Cat Tien, the park where you might actually see something

Cat Tien covers about 71,000 hectares of lowland forest, and it is the one Vietnamese national park where a visitor with a guide and an early alarm can reasonably expect to see wild animals. That sentence applies nowhere else in the country.

What can you actually see?

Primates, and reliably. The dawn gibbon trek leaves before five with a guide, walks to a known territory and waits for the calls. A group of golden-cheeked gibbons usually turns up within an hour or two of first light.

Black-shanked douc langurs turn up on the same walks. Beyond the primates there are gaur, sambar and wild pig on the night drive. Hornbills and more than 300 recorded bird species fill the day, and crocodiles hold the lake. The parks guide is honest about how unusual that list is.

What is the walk in to Crocodile Lake?

Bau Sau sits deep in the park, reached by 9 km of jeep track and then about 5 km on foot. That walk is what makes the trip. The last section crosses grassland where gaur are sometimes standing.

Rangers put 60 Siamese crocodiles back into the lake from 2000 onwards, and they show at dusk from the station on the shore. The station takes a handful of overnight guests, which is the single best thing the park offers: the wetland at dawn with nobody else on it.

Where did the rhinos go?

A ranger found the last Javan rhino in Vietnam shot in this park in 2010, its horn taken. Vietnam declared the subspecies extinct in the country soon after. The park makes no attempt to soften that, and the display about it is the most affecting thing at the headquarters.

The loss matters for what the park is now. Conservation here is about what is left: the gibbons, the gaur, the pangolins coming through the rescue programme. The rhino is the argument for why the rules are as strict as they are.

What is Ta Lai?

Ta Lai is a village of Ma, Stieng and Tay families on the edge of the park, and it is where the community side of the project sits. A longhouse there takes guests, run with the villagers rather than for them, and the money goes back into the same households.

Ta Lai is the alternative to sleeping at the headquarters, about 15 km away on the near bank, and it works best for anyone staying three nights rather than two. The homestay guide covers what that kind of arrangement is like in practice.

When can you walk, and what stops you?

December to May is the dry season and the only season worth planning around. Trails are open, the animals concentrate at water, and the road and walk to Bau Sau are passable.

From June to November the forest is wet and leeches are on every path. The Bau Sau route closes often enough that nobody should count on it. This is the opposite half of the year from Phong Nha, which is worth knowing when the two are being fitted into one trip.

How do you get there and where do you stay?

From Ho Chi Minh City it is about 150 km and three to four hours. The last stage is a short ferry across the Dong Nai to the headquarters. Buses heading for Da Lat drop at the junction, and a xe om covers the last stretch.

The park runs rooms and bungalows at the headquarters, and there are guesthouses and a lodge on the near bank. Entry is a ticket in the tens of thousands of dong, and the treks, the jeep and the guide are charged separately. Budget for the guide rather than resenting it: the walks that need one are the walks worth doing.

Does it fit a normal itinerary?

The park fits between Saigon and Da Lat, and it is a detour rather than a stop on the way. Two nights is the shape that works: arrive, night drive, gibbons at dawn, Bau Sau on the second day.

Anyone on a two-week route through the country will probably skip it, and the one-month itinerary is where it starts making sense.