he just shrugged his shoulders and said 'okay' .

Without much introduction I asked:

'Vietnamese people eat dogs, yes?'

He laughed wryly.

'Yes'.

Macabre, since he was petting this dog while he was doing it.

I pointed to the doggo.

Almost outraged:

'You eat him???'

He did a classic hand-to-mouth movement.

He thought for a moment and said ' No' .

Laughed again.

I wasn't really convinced.

'And Cat?'

He probably wasn't sure what I wanted.

Matching move and:

'You eat MeowMeow?'

Another laugh and:

' No '.

As a cat enemy, I wouldn't have cared too much about a different answer, but I was interested and happy to have finally talked about it.

This afternoon we went on another excursion.

Our lodge was in a great location right on the banks of a real jungle river, which, as already mentioned, forms the border to the national park.

And we spent about 90 minutes on this river with a private boat driver.

He showed us colorful birds and huge lizards that were chilling on branches at really great heights.

And that was also a phenomenon.

How could he even spot them from so far away??

I would never have seen the creatures in my life.

But jut, I'm really not a benchmark.

I can't even see a monkey when it's sitting on a branch right in front of me.

And speaking of monkeys, we also saw a few on this trip.

There were different species and actually much closer than in the morning.

All in all a really nice trip.

And since I obviously can't live without trips, I already had new plans in my pocket for the next day.

There should be a crocodile lake 'nearby'.

And as the name suggests, this lake is home to crocodiles.

There are supposed to be around 600 of them and we wanted to see at least one of them.

So once again we set off on our next adventure in beautiful leech protection clothing and long trousers.

First we were taken in a vehicle deep into the jungle

At some point the 'road' ended and you had to continue on foot.

There was a narrow, natural path that leads directly through the jungle and after 5 kilometers ends directly at the crocodiles.

It was such a humid and hot day, but again so exciting as Tatti and I jumped around excitedly like little children.

The evergreen of the jungle.

These meter-long lianas everywhere.

Plants that grew on other plants.

Huge leaves.

Big ferns.

Bright orchid species

These mysterious smells.

The sounds of the jungle.

A rustling in the treetops and monkeys again.

Far away again, but still there.

We had probably been happily strolling through the thicket for half an hour when it happened.

I ran forward, Tatti a little behind me.

I don't remember exactly what I noticed first.

The sound she made or her shape, but suddenly I had to jump back quite a bit.

Completely automatic.

'Oohh shit' I went.

' Zzzzzzz ' she made.

I have no idea where it came from so suddenly, but right in front of me, a body length away, a huge king cobra hissed at me.

I'm not a snake professional, but I knew immediately that it had to be a cobra.

Because I don't know of any other snake that puffs out its neck like that.

She clearly warned us not to come any closer, she made herself so big.

Not that we necessarily intended to do that.

Tatti like this:

' Vivi, you have to stomp your feet and she'll run away.'

Me, rummaging through my bag:

' Stop! Not until I filmed her.'

Well, nothing came of the video, because a recurring problem when traveling is that my phone memory is constantly full.

And at this monumental moment of all times.

Damn!

Tatti wasn't able to record anything for posterity either, because unfortunately she was so excited that she simply didn't press the record button.

By the time we noticed, this highly poisonous specimen was long gone.

Man!

But I will never forget the second near-death experience of this trip, you can be sure of that. ;)

It took what felt like forever to finally get to Crocodile Lake, but phew!!

The lake was really beautiful.

And to finally be able to see such an animal live.

That was just crazy.

It was like in the movies.

A few of them were seen swimming through the lake until they were almost on land with us.

Everything was a bit like a documentary.

You could see their huge scales flashing out and their eyes.

The rest was swallowed up by the water.

We even rented a boat with our own guide so we could be even closer to the reptiles, but while that was actually nice, it was somehow more exciting on the shore.

I don't know how long we ended up staying there. Or how many crocs we saw.

But we knew we still had a very long way to go back and at some point we would set off again.

The next day was also check-out.

Our jungle adventure was about to end. However, there was one last little thing on the list for the morning. :)

We decided to borrow a scooter from the lodge owner and just drive off.

Our last morning in Cat Tien started like the one before it.

What I forgot to mention:

Gibbons can be heard up to 2 kilometers away.

And very well.

So I woke up to her good morning sound.

I even gave up music for this.

And that is mandatory.

Actually, in almost every second of my life...

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Our taxi was supposed to arrive at 12 and take us back to Saigon.

At 8 we were already on the scooter.

I don't even know if I've discussed the road conditions there yet.

It was just catastrophic.

You constantly had to drive off-road.

Nothing but sharp, huge stones hundreds of meters away.

Then a piece of asphalt and before you knew it, you were slipping on the gravel again.

However, most people know my love for scooters and I always have an indescribable feeling when I sit on one.

No matter who we drove past that morning-

Everyone waved happily at us.

Young & old.

That was so special somehow.

You automatically wave back or even start doing it yourself.

Everything is different in Southeast Asia.

In a truly miraculous way.

After about an hour we were finally there.

And we just couldn't get enough of each other.

Right in front of us was a huge waterfall.

Majestic.

Loud.

Beautiful.

Surrounded by lush greenery, the masses cascade into a glittering spray.

The super clear water flowed over smooth rocks, creating a stunning natural spectacle.

There is always a very special atmosphere at waterfalls and I always find it very difficult to leave.

The world is just so incredibly beautiful.

Already completely addicted in Berlin, it is much more difficult to explore the area in other countries.

And it was really beautiful.

And anyway: I will miss the feeling of sleeping in the middle of the jungle (and somehow it really was that way).

The soundscape there is incredibly spectacular.

You are woken up by the exotic cries of monkeys and birds and you immediately dive into another world.

These 3 nights in Cat Tien did a lot for me and I definitely want to go back to this place one day.

But for now I just want one thing and that is to stop writing.

I already have a cramp in my fingers and if you read this excessively long blog entry in one sitting, all I can say is:

You're crazy !

(Thanks anyway and see you soon. ;) )