After a group breakfast of baguettes and omelette, we drove about twenty minutes into the rainforest to the Cuc Phuong Visitor Centre, where we split into two groups for either an easy or a difficult walk. I was persuaded by certain members not to chicken out but to come on the hard walk. In the fog and drizzle, the slipperiness worried me, but there were stone steps on all the climbs, only sometimes requiring close attention. Our guide, Viet, was careful to keep everyone together, and he stopped several times to point out trees or plants. He knew all the Latin names because he was trained as a forester, and he also knew their traditional uses. The forest was thick, not impenetrable. The trees stretched sixty metres into the sky. Lianas thicker than a human thigh
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