An Unlikely Neighbour TEST zzzz

Most visitors to Da Nang come for the beaches, the Han River bridge, and the Old Town of Hội An just down the coast. Very few know that hidden within the limestone cliffs of the Sơn Trà Peninsula — barely twenty minutes from the nearest beach resort — lives one of Vietnam's most critically endangered primates: the Red-shanked Douc Langur (Pygathrix nemaeus). I first heard about them from a local ranger in 2021. He described them almost like a local legend — a troop of brilliant orange-and-grey monkeys that would appear at dawn in the canopy, eat, and then dissolve back into the jungle as the tourist busses began arriving. I went looking the very next morning.

A juvenile Langur peers down from the fig trees.

How to Find Them

The key to finding Langurs in Sơn Trà is patience and timing. The troop I follow most reliably is active between 5:30 AM and 8:00 AM. After that, the midday heat pushes them deeper into the dense canopy. The best access point is the road that winds up from the Bãi Bắc beach side, past the old military communication towers. Stop near kilometre marker 7 and listen for the rustling of leaves and the short, sharp contact calls they use to keep the troop together.

Their Story in Da Nang

The Red-shanked Douc Langur population in Sơn Trà is one of the largest known wild populations anywhere in the world. Estimates vary, but biologists believe somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 individuals still inhabit the peninsula. That makes this small finger of jungle jutting into the East Sea critically important — not just for Vietnam, but globally.