Hiking ‘Monkey Mountain’ in Da Nang, Vietnam, in search of the most beautiful primate
Outside the urban bustle of Da Nang, Son Tra Peninsula’s trails afford coastal views and glimpses of endangered red-shanked doucs
Jutting out of its downtown core on the northeast side is the Son Tra Peninsula, a lush nature reserve roughly 60 sq km (23 square miles) – two-thirds the size of Hong Kong Island.
American troops used the peninsula’s elevated headland during the Vietnam war, carving access roads and erecting radar towers on the peak. These have since been decommissioned and replaced by weather stations and police and military outposts.
The parkland’s most famous resident is its 67-metre-tall Lady Buddha, or the Goddess of Mercy Guanyin. Finished in 2010, the statue at the Linh Ung Pagoda has become a tourist attraction, but few visitors explore the jungle and wildlife beyond the Buddhist site.
This is partly intentional. Son Tra does not actually have many proper hiking trails, in part to protect its animals, including more than 100 types of birds, countless butterflies, deer, snakes, macaques and beautiful but endangered red-shanked douc langurs. Of the roughly 3,000 of these herbivorous primates left in the world, about 2,000 of them live on the Son Tra Peninsula. They are Son Tra’s main attraction for animal lovers.
For our expedition around “Monkey Mountain”, which is what the Americans called Son Tra and the name the locals have since adopted, we are led by a guide from Next Continent, a wildlife consultancy and nature tourism specialist in Vietnam.