Vietnam Add-on

Day 1

Trip Commencement: Group arrives in Ho Chi Minh City. After a warm welcome from your GIVE guides, we’ll enjoy our first dinner together and explore the nearby night market.

Day 2

After breakfast we’ll have an in-depth orientation on the journey ahead then check out On Lang Temple, a Chinese-style Buddhist pagoda in the heart of Saigon. From there we’ll head to the War Remnants Museum for a sobering look at the history of the Vietnam War and the first Indochina War.

After lunch we’ll offer some free time to either rest and relax or check out nearby markets, cathedrals and museums. That evening we’ll embark on a dinner cruise along the Saigon River, combining great food, history, art and music for a truly immersive experience.

Day 3

After breakfast we’ll begin the journey to Cat Tien National Park, a vast lowland tropical forest that’s home to centuries-old trees and diverse wildlife. We’ll check in to our riverside accommodations and then enter the national park to meet the bears and learn all about the projects you will be working on for the next 5 days.

Days 4-8

Volunteering at Cat Tien Bear Sanctuary & Responsible Wildlife Tourism: Wake up each day to the sound of gibbons and other wildlife echoing from the surrounding jungle. After breakfast each day, we’ll ferry across the Dong Nai River to the Cat Tien Bear Sanctuary, where we’ll begin work on anything from constructing climbing structures for the bears, cleaning forest enclosures and bear dens, food preparation and distribution, providing sensory enrichment throughout forest enclosures and general maintenance and improvement to the center (IE painting, sanding, repairs and gardening). We’ll break for lunch around noon and then return to the project site for the rest of the afternoon.

During your free time from volunteering, you’ll also get to experience and help protect the diverse wildlife of Cat Tien as a responsible traveler. One evening we’ll explore the national park in a safari truck looking out for deer, wild boar, primates and other nocturnal animals. You’ll also get to visit a Primate Rescue Center that rehabilitates illegally trafficked golden-cheeked gibbons, pygmy loris, black-shanked duoc and silvered langur, with the ultimate goal of releasing these primates back into the forest. And last but not least, we’ll spend a night at Crocodile Lake and canoe amongst wild Siamese crocodiles in their natural habitat.