Cúc Phương National Park, established in 1962 as Vietnam’s first protected area, contains a forest so old that its trees predate the written history of the country by centuries. The park’s limestone karst supports a canopy of dipterocarp hardwoods — trees that reach forty metres with trunks of two to three metres circumference — and beneath them an understorey of ferns, orchids, and fungi of extraordinary diversity. Walking here, in the particular silence of old-growth forest, produces effects on the nervous system that require no philosophical framework to appreciate: the cortisol simply drops.
Shinrin-Yoku in a Vietnamese Context
The Japanese concept of shinrin-yoku — forest bathing, the deliberate practice of slow immersive time in woodland — has a Vietnamese equivalent in the cultural practice of mountain retreat, pursued by scholars and monks for centuries at sites exactly like Cúc Phương. A guided mindful walk here, conducted without a destination agenda and with attention directed to sensory detail rather than distance covered, typically lasts three to four hours and leaves participants in a state of quiet attentiveness that persists for days.
The park’s Endangered Primate Rescue Centre, home to populations of langurs and gibbons held for eventual rewilding, adds a dimension of ecological literacy to a visit: to understand what the forest contains is to experience it differently than as an abstract backdrop for wellbeing. The two aims — conservation knowledge and personal restoration — turn out to reinforce each other.
