Dac Lua Homestay

 Cat Tien National Park has partnered with the adjacent farming village of Dac Lua to provide two homestay options for tourists. Both offer simple and clean lodging in traditional style homes, and the chance to have meals with your hosts AND see some interesting agriculture projects.

We visited both projects yesterday and I was sorry to hear that they have not been getting any visitors. This is probably because booking information is not available on line;I will work with the CTNP staff this week to fix this (or at least make it easy to find on line). It is currently possible to call the homestay hosts on the phone, but unless you are already in Vietnam and speak Vietnamese, this is not accessible to most people. I think this activity would be most interesting to foreigners over 30 who are interested in food and conservation and generally meeting new people to learn about their lives.

Each homestay can host up to 5-6 people, depending on sleeping arrangements, for around $10 per person per night (200,000 VND); meals are a little extra ($1.5-$4). The guest beds are together in one room (it is currently unlikely that you'd be asked to share with people outside your group since tourists are extremely rare); the bathrooms are modern with flush toilets and hot water showers.

The first farm relies primary on raising silk worms; visitors can help collect the special leaves that the silk worms eat and learn about the whole silk process. There is a silk spinning facility in the village but I did not get a good look at it.  The house also keeps chickens and has cashew trees; it’s surrounded by rice fields (and other crops) and has pretty views of the forested hills on the edge of the Park.

The second homestay is situated in a gorgeous flower garden, and the hosts grow porcupines, pigeons and chickens, all for food (some for family consumption and some for sale to restaurants).  

With both homestays you have plenty of time for walking or biking the area and checking things out. People don’t really speak much English here so be prepared to smile a lot and rely on body language.

My suggestion for doing either homestay is to contact the Cat Tien National Park EcoTourism Center via email (cattien_nationalpark@yahoo.com) with the dates of your proposed visit, number of people in your group, etc, and ask them to make your reservations.  From the Park Headquarters, I would rent a bike for 3 days and bike the 17 km along the park road to Dac Lua Village. Make sure you get a map or something so you know where to go in Dac Lua. The road is paved for only about the first 5 km. Take your time on the bike and look out for monkeys, birds and lizards. A French woman told me she saw 2 gaur on this road! 

I would spend to nights at the same homestay and then bike back to the park, taking lots of time for photos, looking around at the various interesting ag projects, and of course having a traditional Vietnamese afternoon nap every day. This would be a good “add on” to more popular/well known Cat Tien activities like hiking to Crocodile Lake and the early morning Wild Gibbon Tour . There is a lot to do here!

If you don't want to bike, of course you could walk each direction, or hire one of the park vehicles to drive you to and from Dac Lua.

In case you are wondering why Cat Tien National Park is partnering on this project, it is because poverty, subsistence agriculture, and illegal use of the protected forest are all serious threats to conservation inside the park.  The more economic options available for the local people, the less they will be pressured to squeeze the protected forest and wild animals.  

Your $10 per night will be well spent in the village, and you’ll definitely have an experience that is missed by most tourists. I wish the Dac Lua Homestay project all the luck in the world- thank you for opening your homes and farms to me, David, and our short course participants!

Evaluation forms: Take 1

Dr. Khanh and I made some English language questionnaires (which Mr Tan translated to Vietnamese), and then the class participants distributed them. During one day at Crocodile Lake, we got 13 responses. The responses were helpful- they were asked to rank everything from the park website to the food to how much fun/education was had on their various tours. 

We quickly learned that the form needs to be simplified. We discussed the responses as a group and the visitors had identified some issues that we had already discussed as a group- limitations of the website, issues with trying book rooms or tours, for example. Everyone seemed really happy to help.

I’ll write a  new form and David and I (and maybe some staff) can distribute these in the park in the upcoming week.

Giving a fun and informative tour: interpretive skills

When a person hires a guide in a national park or other place, or joins a free interpretative walk or something, they have certain expectations whether they know it or not. Here are some pointers for doing a good tour or walk.

1.        When it’s time to meet your group at the appropriate location, take a few minute to connect with people. Ask where they are from, smile or make eye contact, and generally give the impression that you are happy to spend time with them.

2.       At the beginning, give an overview. Not a lecture. Just explain: what is the purpose of your tour? What will we see? How long will we be gone? Will there be free time for taking photos or journaling? Are we going to go to one place and then wait for something to happen? Etc.

3.       Make sure people are prepared (shoes, water, rain gear, etc).

4.       Stop occasionally and show something interesting. You can have a set number of planned stops on your tour, but also take advantage of opportunities, like a bird flying overhead or a wildlife sighting or an interesting plant that you come across.  Remember that even if it is something that is normal to you and you see it every day, it is probably new and exciting for park visitors.

5.       Conclusion. At the end of the tour, re state the overview but even more succinctly. Thank everyone and say goodbye.

This checklist helps the people in your group relax a little bit and feel ready to learn. If they don’t understand the schedule or the overall concept of the activity, they won’t have as positive an experience.

We did a field exercise with me as the tour guide and the class as the tourists.  Our first issue was to identify who was coming the tour and what the message would we. We decided that the message was about the conservation value of Crocodile Lake, and our tourists were Vietnamese city dwellers, parents and children, who had never visited the park before.

At the beginning, I asked everyone who they were and to tell about themselves. The class instantly transformed from resource professionals to married couples from Hanoi, families from Ho Chi Minh City, and single parents with teenagers.  I gave an over view of the subject and how far we would walk (important information for people with kids!) and we set out.  I made 3 or 4 impromptu stops to look at plants and give some factual information, and then we sat under some shade trees.  We had to warn some of the families in the group to not wander into the forest because of wild gaur and the danger of getting lost.

People asked good tourist questions, like “is it safe to go swimming even though there crocodiles here?” “Can we eat this kind of crocodile?” and so on.

On the way back to the ranger station, the class members took turns being the tour guide.  We emphasized that people are usually hoping for a combination of new knowledge and an emotional connection with nature or other people.  I think it was a successful exercise and a few people suggested doing this training with some of the park tour guides.  (The people in my class sometimes work as tour guides as part of their duties, but it isn’t their primary duty. Cat Tien has several staff who are primarily tour guides, but this is the peak tourist season so they couldn’t attend most of the training. I’ll try to schedule with them this upcoming week).

Cultural differences and giving tours

Basic manners are often different between Asian cultures and western cultures. We talked about how in America, people expect you to make eye contact or else they think that you don’t like them. However in Vietnam it itsn’t really polite to make eye contact, especially with people you don’t know.  They would think you are creepy if you make more than minimum eye contact Hugging new people is common in America, but definitely not a good idea in Vietnam!  However in Vietnam it sounds like it is okay to pick up kids or squeeze babies, but I would never touch a stranger’s baby at home. They would think I was trying to steal their kid.

My suggestion was that although they shouldn’t do anything that makes them truly uncomfortable, if they are giving a tour to western visitors, it would be considered polite and friendly to make eye contact and smile. This is not the local custom, but it would make the foreign visitors feel more comfortable, and therefore more ready to learn.

Our class goes to Crocodile Lake

I’m several days behind updating this blog since our whole class went to spend 3 days at Crocodile Lake. There is a ranger station and guest house there, and the scenery and wildlife is really outstanding. 

It felt good to move the conversation from the conference room to the outdoors.

Crocodile Lake is a huge wetland complex (2,500 hectares or 6,177 acres in the rainy season, shrinking to 370 acres in the dry season) here in the park. The wetland is a big reason why the park has such high biodiversity.  Wetlands support different species of plants and animals (especially birds and amphibians) than the upland forests. This area is good habitat for gaur, Sambar deer, primates and more. If the rangers are available, you can ask them to take you out on a boat for a small fee. (It’s worth it).

Because Crocodile Lake is so important for regional biodiversity, it was recognized as a Ramsar Wetland in 2005. The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty to support protection of really important wetlands around the world. There are 2 in Vietnam (although I forget the other one right now).

Crocodile Lake is the site of a very successful wildlife conservation projects: the re-establishment of the Siamese crocodile. This animal was locally extirpated by illegal hunting (possibly completely extinct in the wild) around 1990. Restoration efforts began in 2000 and now there is a healthy population of wild crocodiles at the lake. We saw some big ones and some babies.  We saw swimming around, eating fish, and laying in the mud. They are dangerous. You should not approach them, or even go in the water. In this picture Mr Thanh and I are close enough-  can you see the crocodile?

It’s one of the popular trekking destinations in the park because it’s just 5k each direction with a beautiful destination. You pass by a huge Tung tree on the way which is great for taking pictures. It’s possible to see wild primates and lots of birds on the trail. We were kind of a big group though, and going off trail to map some trees, so we didn’t see too much on the trail (exception: a giant lizard and a really poisonous snake).

At the lake we continued our training after a half day of free time. The students hosted meals for Tan and me and everything was delicious. I've not had a chance to get hungry here.

Our training topics at the lake included tour guide skills & a field practical, discussion of the park’s biodiversity, giving evaluation forms to the many tourists who visit the lake during our 3 day stay and then summarizing their comments. I will try to make each of these a separate post.

If you are a tourist visiting Cat Tien and you want to visit Crocodile Lake, you need to buy a ticket at the Eco-Tourism Center and then take a car or bicycle (the park can arrange these) to the trailhead. That’s about 9k (of course you can walk too, but just make sure you have enough time). Then walk the remaining 5k to the lake. You do not need a guide. It is possible (if you ask in advance) to stay at the guest house at the lake and in that case you would have dinner with the rangers. You should do it. I will work with the park to get this information posted on web site (price, availability, etc). There's also consensus that there should be a sign close to headquarters explaining where to get a ticket and how far away the lake is, because it's fairly common for people to head over there on foot without a ticket and unprepared for the distance.

By the time you see this sign, it may too late for your camping trip. There should be another, similar sign 9k from this sign. At the park headquarters.  We actually ran into a group of 6-8 young people who were planning to walk from the headquarters to the lake, to camp, but with only 2 hours total for the trip. And no ticket. 

Tour of Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve

Mr. Long, Mr Tan and I had an afternoon to visit Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve,  which is a huge protected area contiguous with Cat Tien National Park. This reserve has multiple international recognitions for its important conservation features, including high rates of endemic and endangered species, really high levels of plant and animal diversity, inclusion of several historical sites from the Vietnam-American war, and many ethnic groups that are indigenous to the area, who still live pretty traditional lifestyles.

The Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve is a part of the even larger Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve, which is a  UNESCO Biosphere reserves.  There are 8 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Vietnam. Dong Nai is one of these 8.

The Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve is 969, 993 hectares or (2.4 million acres) and is divided into 3 zones:

*Core Zone- focused on biodiversity management and cultural preservation; there are more use restrictions 72,000 hectares, includes Cat Tien NP and Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve

*Buffer Zone- this area does allow human uses for some agriculture or other methods to support livelihood,but there are restrictions because the Buffer Zone is considered a a corridor for conservation activities, and is expected to help protect the biodiversity in the Core Zone

*Transition Zone- appropriate economic development is encouraged, with coordination among all affected groups and agencies.

On our visit on Saturday, we visited areas that are part of the Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve. (DNCNR)   So we were in the Core Zone, but not in Cat Tien National Park (CTNP), but the two are biologically adjacent to one another. In Montana, this would be analagous to a big state managed park being adjacent to a national park, because DNCNR is managed by the provincial government while CTNP is managed by the General Forestry Agency (a federal level agency).


The Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve is not far from Vietnam Forestry University, and luckily for us, three Reserve staff (Mr Thanh, Ms Yen and Ms Oanh) who are participation in our workshop at Cat Tien just happened to be available to give us the VIP tour. Thank you Team Dong Nai (plus Mr Long in the red shirt)!

The combination of history, biodiversity and culture was really intriguing to me- I've never visited a protected area that incorporated all three together so strongly.  The headquarters is actually called "The Center for Ecology, History and Culture of War Zone D." I like the combination of subjects- you can tell there is a lot of history and complexity here.

We did a few different things:

Visited one of the important war sites. This site had an interpretative museum about war history and re-creation of the tunnels where Vietnamese people lived and worked and strategized during the war.

It has structures, statues, props, relics, and tunnels you can go into. What was so interesting to me was knowing that this place had been completely bombed and sprayed with Agent Orange and now the jungle is lush and diverse. It made me think a lot about the passage of time and the terrible things that happen in the world and other thoughts that I won't be able to articulate here.

We did some bird watching at the central lake. It's possible to rent a canoe or take a guided boat around the lake for sightseeing, more bird watching or trying your hand at fishing. 

We visited the natural history museum (collections room) at the Ecotourism Center. This was really fun and I could have spent an entire day hanging out there. We all took a ton of photos.

Here is Mr Thanh with a hornbill!

We ended with a festive and generous dinner at the Ecotourism Center Restaurant which had a lot of cool bird identification photos and names posted around the ceiling, with a fresh breeze blowing through.  Here is Mr Tan resting before dinner. He is probably translating something because he is always working!!

We saw the skeletons of this mother and baby elephant that are stored at the Ecotourism Center. This is a locally well known story: these elephants ate or destroyed a bunch of mango trees in a nearby community. For punishment, people put out some poison and these two (maybe more) were killed. Keep in mind that the Asian elephant is extremely rare, predicted to be extinct during my lifetime if I'm not mistaken.  Hopefully, with the strong work of Team Dong Nai and the other professionals  here, we can prevent further conflicts and support conservation together. Of course this means taking care of people too, and not shutting them out of decisions and helping to develop other livelihoods.  Hard work ahead. 

In the meantime, come visit Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve! If you email the Ecotourism Center (find it on their website) please them I sent you! And make sure you have some locally made rice wine with your delicious dinner. They make a special one here, labeled by DNCNR, which is made with a local medicinal root, Eurycoma longifolia. It's good for you!

*To get to the Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve, you can take a bus from Ho Chi Minh City to the city of Bien Hoa. Then transfer to a different bus to the small town of Vinh An, and then take a motorcycle taxi to the Reserve Headquarters. There's a guest house there! Probably best to email the staff so they can make some arrangements for you. They are in the process of putting some package tour descriptions on the web site so keep an eye out. They can also help you arrange bird watching or wildlife watching... Have fun!*

***This post was updated with very helpful fact checking by Ms Yen Ha!

Contemplated topics for future posts

So I don't forget:

Update on English Cafe

Discussion of the workshop participants' eco-tour descriptions
Mango Garden Resort and Botanical Garden
Google Earth! Kickstarter! MapSource! iBird Vietnam!

David is coming here on Saturday!
The art of Dao Van Hoang (featured in the park's Dipterocarp Cafe, above and below photos, and the Ecotourism Center)

Our proposed methods for big tree mapping using GPS + Google Earth

Fund day of nerding it up with other resource management professionals. Maps are fun!

Tomorrow our workshop group hikes into Crocodile Lake, mapping big trees along the way.

Visit to Vietnam Forestry University, Second Branch

Mr Tan and I were warmly received by the faculty, students and staff over the weekend. I had been invited to give 3 lectures. 

All were well attended by students who asked a lot of really good questions (after a little encouragement from their instructors to get them started! Mr. Hai is skillfully encouraging questions in the photo below.) The Friday morning lecture (attended by about 70 or so people, in case Fulbright is reading this) was an introduction of myself, Montana, and grassland conservation in the US in general and my work in the Missoula Valley specifically.  Questions included:

How can Vietnamese people apply knowledge about Montana here in Vietnam?

What suggestions did I have for continuing conservation goals in Vietnam?

How could VFU incorporate more service learning/volunteer activities into their course work (asked by a woman student who said she is eager to start contributing to conservation now)?

These are very broad (but excellent questions). My general responses were that I am a new visitor to Vietnam but hope to continue learning and collaborating. I have some specific ideas about some service learning projects in Cat Tien National Park, and maybe including some University of Montana undergraduates; specifically the big tree mapping project which is going to be a multi-year project for sure. (I will develop this idea in its own post).

Friday afternoon’s lecture was about the importance of education for all conservation efforts. I gave 2 examples: my work getting public support for noxious weed management and grassland conservation in Missoula, and David Schmetterling’s work in educating people in Missoula/Powell Counties about the impacts of Milltown Dam of native fish conservation, and the subsequent removal of the dam.  Then a general discussion of how to plan an education campaign:

Step 1: What do we value, Step 2: What is the problem here, Step 3: What can we do?

I asked everyone to please share some conservation stories from their experience. I heard about the fish introduced to Crocodile Lake in Cat Tien National Park. It seemed like it was going to be a problem at first, but it turned out that both people and crocodiles like to eat these, so (if I understand correctly) they are less of a problem than initially feared. Someone else told us about a specific kind of rare tree that grows in Cat Tien whose fruit is popular with the local people (who are quite poor). Since the tree is rare, its wood is valuable. However since the fruit is desirable, if the park could allow people to harvest some of the fruit, perhaps there could be a better partnership with the locals for protecting the trees instead of illegally cutting the trees down.

I think that the high poverty rate outside the park is one of the biggest conservation problems (if I am following the conversation correctly). Mr Tan translates everything wonderfully but sometimes it’s hard to understand the situation as an outsider, even when explained clearly in your own language.  Understatement of the year: Forest and wildlife conservation are really complex here. Between the biodiversity and the needs of the people (92 million people) living here, it’s difficult.

Non-sequitor: here is the beautiful guest house where we stayed at the VFU campus.

Saturday morning I shared 3 examples of how I use GIS/ GPS and Google Earth for invasive plant management in my work at UM.  If Jed Little is reading this, please know that I did not take credit for creating the maps! I made it clear to the audience that although I am not a GIS expert, the technology is now easier than even 5-10 years ago, and there are limitless applications for it. 

Dr. Khahn shared with me and Mr Tan a report in Vietnamese language explaining how Google Earth could be used more for resource management in Vietnam. It gave examples from several national parks and reserves around Vietnam. Back in Cat Tien today, I shared this report with the workshop participants and they reported that although they are aware of Google Earth, it isn’t widely used enough yet that they have used it for projects themselves.  This insight inspired me to give my GIS lecture to the work shop participants tomorrow morning. I hope they find it interesting and are not yet tired of hearing me talk.

Still to discuss from the weekend: our VIP tour of Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve and the Mango Garden Resort/Botanical Garden, as well as the Dr. Tuyen insider’s tour of all the best coffee bars in town! Wonderful hosts and I hope to see them again soon.

The students were also great, and we’re now all connected on Facebook. They invited Mr Tan and I for juice drinks one night and gave us very kind gifts (see below).

I owe another big thank you for Mr Tan, for his ongoing support and friendship. I think this would be less successful for everyone without his help.

Interpretative sign workshop

Last week we talked about interpretative signs (post from March 4) and we broke into teams address some potential projects. The 4 teams gave presentations on their ideas the following day and they were really outstanding!

Team 1: Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve staff (I call them "Team Dong Nai") were to design a welcome sign for visitors.  They did it old school style- drawing with pencil and paper.

Design: large, 2-sided stone monument. It includes the logo of the Biosphere (elephant and tree), and the shape is the shape of the reserve. It has English and Vietnamese text with one side WELCOMING visitors and one saying GOOD BYE we hope to see you again.  I like it! And since I visited the Reserve since seeing this design last week, I agree with them that a welcome sign like this at the entrance would be very welcome. 

Team 2: This team's job was to take a critical look at the green, 3-paneled sign at the Cat Tien National Park entrance.  They did came up with 6 (or 7?) very specific improvements, including but not limited to: 

*The inspirational quote about forest conservation should be larger and in VN/ENG.

*The text needs to have more contrast from the background, so it's easier to read

*It's redundant to have a big map of the park here since the map is available in several other places throughout the park, this space could be used for other purposes

*Remove a "clutter" sign about campfire restrictions

*Make the way finding part much bigger (directions to the park reception office and private guest houses).

*I need to get a copy of their presentation because they really nailed it!

Team 3: Their assignment was to choose 2 topics that could be displayed outside the park headquarters.There is a lot of under-utilized space there, with some empty display cases or cases that have faded signs.  They chose to focus on pygmy lorises and yellow cheeked gibbons, two very rare primates that are found in Cat Tien.

Sign 1 message: Why is the yellow cheeked gibbon so special? It only lives here, they have interesting family units, and HELLO, they are awesome.

Sign 2 message: Wildlife are not pets, especially the pygmy loris. The illegal pet trade is a huge threat to wildlife conservation. So even though the pygmy loris is adorable, do not keep them as pets.

These are just some snapshots of the projector screen. The loris is saying "my home is he forest, I am not a pet!" Love it.

Team 4. This group's assignment was to pick 2 subjects for interpretive signs that would be located inside the visitor center.  There is more display space inside the visitor center (notice that sometimes I call it reception or headquarters, and sometimes "visitor center?" It needs a stronger identity... something to consider) since some of the furniture was rearranged. I think we'll come back to that conversation later.

The team chose 2 subjects: Crocodile Lake and the park's popular night safari tour.

The first sign explains the story of the successful re-introduction of the wild crocodile to Crocodile Lake. Crocodile Lake is a gorgeous wetland in the center of the park. Crocodiles went extinct here, but now they have been successfully re-established. The message: we fixed this situation but let's not let the problem happen again. Wildlife want to stay in their homes! And by the way, Crocodile Lake is internationally recognized for  its conservation status.

The second sign discusses the night safari, emphasizing the difference between viewing captive animals and seeing animals in nature.  I did not a picture of it because I was starting to feel a little obnoxious but it was a good sign. 

I want to get all these files and maybe fiddle with them a little bit, and have the posters made for the park. Stay tuned.

Cat Tien National Park Museum

Cat Tien National Park has a museum. It's tucked away in one of the administration buildings, not fare from the entrance to the Wildlife Rescue Center. I loved going in there. And I wish I had time to work on the museum alone several weeks.

The CTNP museum faces similar situation as the Zoological Museum as the University of Montana, and probably the same problems as many small museums around the world:

Lack of funding, lack of space, need for interpretation (non technical signs and labels). Ongoing challenges for care and maintenance of the specimens.

It seemed like a secret treasure chest and I'm so glad we went in.

They've displayed the skeleton the last rhinoceros that lived in the Park, whose body was found in 2011. This species is now extinct in Vietnam.  My understanding (which is often wrong here) is that this is the skeleton of the actual last rhinoceros. Looking at it with this information made me feel EMOTIONS. Anger, sadness, hopelessness, impressed that such an unlikely animal existed in the first place, a strange out of body experience that I could be so close the body of this famous individual rhino.

There were monkeys, hornbills, pickled fish and amphibians, some bears, some guar remains, and an impressive insect collection that probably doesn't even scratch the surface of the park's biodiversity but is stunning.  

I suggested that we take some pictures of the pinned insects and put the pictures in the Ecotourism center to promote visitors to the museum.

 The museum needs a source of income. Tourists can buy a ticket to visit the museum but I don't know how many people go there.  I am also not sure how all the park departments get their revenue. 

Maybe Emilie Graslie of the Field Museum could come and fix it up. I thibk an artist in residence be a huge benfit here. Must look for funding sources. 

Websites, big tree mapping and so much more

Last night, we went on the park's night safari tour. We saw rabbits, a fisher, a mouse deer, dozens of sambar deer, a long tailed night jar (which is a cool bird), and one domestic  house cat (they are a conservation problem here too).

We started this morning with a discussion of the parks' websites, discussing what is good about each one and what things could be improved. For example, some parks' websites clearly state the price of package tours (which I think is important) and others do not list package tours. People had good ideas and strong opinions which is appreciated.

We also talked about Facebook marketing and other social media platforms. Twitter and Instagram are apparently not as popular in VN. MySpace is over. Dr. Khahn asked me if we should start using Twister, which confused me because I had not even heard of it, but I googled the interwebs and it's a real thing.  Facebook is popular here, but people had different opinions about who was using it and for what purpose; probably because there are a lot different kinds of audiences using Facebook for a variety of uses. I like it to post pictures of my cats and see what the Governor is up to.

All the parks have Facebook pages but not all are in English. We talked about how often to update, whether it should be detailed information just a pretty/interesting photo, etc. Each of the parks’ staff members shared their FB and webpage info.

Of course we talked about the universal obstacles to good web presence: time and clear delegation of duties. I struggle mightily with these in my University work; everyone does. There is no simple fix for those 2 problems, except having money to dedicate staff time to work on it.  I enjoyed looking at all the websites with them.

I’m not sure why I am unable to find the Cat Tien National Park FB page.  Maybe if one of my CTNP friends reads this blog post they can send me direct url in the comments section. Maybe because it is marked as Vietnamese language? I’m not sure but I think that a good and simple FB would really help connect tourists/travelers to the park. I’m having the same problem with Yak Don and Bidoup National Parks’ FB pages.

Here is the FB page for Dong Nai Biosphere Preserve https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dong-Nai-World-Biosphere-Reserve/291221094409894. Please show them some love and like their page!

I think all 3 parks’ websites come up easily with a Google search. Staff pointed out that there are several private hotels/tour companies just outside the park, and many of them have stronger websites, and this is a “pull” of tourists away from the park lodging and tour guides.  We’ve had some conversations about whether the relationship between private businesses and the government park agency. Big topic.

People shared their group projects, which was to design some interpretative signs (this will be its own post). LOVED IT. You will also love it. Preview: gibbon info.

We visited the park museum which was really fascinating (it will be its own post later).

After lunch, a subset of the group discussed how to go about GPS mapping the “big trees” in the park. There are 7 species of trees that have special conservation status and the park needs a map of them.  Sounds straightforward. However, (a) the jungle is really dense and (b) the park is really huge and (c) measuring Diameter at Breast Height...? We did not resolve the methodology issue but we’ll discuss again on Tuesday when Mr Tan and I return from Bien Hoa.

Also, Mr Tan and I are in Bien Hoa. It's a city about an hour outside Ho Chi Minh City, where the Forestry University is located. My host Professor Tuyen invited us to dinner in the faculty restaurant, where we totally got the VIP treatment.  Food sensory overload. My favorite thing was learning about “Century Eggs” which are beautiful and taste like fresh-laid and hard boiled eggs.  Read about it here. http://rojosgourmet.blogspot.com/2008/05/really-its-gourmet-1000-year-old-egg.html

Tan and Tuyen tell me that it’s extremely common in south Vietnam. Maybe I can learn this technique and apply it to our backyard chickens in Missoula.

 Thank you Dr. Tuyen for a lovely evening and warm welcome to the Forestry University!  Dr. Tuyen works in applied sustainable agriculture methods, I enjoyed hearing about his research and extension work in multi-crop systems for increased yield and soil conservation.  Looking forward to meeting more faculty and students tomorrow.