Night in the middle of a thousand year old forest

(Baonghean.vn) - The night in the middle of the thousand-year-old forest of Pu Mat National Park is bone-chillingly cold. Every now and then, you can hear the spine-chilling howling of gibbons and the rumbling of old, rotten trees falling because they can't withstand the strong winds at night.

Hammocks with sleeping bags as thick as blankets to fight the cold in the middle of the jungle regardless of it being in the middle of a hot summer day. Photo by Xuan Hoa

During the week-long trip with the scientific research team of the Science Department, Pu Mat National Park, we had experiences that few people know. After a long day of marching over hills and slopes, walking on thousand-year-old forests, it was late afternoon and the group stopped by a stream.

During the 7 days in the forest, we stopped at 7 streams, which are places that only people who are familiar with the forest know. In the middle of the vast green forest, water cannot be found everywhere and only the flat streams have water for cooking and to scoop up for the following days. Therefore, there were days when the group had to stop at 4pm because they could not reach the next stream in time, but there were days when the group had to keep going until after 6:30pm to rest.

Overnight in the middle of Pu Mat forest. Photo: Xuan Hoa

Another thing that first-timers entering the thousand-year-old jungle did not anticipate was that we had been marching nonstop all day, so we did not feel the cold and did not know the usefulness of the blankets and plastic sheets that we had previously said were redundant in our luggage. However, after just a few minutes of stopping, we felt the cold creeping through our bodies.

At the resting points, the foresters quickly set up huts, while some of us lit fires, some went to collect firewood, some cut vines, some hung hammocks for the members and covered them on the hammock roofs...

When the fire was lit, the sky in the middle of the forest had already fallen into darkness. Only then did we have time to bathe in the stream and take off our sandals to remove the leeches clinging to our leggings. From the first night, we began to feel the saying “the forest is sacred, the water is poisonous”. In the middle of the summer in Nghe An, it was as hot as a frying pan, but in the middle of the thousand-year-old Pu Mat forest, it was cold to the bone. We quickly drank a bowl of wine that the foresters had prepared in bamboo tubes to warm us up a little.

Fire plays a very important role at night in the middle of the jungle. Fire keeps people warm and also keeps wild animals away. Photo: Xuan Hoa

Then the meal in the forest was over quickly. We followed the villagers down to the stream to catch stone crabs and stream fish. The stone crabs chewed and spit out rice at the head of the water, and after only ten minutes they crawled out to eat and were caught. The night scene was fun, but when it got late it was truly terrifying for first-time forest goers like me. The wind blew continuously and was freezing cold. Even though we were wearing warm clothes and getting into thick sleeping bags, we were still not cold. The hammock kept swaying as if someone was shaking it.

The fear of the green forest is not over when at night, there are times when we are sleeping soundly and suddenly wake up to the howling of a gibbon looking for a mate or the sound of a wild animal in the middle of the night forest. There are also days when strong winds blow continuously, causing ancient trees thousands of years old to die, rotten and unable to withstand, falling down in the middle of the night forest. Only then did we understand why when setting up a shelter, the local forest workers have to look carefully around. A safe resting place must be surrounded by large, sturdy trees.

After catching the stone crabs, the locals followed the group to process them into food. Photo: Xuan Hoa.

Before falling into a deep sleep, Mr. Vi Van Tiep - a ranger of Pu Mat National Park, came to each member's hammock to examine and give specific instructions. For example, every time we stepped into the hammock, we had to shine a light to carefully check for poisonous snakes. The fire was also lit carefully before going to bed so that it would not go out in the middle of the night because the stream was also where animals often came down to drink water, so the fire was kept to keep the animals away for safety. On such long nights, we felt the creepy attraction of this sacred forest and poisonous water for thousands of years.

When the night ended, the sound of gibbons calling their flocks in the morning woke everyone up for a new day's journey. The slopes, the dense forests of thousand-year-old trees were waiting for us ahead...

Xuan Hoa