12 January 2026

Vietnam and Cambodia 2023 (Cat Tien NP and Khum Chi Phat, Cardamom mountains)

Hello,

Hereby my trip report of my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia in 2023.
In Vietnam we stayed for 5 days in Cat Tien NP and in Cambodia for 5 days around Khum Chi Phat in the Cardamom mountains. We saw a total of 23 mammal species, including a reintroduced Pangolin and two Gibbon species. During this trip we only had a basic camera with us, so the trip reports lacks some quality photos.

Enjoy!

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Vietnam & Cambodia 2023

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Flemming Versloot
Msc Biologist with a passion for mammals and freshwater fish. Currently working on invasive species in the Netherlands.
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6 Comments

  • 12 January 2026
    Jon Hall

    Thanks Flemming!

  • 13 January 2026
    Asanoth

    Thanks for the report. I also went to both places in 2023. I was really excited to go to Cardamom mountains, but it turned out terrible (https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g293939-i9162-k14263461-Cardamons_and_Botum_Sakor_on_budget-Cambodia.html) and we only saw one mammal, a single northern pig-tailed macaque. We went to Os’aom instead of Chi Phat.
    I loved Nam Cat Tien, the forest was incredibly alive, still we got only a handful of mammal species. We did not do any tours, as we read somewhere that night safaris are not really good and morning gibbon hike was too costly for us at that time. I agree that staying in those worn down bungalows on the correct bank of the river would have great benefits, especially for nocturnal spotlighting around the campsite.

    Also, at that time I had pretty much zero mammal watching knowledge and experience, which definitely reflected in poor species count.

  • 13 January 2026
    Flemming Versloot

    Hey Asanoth,
    Funny to read that you took a similar trip in the same year! We visited the Vietnam and Cambodia in August-September.
    I am also really a mammalwatcher on a budget so I guess that you kind of end up going to the same places. I do would like to go back one time though, to see the other doucs and gibbon species in Vietnam.

    I was also really hyped about the cardamom mountains and although the jungle landscapes with these natural open grasslands are spectacular, it is disappointing to see that there is this little wildlife left due to poaching. I do hope that some of it will at one point be properly protected, as the area has so much potential.

  • 17 January 2026
    Martin Walsh

    Nice report and some good sightings! Are you sure about a couple of the Cat Tien IDs? I don’t believe Finlayson’s Squirrel is present in the park (and there have been no sightings on Inat); the Pallas’ Squirrel ssp can be quite dark there, so that might explain the confusion. I’d also be interested if you got any photos of the large indian civet? That’s another species that I haven’t seen records of from the park and is unrecorded there on Inat. If it is present, it appears it is very rare.

  • 17 January 2026
    Flemming Versloot

    Hey Martin,
    Thank you for your reply.
    Regarding the squirrel, We spotted a basically all black squirrel that I identified from the field guild to the mammals of South East Asia as a variable squirrel, as these squirrel comes in an all black version according to the book. But I am not a squirrel expert so it could have been another species of squirrel. I looked online and saw that the Finlayson’s squirrel is not on the animal species list of the park.

    I am certain about the large Indian civet, it was rather close to our vehicle on the first night safari and is a rather unmistakable species. It is also listed as confirmed and captured on the mammal species list of the park.
    I do not have any photo’s of either species, we only brought a basic camera and had no experience with night photography. During the day, animals in Cat Tien are shy of people and flee the moment they notice that you are there.

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