Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part five: 2016-2017

There is a lot written about how the Cambodian officials at the Poipet border point are "the most corrupt in Asia" and so on. I have never experienced this at all. They have always been very friendly and helpful. In 2006 I had got my visa in advance in Bangkok for the sake of simplicity and was through the Poipet checkpoint into Cambodia within minutes. This time I got my visa at the border (like most people do) and it was just as fast. Once you come across the Thai border there's a short walk across a bridge which is covered in Cambodians all vying for the right to scam you out of money for a motorbike ride to the border which is all of two minutes walk away. But I ignored them and walked straight into the visa office. It is US$30 for the visa. If you don't have an additional passport photo on you they charge an extra US$1 but I had some which were taken in 2015 and they accepted one without comment. I was expecting a long wait, but it was done in less than five minutes. Then I walked a bit further to the checkpoint where the passport is stamped. No lines because it was morning, and I was through there in less than a minute.

A quick note on money before I go any further. Cambodia, for some reason unknown to me, uses the US dollar as their currency of choice. They do have their own currency as well, called the riel, but this is pretty useless with 4000 riel to one American dollar. And at least in western Cambodia they also accept Thai Baht. So you have three different currencies all in use at the same time. The riel is used for small purchases, but you also get it as change. So if something costs US$7 and you give them a $10, you'll usually get 12,000 riel in return. They take US$1 bills but I haven't had any coming back to me when getting change - it is always riel. It is also very easy to get the 2000 riel note (50 US cents) and the 20,000 riel note (US$5) mixed up and thus either give or accept the wrong one as change (in both cases to your own detriment).

The use of the US dollar means everything is more expensive in Cambodia than in Thailand because prices are basically rounded up to the dollar. So a bottle of water will be twice the cost it would be in Thailand, for example. Really everything is very expensive here, and I think it is a direct consequence of having the US dollar as the currency. The ATMs give out US$100 bills as well, which is annoying when you have to then break them down in order to be able to spend them! Even more annoying is that Cambodian ATMs charge a US$5 or more fee for withdrawing money! I got out US$500 and hoped that would last me for the next two weeks until I get to Vietnam so that I wouldn't need to use an ATM again - although I am somewhat doubtful of that with the costs of things here!

At the border there is a free shuttle bus which goes to the bus station itself. I found the shuttle bus easily enough, but the people staffing the area said there were only buses going to Siem Reap at 8am and 1.30pm, so the shuttle wasn't running until the afternoon (it was now 8.30am). This seemed very unlikely - apparently it was because at this time of year there are too few tourists, which also seemed unlikely - but they weren't budging from their story and the shuttle bus certainly wasn't moving either. I took a motorbike to the bus station for ten Baht and the people at the ticket desks said the same thing. So I guess it is true. The motorbike driver took me to a shared-taxi heading for Siem Reap.

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I had some plans for places to look for birds in western Cambodia, none of which were going to happen. There is a conservation body in Siem Reap called the Sam Veasna Centre (SVC) which controls access to many of the reserves. Some of these cost several thousand US dollars to visit, and that isn't an exaggeration.

You may have picked up that I travel in a budgety kind of way. That's why I can travel, because I try to do it as cheaply as possible. So you might think that I would have a big issue with the SVC's prices, but I mostly don't. I mean, I can't afford to visit any of the reserves and that sucks, but the bulk of that money actually goes to the local communities in and around the reserves and they therefore protect the areas from logging and poaching. So while I can't go and see giant ibis, for example, I know that the cash from rich birders is keeping them safer than they would otherwise be. And very few birders try to go round Cambodia independently - they almost all do tours via the SVC, so there is no reason for the SVC to not charge ridiculously-high prices. None of the SVC's reserves are National Parks luckily - the Cambodian government has a habit of selling off the National Parks to Chinese companies for development, as you'll read a bit later.

The four main reserves I would have wanted to visit in western Cambodia were Prek Toal, Ang Trapaeng Thmor, Tmatboey, and Prey Vang. The last two were both completely out of the question, cost-wise. The first one, Prek Toal, is a waterbird sanctuary on a huge lake called Tonle Sap. This one I knew I could visit by myself, because I had done so in 2006. I checked the prices online - mostly through what people had written on Tripadvisor because it is difficult finding costs out through other means - and found that it had gone up considerably in the last ten years and I couldn't afford it. Lots of tourists do boat trips on the lake, but unfortunately the sanctuary is on the other side where tourists don't go, so I'd have to be paying for a special boat-trip by myself which from memory would have been something like US$90 (and I think the total cost for boats, entry to the reserve, etc, would have been around US$150). I potentially could stretch to making the trip, but it would be a lot of money to go to a place I'd already been to see birds I have seen in multiple places all over Asia. I had a google to see if it would be cheaper joining onto a SVC trip and found the opposite, that it would cost me at least twice as much.

So that left only Ang Trapaeng Thmor, a huge artificial reservoir near to which is a reserve for sarus cranes and Eld's deer, situated about halfway between Poipet and Siem Reap. The highway actually passes right by the access road (I had seen the sign saying "sarus crane reserve" from the bus in 2006). Some of the Cambodian reserves are completely controlled by the SVC (like Tmatboey and Prey Vang) while others are just included at inflated prices on their tours (like Prek Toal). I couldn't find out which scenario the ATT fell into but I knew there was accommodation at the ranger station there and so figured it was at least worth trying it by myself. The only account I could find online of someone visiting alone was a guy driving round Cambodia in a hire car, but his blog was vague on logistics so he could easily have had it arranged through the Sam Veasna Centre and just not bothered to include that detail. I sent a tentative email to the SVC asking how much to stay there for one night if I arrived and departed by bus - I figured there was no point asking them if I could visit without going through them because they would just say no. They came back with a figure of US$495! That definitely wasn't an option for me, so I decided I would try just turning up. The worst that would happen is that I couldn't (or couldn't afford to) get in and then I'd just go back to the highway and get on the next bus to Siem Reap.

Ang Trapaeng Thmor (the reservoir itself) is a well-known tourist site, and it was no problem getting dropped off at the junction for it on the highway. This is approximately halfway between Poipet and Siem Reap (about 1.5 hours in either direction) and cost me US$10 in the shared-taxi, which meant the whole way cost me US$20 in total (i.e. US$10 from Poipet to the junction and then US$10 from the junction to Siem Reap afterwards). From the junction to the reservoir is 35km; this took about forty minutes on the back of a motorbike and cost another US$10 return.

So far it was all working well. It stopped working as soon as we reached the HQ building for the sarus crane reserve. The lady there didn't speak any English but she got on the phone and soon I was talking to a lady from the Sam Veasna Centre who told me that I couldn't go into the reserve because it needs to be arranged in advance and that can only be done through the SVC, and there was no way around it. For one person, for a one-day visit, it would cost US$250 (or for two people US$165 each). Even she readily admitted that it was very expensive. Note that I had been told in the prior email that an overnight stay would be US$495 - an almost US$250 difference. Let's just say that I saw the ranger station, and the accommodation is not that good!

It had been fifity-fifty as to whether I would have been able to visit or not visit - it was one of my wing-it-and-see-what-happens visits - but it was still a bit of a bummer to find I couldn't. I've seen sarus cranes in several countries but Eld's deer I've seen only in Burma, and the one in Cambodia is a different subspecies so that would have been interesting (there are three subspecies of Eld's deer, all of which are endangered).

I motorbiked back to the highway where there was a minor disagreement with the driver who claimed I hadn't paid him (I had given the taxi driver a US$20 note, and he gave the change directly to the motorbike driver in riel). Then I got another shared-taxi the rest of the way to Siem Reap, where as is often the case the taxis or buses drop the tourists a few kilometres away from where most of the accommodations are so that the tuktuk drivers can have a crack at them. One got really mad at me because I said I was going to walk. I didn't actually have any idea where I was in town, and the town itself has changed greatly from when I was here ten years ago, but I wasn't going to pay what they were trying to charge. I went into a restaurant a few steps away to get some food, and the guy in there gave me some directions to the cheap hostel area behind the Old Market. It was only about twenty minutes away and I ended up at a very nice place called the Mingalar Inn which had rooms for US$8 (I don't think there's much cheaper in Siem Reap).

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I didn't get up to much in Siem Reap, animal-wise. Prek Toal was too expensive, and although there is forest around the Angkor temple complex it is also reasonably expensive (about US$40) and I visited there in 2006 so didn't wish to spend that money on a re-visit. Early in the morning I went southwards out of town to the rice-fields. I could have rented a bicycle for US$2 but it was only an hour's walk. I spent a while around the fields looking at mostly very common birds - mynahs, drongos, tree sparrows - although painted storks are always nice and plain-backed sparrows were not a usual bird for me. Then I walked back into town, went to the movie theatre round the corner from my hotel to watch John Wick 2 for US$3.50, and finally walked across town to the Royal Gardens to see the Lyle's fruit bats which have a colony in the trees there. I saw them here back in 2006 and it is still the only place I have seen this species in the wild.

Tomorrow morning I will be on a bus to Kratie.
 
The buses from Siem Reap to Kratie all go in the morning. At the Mingalar Inn where I was staying they had a bus schedule. Two left at 7am and cost US$22 and $18, one left at 7.30am and cost $13, and the last left at 8.15am and also cost $13. They all would take seven hours. I chose the 8.15 one because that would give me time to have breakfast without rushing. I wouldn't be doing anything that afternoon upon arrival in Kratie, so it didn't really matter if I got there at 2.30 or 3.30. Kratie, incidentally, is pronounced krah-chay. That's not important, I just thought I'd mention it because it isn't the way it's spelled.

In the morning I was sitting out front at 6.45, waiting for my breakfast to be ready, and a guy turns up in a tuktuk to pick me up for the bus. There was some discussion during which I pointed out that my bus was at 8.15 and he pointed out that no the bus leaves at 7.30, and I pointed out both the schedule on the wall and my actual ticket which said 8.15am. My assumption was that he was actually there to pick up someone else for the earlier bus. But it turned out that in fact all the buses leave at 7am, no matter what the time on your ticket or the schedule says (or, indeed, even when he himself said 7.30!).

The bus ride was the longest "seven hour" bus ride ever. I didn't get to Kratie until 7pm - twelve hours later! Still, it was more comfortable than the shared-taxi I took to Siem Reap the other day, where there were four people in the front (i.e. two in the passenger seat and two in the driver's seat) and seven in the back seat including myself. And I got through five movies plus a whole lot of Cambodian karaoke videos on the tv at the front of the bus. First was a Jet Li movie from the nineties, then a Sammo Hung movie of the same era - both were in Chinese and I was too far back to read the subtitles - then a Donnie Yen movie (they obviously love their Chinese martial arts movies in Cambodia), then Schwarzenegger's The Last Stand, and finally the reprehensibly-bad G. I. Joe: the rise of Cobra which I have now seen at least twice (the first time was in Borneo).

When I visited Vietnam in 2015 I commented on how there are no birds in the countryside. When you take a bus in Thailand you see birds everywhere, but in Vietnam there is nothing, no drongos or mynahs or even sparrows. Even the paddy fields are lacking egrets. There is nothing left alive outside of the national parks. Cambodia isn't quite that bad, but it is almost-so; a handful of birds every couple of hours rather than only one or two birds. I do wonder how the environment copes, even if it is farmland.

Kratie is a tiny town, so arriving after dark is no problem. The bus stopped by the riverside where all the cheap hotels are and I got a room for US$5 at the Mohra Outdom Hotel. The owner asked if I was American, and when I said I was from New Zealand he said "then why do you have an American accent?". I did not have an answer to that question.

My reason for coming to Kratie was because 15 or 20km up the Mekong River is an even tinier town named Kampi which is famous for Irrawaddy dolphins. At the same spot can be found the Mekong wagtail, which looks like a large version of the white wagtail. It is easy to get to - from Kratie you can take a tuktuk for US$10 return, a motorbike for US$7 return, or a bicycle for US$5. I was going to hire a bicycle but I was told the road was dirt (everything here is brick-red from the dust, and I didn't fancy being the same), and it would take about 1.5 hours as opposed to the tuktuk's half-hour. It was a better decision to take a tuktuk I think, because the entire road (which was paved and not dirt, but just really bumpy) was lined with village so I wouldn't have been stopping for birds along the way anyway. If this was my first time in Asia then a bike-ride along that road would have been really interesting, seeing how they were all living, but I've seen southeast Asian villages hundreds of times so instead of interested I would have just been dusty and tired.

I was a little apprehensive about how much a dolphin boat was going to cost, seeing I was alone, but it was only US$9 per person for one or two people (a bit cheaper for more people), and that gave you an hour on the river. However to go to see the Mekong wagtail would cost an extra US$15 (so US$24 total) because it was found slightly further upriver amongst the sand islands - and by "slightly" I mean it looked like it would have been another five minutes travel in the boat. But that was what it would cost, and I didn't want to pay that much for one bird which looked like another bird. I would walk 15km for it but not pay $15 for it. I'm not sure if that is stingy or sensible. Also I'm planning on going to Yok Don in Vietnam, and there are supposed to be Mekong wagtails there as well.

The dolphins were easy to see. In fact I could have seen them from the boat dock without any trouble. I had heard some stories about the dolphins being chased and harrassed by the boats, but when I was there (at 8.30am) it was all well-controlled. There were only four boats, including mine, and they only used their engines to move up or down the river. When they were anywhere near the dolphins they either used the oar or simply floated. It may be a different story in the afternoon, of course, when there would probably be more boats. The boat ride was for an hour, basically going in big circles within probably less than a hundred metres of the dock, and it felt like only fifteen minutes had passed when the time came to return.

I have seen Irrawaddy dolphins before, on the Irrawaddy River itself in Burma, and they were just as difficult to photograph here as they were there. They don't jump like marine dolphins, they just sort of slide up through the surface, breathe, and dip back under, all in a few seconds. There's no way to tell where they will come up, but because they are in groups often another will surface straight after one has gone down. I didn't get any worthwhile photos though. In terms of viewing, it took me a long time to find the ones on the Irrawaddy but the viewing was much better (on that specific occasion). So I'd say that the best place to see them is on the Irrawaddy River, but the easiest place to see them must be here on the Mekong River.

Once back on shore I got the tuktuk driver to take me further up the road to where I could have a look at the sand islands from shore. I was hoping I might still see a wagtail that way. But it was not to be. There were a lot of blue-tailed bee-eaters and a pied kingfisher and a few other common birds, but no wagtails.

Tomorrow morning I am off again, with a mini-van to Phnom Penh at 6.15am followed by another mini-van to Sihanoukville. This town is the best place to get a Vietnamese visa, and I don't have any real wish to spend time in Phnom Penh. Supposedly I'll get to Sihanoukville about 6pm which probably means midnight, but at least the mini-vans have much less leg-room than the buses so I'll be doubly uncomfortable. Yay.
 
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Unexpectedly, my 6.15am bus to Phnom Penh arrived on time, and it was a mini-bus rather than a mini-van so not as cramped as I had been thinking. I'm really treating Cambodia as more of a transit-country for Vietnam than a proper-visit country. I rushed through the west, mostly because all the reserves were too expensive to visit; detoured up to Kratie to see the Irrawaddy dolphins (I think the main reason most backpackers go to Kratie is because they are on their way to Laos); and now down to Sihanoukville via Phnom Penh to get my three-month Vietnamese visa.

Kirirom National Park is half way between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville. On my original plan I was going to stop off on the way but I thought it might be a bad cash-vs-results decision to go there so I changed my mind. Kirirom is a forested mountain with a plateau on top which the Cambodian government sold to the Chinese for development. The forest on the plateau was razed and a resort built in its place. Down the bottom of the mountain is a tourist complex with cheap homestays but which is more-or-less a front for poachers. There's very little useful information online about how to look for wildlife in the park (as in where or if there are trails, where the forest is in relation to the tourist complex, etc). Birders don't go to Kirirom so I thought it would be interesting from that perspective, to see what nobody else does, but I'm afraid there might be little left to see.

Just outside Sihanoukville is a mangrove reserve called Ream National Park, which I was undecided about visiting. The Cambodian government has subleased it to a Chinese company and they have been busy clearing the mangroves to turn it into a resort. It would cost me about US$15 to get there and back from town, plus the additonal entry and guide fees, so I gave it a miss. I didn't want to pay that to see the ruined remnants of a forest.

East of Sihanoukville is another place called Bokor National Park. Like Kirirom it is a forested mountain with a plateau on top which the Cambodian government has sold off to the Chinese and they have destroyed all the forest on the plateau to build a resort. I'm sensing some kind of pattern here. I know there is still bird-populated forest on the slopes of Bokor because bird-tours still go there, and it is also home to pileated gibbons which I would like to see. I found a survey of Cambodia's pileated gibbons online, and Kirirom was a stronghold - which was why I had it down as a destination - but I think Bokor might be a better choice. However there is only one road and I'm not sure how easy or difficult it is going to be to access without transport. I'll find out soon enough.

The mini-bus from Kratie to Phnom Penh took four hours. I had been told that the 11.30am bus to Sihanoukville was full, so I had been booked onto the 2.30pm one. But when I arrived at Phnom Penh they gave me a ticket for a 12.00 bus, and even better it was an actual big coach and not a mini-bus. I haven't seen any "local buses" in Cambodia, by which I mean the old rattle-buckets you get everywhere else in Asia. All the buses are A/C coaches and mini-vans. Even at the bus stations there has been no sign of old buses. Maybe Cambodia is where all the other countries got their buses from when Cambodia upgraded. The driver said it would take five hours to reach Sihanoukville - and it did! There was however an additional half-hour upon arrival where we were crawling through the traffic, the city being quite a bit bigger and busier than I had been expecting.

I had pre-booked a place the night before because I had thought I'd probably be arriving in the middle of the night, and also according to the internet the local transport in town is controlled by a "tuktuk mafia" who have fixed prices at unreasonable levels, so I wanted a set place I could be taken to. I had chosen Guesthouse 66 because it was quite cheap (US$8) and literally across the road from the Vietnamese Embassy where I needed to go for my visa. There was the usual crowd of tuktuk and motorbike drivers at the bus stop when the bus pulled in, but it certainly wasn't what the internet claimed it to be like. I told a motorbike driver where I wanted to go, he said $5, I said no and turned my back on him to wait for my bag to be pulled out from the bus' luggage-hold. Motorbike-taxis are pretty much restricted to picking up lone travellers but most backpackers are in groups or two of more and thus get a tuktuk, and so the motorbike drivers are easier to bargain with because they need the fare more. As soon as you give a flat no, they ask how much you'll pay (that way they can get an idea if you actually know the real price or not). I said I'd pay $2, making a guess based on knowing roughly where I was in relation to the guesthouse. He said $3, I said I was only paying $2, and he agreed. Later at the guesthouse I asked the owner how much the real price would have been and he said $1 so I was close enough. I think the internet's "tuktuk mafia" is a load of rubbish and I imagine it was originally started by the king of unreliability, Lonely Planet.

I also found out, once at the guesthouse, that an attempt had been made to go through my bag while it was in the luggage compartment of the bus. This is a common trick on the tourist buses in Thailand - someone hides out in the hold and while the bus is on the road the person goes through all the bags and takes anything of value. Nobody finds out until they are at their next hotel and have no proof (or clue) that it happened on the bus ride. I always have my bags padlocked, except the front pocket which just has empty plastic bags in it. I knew the pocket had been gone through, firstly because one of the plastic bags had been caught in the zip, and secondly because the paper bags from Ladakh which were at the bottom were now at the top, where someone had pulled them all out and then pushed them back in again. Most backpackers don't lock their bags, so I expect at least a few of them have since found out they are missing valuables.

The next morning I crossed the road to the Vietnamese Embassy. The form I had to fill out was a lot simpler than I had been led to believe (internet again). Supposedly you needed to include not only the normal details like passport info, your home address, etc, but also full names and addresses of parents and spouses, religion, address of employer, and other such irrelevant things. Instead it was just the basic details. As with Cambodia I used a passport photo from 2015 (actually from the ones I got taken when I was going to Vietnam that year) and there was no issue. They don't even look at the photo, they just staple it to the form you filled out. I thought maybe you could use anybody's photo so long as they weren't of a different colour or sex, but when I got my passport back the photo was laminated into the visa which was stapled inside the front of the passport. I'm assuming that when I get to the border they will put in a proper stuck-on-the-page-visa. A three-month visa cost me US$55 and because I had gone in early (just after 8am when they opened) it was ready later the same day at 4.30pm.

With that done, and no reason for me to stay in Sihanoukville, I should be on my way to Kampot tomorrow. Kampot is the closest town to the entrance road for Bokor National Park. There's another smaller park a bit further on called the Kep National Park but I don't think there are gibbons there. I may visit it anyway (for birds), but otherwise after hopefully spending a few days visiting Bokor I'll be heading into Vietnam.
 
Chlidonias said:
Unexpectedly, my 6.15am bus to Phnom Penh arrived on time, and it was a mini-bus rather than a mini-van so not as cramped as I had been thinking.
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What? I've always used minibus and minivan as synonymous terms (and as a single word rather than hyphenated but that's not the point) to refer to something like this. What do you mean by those two terms?
 
a mini-van is smaller than a mini-bus, which is smaller than a regular bus. There are more seats in a mini-bus than a mini-van. But looking on google there seems to be a lot of variance in the way people use the terms (including using mini-van for what is basically a big car).
 
Chlidonias said:
a mini-van is smaller than a mini-bus, which is smaller than a regular bus. There are more seats in a mini-bus than a mini-van. But looking on google there seems to be a lot of variance in the way people use the terms (including using mini-van for what is basically a big car).
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What would you call the vehicle in the image I linked above?
 
lintworm said:
That's what I would call a minibus as well ;) based on African experience at least ;)
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Yeah, I'd call that a minibus too. Any kind of bus-like vehicle that is smaller than a full size bus is a minibus.

Actually I've been thinking about the distinction between minibus and minivan in the back of my mind, and isn't a van something that carries goods rather than people? So something like a Ford Transit would be a minivan when it is the version without windows for carrying stuff but would be a minibus when it has seats and windows and is for carrying people.

Clearly I'm bored and thinking about this way too much. :P
 
The mini-van (not mini-bus) to Kampot was to pick me up at the Guesthouse 66 at 10.30am. It was a little early, 10.15, but then spent a long time driving around picking up other people and sitting at depots so we didn't actually leave Sihanoukville until 11.15. It was something like two hours to Kampot. I wasn't quite sure where we were in town when the bus dropped everyone off but I had seen the "durian roundabout" along the way, and I knew there were a lot of cheap accommodations near there, so I just started walking back in that direction. There were a few cheap hotels along the way, but I was hoping for something less than US$8, so kept going until I found a US$5 room in a guesthouse above a mini-mart at the durian roundabout. There's a giant concrete statue of a durian on the roundabout island, hence the name.

After checking in there I got some lunch and then went round a few more guesthouses until eventually finding another one quite nearby which was only one dollar more but twice the value (much bigger room, WIFI, a fan that worked at a higher speed than "barely on"). I would move over there the next morning. I also had to figure out how to get to Bokor National Park. The entrance point is about 7km from town, but the road up to the summit is then 30km long. There's no public transport there apart for tours, which aren't too expensive (US$10 per person) but are really the opposite of what I needed because they are just tripping tourists around the buildings and temples and waterfalls. I figured the best way to do it was to hire a taxi for the day. That way I could stop where-ever I needed, walk when I wanted, and I wouldn't get soaked if it rained (in Sihanoukville it rained torrentially for hours at a time on both days I was there). I found the town's taxi / bus stand and arranged a car for the next day for US$40. It wasn't really cheap, but at the same time I'd been paying US$10 for single motorbike rides (e.g. when trying to get to Ang Trapaeng Thmor) so I figured US$40 for a whole day was okay. And of course if I saw pileated gibbon then it would be totally worth it.

Up until 2010 you used to be able to stay in the ranger station at the park but unfortunately no longer. I think around then was when they started on destroying the summit. I'm not sure there even is a ranger station any more. Now the only accommodation inside the park is the Thansur Bokor Highland Resort - that is, the huge hotel-and-casino complex the Chinese built on the plateau. You can see what they have on offer here: Thansur Bokor Highland Resort - Official Site, Hotel in Kampot, Kampot Casino, Kep Hotel, Hotel in Kep, Hotel in Cambodia . There isn't even a sign for Bokor National Park on the entrance or on the road. Instead there's a huge double-arched checkpoint beside the highway saying "Welcome to the Thansur Bokor Highland Resort".

The national park area is quite extensive I think, but almost all of it is off-limits and has no roads or trails. The sole road is the one from the highway near Kampot up to the summit of this one mountain. There are few trails off the road either - the only one I found (at the top) was so overgrown I gave up on it. You can see forested hills stretching away inland but you can't get to them. The birding here is supposed to be good, but I think the new road has impacted on that too. Previously (before the resort construction) there was an old degraded road and at the top were the ruins of former hotels and a church from when the French ran the place. The forest at that time was much better; now there are wide grassy stretches along a lot of the road's length and it seems that some stretches have been planted in foreign trees as well.

I walked for short periods on the way up where-ever it looked like the forest might be productive. Great hornbills were common, surprisingly so for such a large and easily-shot bird. I must have seen them about ten times over the morning. There were wreathed hornbills too, but they were less showy and it wasn't until the afternoon that I saw some properly - in the morning they were either flying over the canopy or were hidden in fog. Smaller birds were few but I think that was just chance. I found one bird-wave with common species like black-crested bulbuls and blue-winged leafbirds.

Pileated gibbons proved easy to see (again somewhat surprisingly in such a heavily-poached country). I found one pair of males early on, dueling across the road with song at one another, and then a lone individual male a bit later. Morning might be the best time to look for them as I didn't see any on the way down the road in the afternoon. This is the sixth species of gibbon I've seen in the wild, so the taxi fare was well-spent.

There's not much to see at the top of the road other than the flamboyant new resort and the grafittied ruins of the old buildings. I went to the waterfall as there was supposed to be a trail through the forest. The rest of the summit is all rank grass and secondary scrub, but there is taller forest at the waterfall (which was currently dry but in the wet season must be spectacular). I found the start of the trail but it never went anywhere. There were numerous well-trodden paths branching about but they all simply dissolved into the undergrowth after short periods. Maybe there is a proper trail I didn't find but I don't think so. There were quite a lot of birds in the forest but just really difficult to see because they were all up above the subcanopy and out of sight. I saw some fairy bluebirds, a couple of orange-headed thrushes and lesser racquet-tailed drongos, a green-billed malkoha, and a few white-bellied yuhinas, but that was it. There are gibbons up there too - I heard one calling somewhere not too distant but there was no chance of seeing it.

I had been going to spend several days visiting Bokor before heading straight onwards to Vietnam, but that was partly because I had anticipated the pileated gibbons being more difficult to find. I figured the birds I would see at Bokor would be the same ones I could find at Kep National Park and so it made more financial sense to leave Bokor as just that one-day visit. It is only US$3 by bus from Kampot to Kep, and the Kep National Park is literally right beside the town so I wouldn't have to be paying transport fares for getting to and from the park (or, if so, only a moderate tuktuk fare to the entrance); and then in the park I can just walk which should mean more birds would be seen.

So tomorrow morning I go to Kep.
 
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Just a random post about a place I didn't go.

While in Kampot I googled the Siema Protected Forest. Before leaving New Zealand I had pre-written a piece on Vietnamese primates (so it would be ready to post when I entered Vietnam, which will be a couple of days from now). During that impending post the Siema Protected Forect in Cambodia had come up. In 2007 a survey of this forest had shown an estimated 2500 southern buff-cheeked gibbons (versus a few hundred in Vietnam) and a staggering 42,000 black-shanked doucs (the entire Vietnamese population is probably less than 1000). For some reason which entirely escapes me I never dug further into going to Siema. Perhaps it was because it mainly came up in relation to the Sam Veasna Centre tours, I don't know. But I knew it was on the border with Vietnam, so on a whim googled to see if it was near Kep and if so whether I could visit it before Vietnam. I was a bit bummed to find that it was not near Kep - it was up near Kratie. And I could have visited it myself, although not at an extremely-budget sort of price. I briefly contemplated back-tracking but it would have taken me two days to get there at around US$25 for buses, and another $25 back to Kep, plus several days accommodation and food, and then entry and probably guiding in the forest. A bit too much money to expend. Really kicking myself for not finding out about it much sooner, but what's done is done.
 
Kep is a tiny town which appears to exist just to accommodate tourists coming and going from Vietnam (the border is only 30km away). There are guesthouses everywhere, some at higher prices for the Cambodian and Vietnamese weekenders, and some at low prices for the foreign backpacker types. I stayed at the Khmer House Hostel in a US$5 room. It is on the main highway into the town, which is handy because it meant I could get the bus from Kampot to drop me right at the driveway. From the hostel to the main entrance of the Kep National Park is only a fifteen minute walk (and also about the same to the Crab Market because crabs are the other thing Kep exists for).

In Kampot, while waiting on the bus, I noticed a sparrow on the road which looked too big to be a tree sparrow. It was actually a house sparrow. It might seem strange commenting on seeing house sparrows, but in southeast Asia the house sparrow is seldom seen so when I do see one it is noteworthy enough.

I set off to the national park soon after arriving at the hostel. It was approaching midday, so extremely hot - over 30 degrees - but I figured I'd get the lay of the land. The park is basically a big forest-covered hill with a dirt track running around the outside and with a few trails through the centre. The entry fee is only one dollar. The checkpoints are generally unmanned, but the rangers roam around the track on their motorbikes handing out entry tickets. The side of the park I was on was shaded by trees so that was okay, and there were quite a few birds around despite the heat. Nothing was particularly outstanding, but they included a couple of puff-throated babblers foraging on the track, various warblers like eastern crowned and Arctic, and a dark-sided flycatcher. A troop of crab-eating macaques made only the fourth mammal seen in Cambodia on this trip.

At one point there is a "transverse trail" across the top of the hill. I took this as a short-cut, which was dumb. The first bit was almost vertical - despite steps cut up the hill in parts I was still having to use my hands when climbing - then there was a relatively level stretch at the top for about thirty metres, and then it went straight down the other side again. I wouldn't be taking that trail again!

Early next morning I went back to the park, hoping for lots more birds. There's a secondary entrance point behind the Kep Lodge which would have cut half the walking time to get into the park, but I couldn't find it. Nobody gets up early in this town so the Kep Lodge was deserted and there were no signs for the path. I wasted a bit of time trying to find it, and then continued on to the main entrance. The only mammals I had seen yesterday were the macaques, but this morning there were variable squirrels all over the place. There was one fig tree which had about ten in it, and then there were many others all along the trail. Variable squirrels are so-called because there are many subspecies with distinct colourations. The ones further west in Cambodia are called cinnamomeus because they are almost entirely bright cinnamon in colour, and the ones here in the east are also this colour but with a pale ring around the tail (hence their name annellatus).

There were more birds than yesterday, but still nothing I hadn't seen elsewhere. The fig tree had thick-billed pigeons in it amongst the squirrels, and elsewhere there was a great iora in a bird-wave, a Hainan blue flycatcher, and a pair of hill mynahs.

I only spent the first half of the day in the national park, after that it was too hot. I retreated to the beachfront where strings of shacks and shops provided shade, a sea-breeze, and food. Unfortunately the place I parked myself had a menu three times the prices of everywhere else, and I - misreading the prices because that extra zero really shouldn't have been on there - ended up having to pay over US$17 for a plate of crabs. I was impressed with neither the cost nor my mistake. The sunset was nice though.

And that was my last day in Cambodia. From today I am in Vietnam.
 
Cambodia had seemed very expensive to me, but I did wonder if that was a false impression due to having to pay for everything in US dollars. In just ten days I spent US$469, which averages out at just under US$47 per day - by far the most expensive country of the trip. And I haven't even really done anything! The dolphin boat at Kratie cost US$9 and the taxi for Bokor cost US$40, but otherwise there were just guesthouses, transport, and food. However a substantial chunk was also on the Cambodian visa (US$30) and Vietnamese visa (US$55). I removed those from the total, and it came out at US$38.40 per day - still more expensive than any of the other countries by quite a substantial margin (the next most expensive average was the second round of India at US$27.50 per day).


..........................................................


Here are all the country stats so far:

MALAYSIA:

I've been to Malaysia a number of times, and I could keep going back. There is so much wildlife there, especially in Borneo, although most of what I see are species I've already seen. I would always recommend Malaysia as a good destination for wildlife-enthusiasts.

*1192.10 Ringgits spent over eleven days (NZ$397.50, US$284.85, UK£232.90, €261.70)
*Average spent per day: NZ$36.10, US$25.90, UK£21.20, €23.80
*114 birds seen, 2 lifers (c.2 percent of total)
*23 mammals seen, 2 lifers (c.9 percent of total)


INDIA (round one):

I really enjoyed the first round of India. It was mostly spent in Ladakh, which I loved. There's something about wandering around in the mountains alone which is just fantastic. Delhi was okay - I didn't hate it.

*43,068 Indian rupees spent over 25 days (NZ$896, US$635.50, UK£507.50, €590.50)
*Average spent per day: NZ$35.80, US$25.40, UK£20.30, €23.60
*95 birds seen, 14 lifers (c.15 percent of total)
*9 mammals seen, 4 lifers (c.44 percent of total)
(The low animal numbers are because most of the time was spent in Ladakh)


SRI LANKA:

I loved Sri Lanka. Wow, it was a fantastic place for wildlife. The people were all friendly, the animals often easy to find, the travel conditions good. There were some species I missed like sloth bears which I was hoping for but I'm not complaining. Strangely I don't have any great desire to go back there, unlike many of the places I've been in southeast Asia. I think I got all I needed from Sri Lanka. I would totally recommend it to everyone else though.

*87,626 Sri Lankan rupees spent over 26 days (NZ$829.60, US$594.45, UK£470.75, €561.10)
*Average spent per day: NZ$31.90, US$22.85, UK£18.10, €21.60
*158 birds seen, 64 lifers (c.40 percent of total)
*25 mammals seen, 18 lifers (c.72 percent of total)


INDIA (round two):

Round two of India was a real mixed bag. Demonetisation really impacted on the trip, making it much more frustrating than it might otherwise have been. But it did mean that Sri Lanka got inserted into the plan, and I can't complain about that! Some parts of India I loved or liked, other parts not so much. I loved Ladakh which is Tibetan; I liked Kerala which is more like Sri Lanka; I liked Gujarat which is not proper India either. The rest of it was tolerable. I can't see me going back to India. I knew going in that I'd go one of two ways, either leaving thinking it was great or leaving thinking it was horrible. I would like to go back to Ladakh in the spring or summer, because then it is easier to get around to more places and I could see some cool species like kiang, but at that time of year it is also absolutely crawling with other tourists and I think that would ruin it for me. I wouldn't mind returning to Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat either. Really, though, I'm just a southeast Asia person rather than a southern Asia person.

*101,187 Indian rupees spent over 55 days (NZ$2110, US$1513.30, UK£1214.70, €1431)
*Average spent per day: NZ$38.40, US$27.50, UK£22.10, €26
*312 birds seen, 88 lifers (c.28 percent of total)
*38 mammals seen, 18 lifers (c.47 percent of total)


THAILAND:

Like Malaysia, Thailand is a great destination. I've been there several times and visited many of the national parks. This visit I specifically went to Kaeng Krachan again, but otherwise I was just passing through en route to Cambodia and Vietnam.

*9729 Baht spent over fourteen days (NZ$387, US$278, UK£224, €261.90)
*Average spent per day: NZ$27.60, US$19.85, UK£16, €18.70
*108 birds seen, 4 lifers (c.4 percent of total)
*18 mammals seen, 2 lifers (c.11 percent of total)


CAMBODIA:

Really just a transit-country on my way to Vietnam. I do like Cambodia but it is much more expensive than the surrounding countries, probably entirely due to the use of the American dollar, and there is precious little wildlife left even in the national parks and reserves. And some of those reserves, especially in the west, are incredibly expensive to visit. I only went to three actual wildlife spots (Kampi, Bokor National Park, and Kep National Park).

*US$469 spent over ten days (NZ$651.20, UK£377.50, €442.70) [Without the visa costs: US$384, NZ$533.20, UK£309.10, €362.50]
*Average spent per day: NZ$65.10, US$46.90, UK£37.75, €44.30 [Without the visa costs: US$38.40, NZ$53.30, UK£30.90, €36.25 ]
*63 birds seen, 1 lifer (c.1.6 percent of total)
*5 mammals seen, 1 lifer (c.20 percent of total)


.........................................................


And a total for the trip so far:

*NZ$5271.30 spent over 151 days (US$3805.10, UK£3027.35, €3548.90)
*Average spent per day: NZ$34.90, US$25.20, UK£20, €23.50
*551 birds seen, 177 lifers (c.32 percent of total)
*92 mammals seen, 45 lifers (c.50 percent of total)
 
Prologue for Vietnam


I visited Vietnam for the first time in 2015 (thread here: http://www.zoochat.com/19/doucs-dong-chlidonias-goes-asia-part-423381/) but it was just for three weeks and it was at the worst possible time of year (August) so the animal-related results of that trip were not astounding. When I wrote that trip report I mentioned how one of the initial drives for visiting Vietnam was the number of primates found there, and how I would like to try and see them all. On that short trip I managed to see five species and failed to see about the same number again. On this trip I am covering the entire country, south to north, and have a lot more time to spend on it. Nevertheless, I am definitely not going to be able to see all the primates in Vietnam, mostly due to the level of hunting and the consequent rarity and inaccessibility of a lot of the species. I think I have a good chance of seeing at least twelve species, which is roughly half the total. Fortunately primates aren't the only wildlife I will be looking for!

Below I'll give a quick list of the 25 species of primates in the country, so you know what's what, and then a more detailed account of what I expect to see or not see. Most of the primates are endemic to either Vietnam specifically or to the general eastern part of southeast Asia (what was French-Indochina); really only the macaques and the Bengal Slow Loris are found outside this region. Of the 25 species, I have already seen seven in the wild, either in Vietnam or elsewhere in Asia.



Quick Taxonomic Summary:


*Lorises: two species (Bengal and Pigmy Slow Lorises) - I haven't seen either of these before.

*Macaques: five species (Crab-eating, Stump-tailed, Northern Pig-tailed, Rhesus, and Assamese Macaques) - I have seen four out of five of these, the missing one being the Assamese Macaque.

*Langurs: twelve species (Francois', Delacour's, Cat Ba, Hatinh, Indochinese Black, Indochinese Grey, Indochinese Silvered, and Annamese Silvered Langurs; Red-shanked, Grey-shanked, and Black-shanked Doucs; Tonkin Snub-nosed Monkey) - I have only seen two of these before, the Annamese Silvered Langur and the Black-shanked Douc.

*Gibbons: six species, formerly all lumped in concolor and still with loads of question marks about their validity and limits (Southern and Northern Buff-cheekeds, Southern and Northern White-cheekeds, Black Crested, and Cao Vit Gibbons) - I have seen just one of these, the Southern Buff-cheeked Gibbon.
 
Much-Less-Quick Travelling Summary:


In the rough order I will (actually, potentially, or not at all) be seeing the species as I travel from the bottom of Vietnam to the top.


*1) Crab-eating Macaque Macaca fascicularis: I've seen this species all over southeast Asia, including at Cat Tien National Park last time I was in Vietnam, so if I miss it on this visit I'm not going to be too bothered! However it is common in much of the south of the country so I will certainly see it while here. The first likely spot for me to see it is Phu Quoc Island.

*2) Indochinese Silvered Langur Trachypithecus germaini: formerly lumped with the Silvered Langur T. cristatus of the Sunda area (Malaysia etc). Only found in the southwest of Vietnam, west of the Mekong (as well as in Cambodia). Phu Quoc Island is the species' stronghold, and there is also a supposedly-reliable population on the adjacent mainland, so I should see it.

*3) Bengal Slow Loris Nycticebus bengalensis: this loris seems widespread in Vietnam but is very rarely recorded. It is found on Phu Quoc, which is my first stop, so that's why it is near the start of this list - but I honestly don't think I'll see it anywhere. Also, lorises do not like me.

*4) Pigmy Slow Loris Nycticebus pygmaeus: found all over Vietnam, including on Phu Quoc. Most people who see it do so at Cat Tien. I have my fingers crossed. But I expect to be disappointed.

*5) Annamese Silvered Langur Trachypithecus margarita: the distribution is east of the Mekong River but otherwise it is sometimes included in T. germaini which is found west of the Mekong. I saw this species last time, at Cat Tien where it is considered difficult. It is also found at the Ta Khou Nature Reserve which I plan to be visiting.

*6) Black-shanked Douc Pygathrix nigripes: the southernmost of the three douc species. I saw this species easily at Cat Tien on my last trip, so I should do so again. It is also found at Ta Khou and at Dalat.

*7) Northern Pig-tailed Macaque Macaca leonina: I've seen this species in several countries, including Vietnam. I should see it again at Cat Tien.

*8) Stump-tailed Macaque Macaca arctoides: found all over Vietnam but it suffers heavily from trapping because it is predominantly terrestrial. It occurs in a lot of the places I will be going in Vietnam, probably with Cat Tien being the first opportunity, but I don't know if I will see it or not - it seems difficult to find whichever country you are in. I have only managed to see it in India (Assam in 2014).

*9) Southern Buff-cheeked Gibbon Nomascus gabriellae: I saw this species last time at Cat Tien, which is probably the easiest place one can hope to see it, so fingers crossed I'll see it again! The Cat Tien population is a few hundred (somewhere between 200 and 500), but in 2007 a survey of the Siema Protected Forest in Cambodia gave an estimated 2500 of this species (or between 1300 and 5000, depending on estimate), as well as an estimated 42,000 Black-shanked Doucs which is incredible - the Cat Tien population of doucs is around 100, and the entire Vietnamese population is probably less than 1000. I'm not sure how accessible Siema is if by oneself but from some things I've read it seems like both species are easily seen there; however I wouldn't like to think how much those populations have fallen a decade later. The Southern Buff-cheeked is probably the only one of the six gibbon species I will see in Vietnam. If I was sneaky I could pretend I still treat all the Vietnamese gibbons as one species, then I wouldn't need to bother about the others.

*10) Grey-shanked Douc Pygathrix cinereus: one of the primates I most want to see here, but I am probably unlikely to. They are quite recently described and their distribution is book-ended by those of the Black-shanked and Red-shanked Doucs, hence originally it was thought to be a hybrid rather than a true species. Last trip I went looking for them at Mang Den where I knew they had been seen - in fact a bird tour saw a troop in the forest there the previous year - however once I got there the locals told me they had all already been hunted out, with the last ones shot the same year the bird tour saw them. I don't know any other accessible areas. The largest populations left (a few hundred animals) are in the Kon Ka Kinh National Park and the adjacent Kon Cha Rang Nature Reserve, neither of which I can find any information on accessing; basically, I know where the reserves are, but not how to get to them.

*11) Northern Buff-cheeked (Annamite) Gibbon Nomascus annamensis: split fairly recently from the Southern White-cheeked Gibbon N. siki. Found in the same areas as the Grey-shanked Douc mentioned above, and also at Bach Ma National Park which is my best bet (albeit with minimal chance because there is only one road from which to view).

*12) Red-shanked Douc Pygathrix nemaeus: apparently pretty reliable on the Son Tra peninsula beside Danang. Last visit I only had time for one attempt and failed to find any kind of monkeys there at all, but with more time on this visit I should succeed. They are also at Bach Ma National Park and Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, although difficult at both of those.

*13) Rhesus Macaque Macaca mulatta: found in the northern half of Vietnam (and introduced locally in the south). They are common at Son Tra so I should see them there - although I failed to find any last time. I have seen them previously in India.

*14) Assamese Macaque Macaca assamensis: found in the northern half of Vietnam. They are apparently common at Son Tra so I should see them there. This is the only one of the five macaques in Vietnam which I haven't seen in the wild yet.

*15) Hatinh Langur Trachypithecus hatinhensis: effectively the only place to see this species now is at Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park. I will have more time this visit so hopefully I should see them after failing miserably last time! Basically it is just a matter of waiting each evening and morning at the cliffs where they sleep until you manage to see them.

*16) Indochinese Black Langur Trachypithecus ebenus: a Laotian species which only just makes it into Vietnam at Phong Nha-Ke Bang. There is very little chance I will see this one, and in any case there is some dispute as to whether it isn't just a colour morph of the Hatinh Langur (IUCN says there is no genetic differences).

*17) Southern White-cheeked Gibbon Nomascus siki: another of the primates at Phong Nha-Ke Bang. I think I heard them last visit, so at least I know at which area to be in the morning. But the chances of seeing them are minimal.

*18) Northern White-cheeked Gibbon Nomascus leucogenys: the largest (and only viable) population left is at Pu Mat National Park, but most of the remaining animals are deep in the mountains on the border with Laos. Any accessible areas have probably already been cleared out by poachers. I'm going there anyway, just to find out.

*19) Indochinese Grey Langur Trachypithecus crepusculus: a split from Phayre's Langur T. phayrei. I know a few sites where they are supposed to be found, including Pu Mat, but I don't know the likelihood of seeing them anywhere. If I have the time, and haven't seen them yet, I will try Pu Luong Nature Reserve which a lot of backpackers go to and where I have (possibly dodgy) information that they are found.

*20) Delacour's Langur Trachypithecus delacouri: reliable at Van Long Nature Reserve, and I will have time to make some repeat visits if the first ones fail.

*21) Cat Ba Langur Trachypithecus poliocephalus: depending on your point of view, either a full species or conspecific with the White-headed Langur T. leucocephalus of China. Found only on Cat Ba Island. The island is a popular tourist destination, which sounds promising, but the area where the remnant populations are found is off-limits to protect them. I have seen photos on Tripadvisor from people seeing them while kayaking, and these chance encounters appear to be the only way to see them (albeit, I gather, perhaps not entirely legally). I'm not sure whether I will invest the time on the chance. Also I'm afraid of water.

*22) Francois' Langur Trachypithecus francoisi: there are a few hundred left in Vietnam (they are also found in China) but all the individual populations are small - often just one family group - and all are isolated from one another. It only takes one person with a gun to wipe out a population in one day, so site information more than a year old can't really be relied upon. The last proper Vietnamese survey was in 2009. Most of the groups are also (not unexpectedly) in pretty inaccessible areas. My best hope is Ba Be National Park where I am going to try and see the White-eared Night Heron, and where there are (or were) four groups of the langurs. The ones here are reportedly quite well protected, but I shall see what happens when I get there.

*23) Tonkin Snub-nosed Monkey Rhinopithecus avunculus: probably the primate I would most like to see anywhere in the world. Google some photos of them - they are amazing. Unfortunately they are also almost extinct. The few reserves they are still found in are off-limits (at least to foreigners and people who just want to look at them - the locals still just carry on doing what they like there). I emailed the main person in Vietnam who studies them and was told that the only way is to go in with a group when they are doing the surveys but I won't be there at the right time. I think if a person offered a lot of money for a tour to see them that would succeed, but I can't afford that sort of nonsense.

*24) Cao Vit (Eastern Black Crested) Gibbon Nomascus nasutus: the sole remaining population is found in one forest straddling the border with China, the Trung Khan Nature Reserve, which is off-limits.

*25) Black Crested Gibbon Nomascus concolor: another dead-end population, found in one forest at Mu Cang Chai. I know where it is (roughly, at least) and where the "nearest" village accessible by wheeled transport is (I deliberately put "nearest" in quotation marks!). The Indochinese Grey Langur is also found in the reserve. This would be a bit of a mission to get to, I have no idea if it is off-limits or not, and I probably won't have the time anyway.
 
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And just for interest's sake below are the primates I have seen so far on this trip, in the order they were seen (the bold ones were lifers).


Peninsular Malaysia:

1) Siamang Symphalangus syndactylus
2) Dusky Langur Trachypithecus obscurus (and also later in Thailand)
3) Sunda Slow Loris Nycticebus coucang
4) Crab-eating Macaque Macaca fascicularis (and also later in Thailand and Cambodia)


Borneo:

5) Southern Pig-tailed Macaque Macaca nemestrina


India (part one):

6) Rhesus Macaque Macaca mulatta (and also later in India part two)


Sri Lanka:

7) Tufted Grey Langur Semnopithecus priam (and also later in India part two)
8) Toque Macaque Macaca sinica
9) Purple-faced Langur Trachypithecus vetulus
10) Grey Slender Loris Loris lydekkerianus


India (part two):

11) Bonnet Macaque Macaca radiata
12) Nilgiri Langur Trachypithecus johnii
13) Black-footed Grey Langur Semnopithecus hypoleucos
14) Lion-tailed Macaque Macaca silenus
15) Southern Plains Grey Langur Semnopithecus dussumieri
16) Chamba Sacred Langur Semnopithecus ajax


Thailand:

17) Banded Leaf Monkey Presbytis femoralis
18) White-handed (Lar) Gibbon Hylobates lar


Cambodia:

19) Pileated Gibbon Hylobates pileatus
 
Looking forward to an update on Vin Pearl Safari!

it's possible that Cuc Phuong Primate Centre might have gotton a Tonkin in the last year. Very unlikely, but they have had one on the past. You can also see the Cat Ba Langur there if you want, but I'm sure you know that.
 
FunkyGibbon said:
Looking forward to an update on Vin Pearl Safari!

it's possible that Cuc Phuong Primate Centre might have gotton a Tonkin in the last year. Very unlikely, but they have had one on the past. You can also see the Cat Ba Langur there if you want, but I'm sure you know that.
Click to expand...
yes, I'll probably be going to the Primate Centre when up that way, but of course seeing the species in captivity isn't really what I'm after.

I should be going to Vinpearl tomorrow - if I can figure out where this free bus leaves from!
 
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