At 07.30, depart from hotel, we will leave the busy city of Sai gon, turning off the National Highway 20 to a mountainous area full of roadside plantations of rubber and green coffee. A short, smooth 1.5hours bus ride takes us to Vinh Cuu District of Dong Nai province. At 09.30, we start cycling to a former volcanic crater, known as Lava tubes. Crossing the Dong Nai River to enter the Cat Tien National Park enables visitors begin their wildlife experience. This forest area used to be the head quarter of Vietnamese army during the war. We arrive at the ranger post, meeting our Cat Tien park ranger, transfer luggage & water to our 4WD jeep, then climb up the challenging slopes, 20 km up and down. We are cycling through the elephant activities area, so we should keep together and following instruction of our ranger.
Picnic lunch break. We keep on cycling to Ta Lai ethnic minority village, then going through the buffer zone to head quarter of Cat Tien Park.
Overnight in Cat Tien National Park.

We wake up to the nice songs of native birds. At 07.00, we start cycling 16 km through forest to Dak Lua area. From here we do trekking 2 km to this interesting eco-system of semi-evergreen forest and wetland-flooded-evergreen forest: the Ficus benjamina group. Located in an area of 3 ha, the highest level belongs to family of Moraceae (Dau tam) such as: F. benjamina, Fracemora, Flacourtiaceae, Hychaearpus etc...The trek path has a lot of tuff rocks - product of volcanic craters million years ago.
We also see huge trees of Lagerstromenia ovalfolia and several kinds of birds. Then we cycle 16 km back, with a short stop over Cycas rumphii (Thien Tue), Ancistrolandus tectorius (Trung quan), Afzelia cyclocarpa (Go) and Ben Cu rapids. Take a shower and have a late lunch at park center before ferry crossing the river. We goodbye Cat Tien park, transfer by car to Saigon.