"Viet nam vo dich" Vietnam by Pierangelo

I stay a busy and wonderful weekend in Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) then I visited Mekong Delta directed to Phu Quoc island. The last two days I did a trekking in the jungle of Cat Tien.

Phu Quoc island

Phu Quoc, Vietnam's largest island is situated in the gulf of Thailand.

The drop-shaped island is 48 km in length, and from 3 to 28 km breadthwise. all in all it has 1320 qkm and about 70000 inhabitants are living on it.

Compared to other islands, Phu Quoc has a very good infrastructure, like for example: an airport, several harbours, wide roads, money-exchange, hospital, post-office, police-station and a beautiful market.

Sightseeing's and activities:

River cruising, visiting fish-sauce factories and pepper plantations, jungle-trekking to the waterfall, boat trips to an thoi islands with snorkelling and fishing, enjoying the countless lonely beaches, marvelling the local products at the market, try to find the whale museum.
Since March 2002 there are two diving-bases on Phu Quoc (have a look to the link page). They are located 1 kilometre down south of Duong Dong.

In the near future there are big style development plans for the island with construction of a lot large resorts and an international airport. They want reach millions / years tourists on the island, probably at the time you read this text things are yet changed and Phu Quoc is no more an idyllic and quiet island.

Cat Tien national park

This park covers 74,000 Hectares of lowland forest and swamp and is home to numerous birds and mammals. One of Vietnams most important and largest National Parks. Supported by the WWF, projects include surveying the small population of Javan rhinoceros, that still exist in the area the last remaining population on main land. Other mammals include Elephant, Gaur and tiger. Many birds can be found, including such specialities as Germain's Peacock Pheasant, Bar-bellied Pitta and the rare endemic Orange-necked Partridge.

Bird species include peafowl, Siamese fireback, endemic Germain's peacock-pheasant, endemic red-vented bulbul, Indian darter , milky stork and a wide variety of resident and migratory waterfowl. Groups of 10-20 lesser adjutant storks have been observed, and the species is said to breed in the centre of the marsh along with various herons and egrets. Woolly-necked stork has also been reported in recent years.. Some migratory ducks are present during winter. The reserve is also rich in birds of prey including several species associated with the wetlands, such as osprey, black kite, brahminy kite, grey-headed fishing eagle, crested serpent eagle and red-legged falconet.