Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part five: 2016-2017

TRAM TON PASS


After another day's rest, this morning I wasn't feeling too bad at all. And surprisingly the weather had held, remaining clear and fogless ever since Saturday (today being Wednesday). I decided to go out to the Tram Ton Pass area, which is one of the bird spots of Sapa. About 14km northwest-ish of town is the Love Waterfall, the car-park for which is also the start of the trail up to the top of Mt. Fansipan. Technically you need a guide to use the trail, but birders work around this by the simple method of not telling anybody. I figure if you're climbing to the summit on a two- or three-day hike then, fine, a guide may be needed; but if you're just wandering around the lower stretches of the trail for the day then not so much.

There's no bus out there, so without your own transport you have to take a taxi, of either the car or motorbike varieties. The motorbike taxis wait at the church (the same church by the Ham Rong Gardens), and there is an official price board there so everything is nice and honest. For the Tram Ton Pass the cost is 80,000 Dong one-way and 150,000 return. I had no idea how long I'd be out there for - it would depend on what the trail was like, what the weather did, and how my head coped - so I just took a one-way ride and the guy gave me his phone number to call for coming back. I figured I could probably hitch back to town (which I did, with an old Australian couple on a tour) but if not I had the option.

At the car-park there are several paths to take. The one at the far end by the ticket box leads to the Love Waterfall, which costs 70,000 to visit. Left of that is the new trail to the top of Mt. Fansipan. Left of that is the old trail which is the one you want as a birder. And the fourth one, just beside the road (so the first one as you enter the car-park), is a long set of stone steps leading up to a look-out with a bell. You can get to the old Fansipan trail unseen by going up these steps, and at the bell just keep going until you connect with the trail. Once you're on the trail you are unlikely to meet anyone at all. Being of honest blood, I asked the guard at the ticket box if I could go on the trail because I was just birding with no plans on going to the summit, and he said I could go on there for twenty minutes alone. I totally mis-heard him, and thought he said "yes, sure, stay on there all day if you like."

The forest here is one of those places where for a lot of the time there is just nothing - no birds, no song - and then suddenly there will be a bird flock pulsing through, loads of activity for five or ten minutes, and then nothing for another hour. Masses of invertebrates though! Fortunately none of the leech or mosquito variety, but I can't remember the last time I had so many insects on me as I walked through a forest, everything from a baby stick insect to a luminous-lime weevil to caterpillars to longicorn beetles to froghoppers.

Not as fun were the sweat bees. I normally don't mind sweat bees - they are completely harmless and just want your sweat - but when there is no sweat then they go for your eyes instead. Usually you get one or two which is no problem; here they were in little clouds of ten or twenty bees. They land under your eye and try to drink the moisture there, which automatically makes you blink and they end up inside your eyelid. And because there are several of them there's the uncomfortable feeling of something trying to burrow into your eyes. They drove me absolutely mad all day.

I didn't see many birds during the day, just ten species in all (and six of those were all at once in one bird-wave!), but it was nice being out and birding in a forest with actual birds in it. Of those ten birds, two were new for my life list and five were new for the trip list and year list.

The first bird was a fork-tailed swift swooping past (and another three swifts a bit later which were too obscured by the trees to see properly). It wasn't for another hour or so before the next birds showed, but this was the bird-wave I mentioned. First to appear were whiskered yuhinas, heard long before they became visible, accompanied by a chestnut-vented nuthatch. Nuthatches proved to be common up here and I saw many of them - both chestnut-vented and white-tailed - over the day. Immediately after, a black-faced warbler appeared in the bamboo beside me, and while I was trying to photograph it a golden parrotbill flashed into the same bamboo stand and then continued on its way. The warbler and parrotbill were the two lifers for the day. I followed the path round to try and re-locate the parrotbill, but found a pair of fulvous-winged fulvettas instead. A female rosy minivet finished off the total for the flock.

There wasn't much seen for most of the day after that, a few individuals of yuhinas and more nuthatches, but there also some of the local race of yellow-cheeked tits. Eventually I ended up back at the spot where I'd encountered the bird-wave so just hung around there for an hour or so being tormented by the sweat bees. It paid off though, when a male sapphire flycatcher turned up, and then some more black-faced warblers and whiskered yuhinas as well.
 
TRAM TON PASS, again


Today I returned to the Tram Ton Pass area. Yesterday I wrote how the price-board at the motorbike stand makes it all nice and honest. Today they showed they can still circumvent honesty. The simplest way is to assume the tourist doesn't know the price-board is there - so I was quoted 100,000 to the Love Waterfall instead of 80,000. The follow-up, when you point out the official prices, is to just point at a different destination which has the price they want, and say that that is the place you're going (e.g. the board says Sapa to Tram Ton, not Sapa to Love Waterfall, so they'll try to tell you that the Love Waterfall is at some other location).

To start the day I paid the 70,000 for entry to the Love Waterfall, which I had missed yesterday. The waterfall is about a kilometre from the car-park along a paved track and it is a really nice waterfall I must say. The route is supposed to be good for birds, but not today. Literally the only birds seen were a white wagtail on the way (of the pretty alboides race), and at the waterfall a pair of plumbeous water redstarts with a brood of fledglings. The latter species was the first of the trip and the first I'd seen in Vietnam, so that's good, and I think I even got some good photos of them (from how they look on the camera screen at least). But otherwise the whole first part of the morning was wasted.

I then went up to the look-out by the road so that I could continue on unseen to the old Fansipan trail. In the forest I discovered that all the oxygen in the air had been replaced with sweat bees.

The birds were more evenly spaced out today than yesterday, so it wasn't long before I encountered a small bird-wave consisting of white-collared yuhinas (a lifer), blue-winged minlas, and a black-faced warbler. The latter species was the regular bird of the day, being seen everywhere along the trail.

A short while later I came across another bird-wave. This one appeared to be composed of several species of babblers but frustratingly it was on a stretch of the trail which was almost literally vertical and I was having to look up at the birds without being able to get to their level without scaring them off. Mostly I could just see the ferns and grasses moving, with a half-second glimpse every so often as a bird moved through an empty gap. Nothing I could get a fix on in time. As I clambered up the mud bank which was the trail (the steps having long since fallen away) I thought I saw a white-browed fulvetta, which would have been a lifer, but in the end I left it off the list because I wasn't sure.

When I got to the "magic spot" from yesterday where I had seen my only bird-wave of the day, there was silence. But not for long. A couple of black-faced warblers turned up, then white-collared yuhinas and blue-winged minlas - perhaps even the same ones from earlier. In a cluster of trees above me was a pair of verditer flycatchers, and a flock of black-throated tits accompanied by a couple of yellow-browed tits which was the second lifer of the day. They look more like warblers than proper tits. Then there were more minlas, a white-tailed warbler, and a chestnut-vented nuthatch as well. I hung around here for a couple of hours with the same sorts of birds coming and going. An ashy-throated warbler also came by at one point in the company of another black-faced warbler. I think this is the best spot on the lower trail.

At about 3pm I headed back the way I'd come, and down the trail ran straight into the babbler-wave from earlier, except this time the birds were at a section of trail which was fairly flat so I could follow them along as I tried to get looks at them. There were at least five species of babblers there, one of which I didn't get to ID on the views I got. I didn't see any white-browed fulvettas but there were no fewer than three other fulvettas in the flock - rufous-winged, streak-throated and rusty-capped, the last of them being a lifer for me - as well as rufous-capped babblers.

As per yesterday, I got back to town by waiting in the car-park until some tourists came back from the waterfall and asking if I could get a ride. Today's lucky recipients of my company were a pair of French-Canadian sisters. Their hotel was on the opposite side of town to mine, which turns out to be the foreign-tourist side. I counted four shops for outdoor gear on one street alone, pizza restaurants, tour operators. My side of town has motorbike repair shops, soup restaurants, and general stores. I like my side better.
 
Chlidonias said:
There were at least five species of babblers there, one of which I didn't get to ID on the views I got. I didn't see any white-browed fulvettas but there were no fewer than three other fulvettas in the flock - rufous-winged, streak-throated and rusty-capped, the last of them being a lifer for me - as well as rufous-capped babblers.
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a little taxonomic note. The streak-throated fulvetta (formerly Alcippe cinereiceps, now in the genus Fulvetta) was split into three species quite a while ago. I knew this, but thought that the one in Tonkin would be the Chinese species which I had already seen (the grey-hooded fulvetta F. cinereiceps, although I still use the common name streak-throated because it sounds nicer). While adding the latest species to my year/trip/country/life lists I discovered that the one in Tonkin is actually the Manipur fulvetta F. manipurensis, the distribution of which comes in to north Vietnam from the western direction. So it was actually also a lifer, making four for the day.
 
I have just bought a plane ticket out of Vietnam. The end is nigh. I'm at that horrible part of a long trip where I've lived free for the last seven months, and now I have to face going back into the real world and getting *shudder* a job. I'll tell ya, it's not easy going from transient to productive member of society.

The flight is with Vietjet whom I haven't flown with before so that's nice, and it's this coming Monday (today is Thursday). I looked originally at Air Asia, which is the airline I generally prefer to fly with, but their site kept giving error messages that day so I went next to Jetstar. They had a flight from Hanoi to Bangkok for about NZ$6. Brilliant, I thought. Then the taxes and fees went on and it came out at over NZ$70, and that was still before the check-in baggage was added. I looked at Vietjet and their prices were about the same - I think Jetstar just uses the same Vietjet flight for that part of their route. The next day I went back to Air Asia. They had a flight for about NZ$12, but again the added fees brought it up to a price similar to the other flights. So I settled on Vietjet, mainly because I wanted to fly on a "new" airline (not that I keep an airline life-list!), but also because it was a better time, getting into Bangkok at 1pm rather than 11pm. It totalled out at about NZ$94.

In case you're wondering what I've been up to for the last two weeks, the answer is nothing much. I've been in Sapa the whole time. It's not a bad place to sit and slowly decompose, all things being considered. Really my time in Sapa has been mostly spent doing just that: sitting.

I arrived on a Wednesday night, and the next day found myself walled in by pea-soup fog. Actually pea-soup makes it sound clearer than it was. Think of something less clear than pea-soup and that was how thick the fog was. Wet concrete maybe. So the first day was spent inside the hotel room.

Friday was also foggy but I went to the Ham Rong Gardens anyway where I saw a few birds, barely. Saturday and Sunday were also spent in the gardens because it turned out that that weekend was Vietnam's Labour Day and hence everybody was on holiday, which meant that everybody came to Sapa. The entire town was booked solid, and the hotel prices soared. Fortunately I found a homestay in the gardens which nobody else knew existed. Unfortunately, I got pretty sick on Saturday, and then gave myself a slight head injury courtesy of a low-slung ceiling beam. So that wasn't great.

Monday and Tuesday I was back at the Honeymoon Hotel in town, but thought it prudent to use those as rest days just in case. Wednesday and Thursday were spent actually birding in the forest on the lower stretches of the Mt. Fansipan trail. These were basically the only two good days of the whole two weeks!

Friday I was tired and slept in, and then it was raining as well. Saturday and Sunday was, of course, the weekend again so I put off doing anything, which was probably a mistake. And then on Monday I got sick again! I think it was probably something I ate on Sunday. I had decided I would definitely be going to the summit of Mt. Fansipan if the weather was manageable, sat up in bed early Monday morning, and just about threw up. I actually spent the next ten minutes sitting beside the toilet waiting to vomit, with that awkward feeling of knowing that you are 100% about to throw up but you're not throwing up. So you're waiting... waiting... then I went back to bed with nothing happening, went back to sleep for a couple of hours, and then spent the rest of the day being thoroughly miserable.

Tuesday I wasn't feeling like I was going to vomit but still felt poorly, and I had one of those piercing headaches like someone is drilling through your temple. Still have it today on Thursday. I'll head back to Hanoi on Friday or Saturday, hopefully get to the zoo on Sunday maybe, then fly out to Bangkok on Monday.

So, the last part of Vietnam hasn't worked out so well. I never did get to the summit of Mt. Fansipan to look for the red-throated ground squirrel (an upper-montane species, of which the type-locality was this mountain), but that's life. At least I saw some birds while in Sapa.


On the whole trip so far I have seen 222 bird lifers and I only need 14 more to make it to 1700 on my life-list. And I've seen 54 mammal lifers and only need 8 more to make 300. I've got a few places to go through before I get home, but I don't know if I'll see any new species along the way.
 
You say nearly over, but presumably you've got another couple of months in Borneo or New Guinea or somewhere on the way. :p ;)
 
Chlidonias said:
On the whole trip so far I have seen 222 bird lifers and I only need 14 more to make it to 1700 on my life-list. And I've seen 54 mammal lifers and only need 8 more to make 300. I've got a few places to go through before I get home, but I don't know if I'll see any new species along the way.
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How many bird species are there in New Zealand? Have you seen most of them?
 
DavidBrown said:
How many bird species are there in New Zealand? Have you seen most of them?
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the last official checklist (2010) lists 435 species, including lots of vagrants and also extinct species. The New Zealand Birds Online site says 467 species (ditto).

The 2016 conservation status document (http://www.doc.govt.nz/documents/science-and-technical/nztcs19entire.pdf) lists 487 taxa, of which 59 are extinct and 141 are vagrant. So if you take those out (but leaving in migrants, introduced species, etc) then that leaves 287 taxa. I've seen about half of those. If restricted to birds of the main islands (i.e. removing the pelagic birds and those of the subantarctic islands) then I've seen almost all that are resident here.
 
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LaughingDove said:
Have you ever done one of those working holiday type things, or just getting a job for a year or so somewhere that you want to visit?
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I've thought about it, but it's never gone any further than that. The idea is tantalising but I think for me it's just better to work in NZ or Australia and then travel. If I'm going to be in a foreign country for an extended period, I'd rather it was just all travelling than to be working and only have weekends to go after animals. Working there would take the fun out of it. Sort of the point of travelling is to be free, and working is the opposite of that. Volunteering is the same, except worse because you're not even getting any money (and often you're paying to be there).
 
Getting from Sapa to Hanoi was a bit of a mess. No, that's kind of exaggerating. There wasn't anything major going wrong, just little annoying moments that were easily shrugged off. It just didn't go completely according to plan.

From Sapa to the Lao Cai bus station I should have been able to catch bus #2 which goes the whole way and only costs 30,000 Dong. The bus didn't stop for me. I wasn't sure how often they came - probably every half an hour - so when a mini-van to Lao Cai came along I took that instead. It cost 50,000 but the lady assured me they went to the bus station, so I didn't worry about the minimal difference in price. But the van didn't go to the bus station. It stopped at the train station (about twenty minutes from the bus station). I could have caught a city-bus the rest of the way, but there were some tickets agents there selling buses for Hanoi for 280,000 so I just took one of those.

The bus was another mini-van, which was fine, however the agent didn't hand me the ticket until I was already on board. It said 210,000, meaning they had added on their own 70,000 fee, but it was too late to argue about that. Then the van wasn't what I was going to Hanoi in - it was just transport to the bus station where everyone transferred into a regular sleeper-bus. In effect I had paid 120,000 Dong to get from Sapa to the Lao Cai bus station instead of 30,000. Not impressed over that.

I had booked a couple of nights at a place called French-styled House. I had been going to go back to the Hoan Kiem Hostel in the Old Quarter but this place was only $3 more for the two nights and instead of a little windowless cell I got a huge room in a fancy house with really nice owners. It isn't anywhere near the Old Quarter so I'm not sure how suitable it would be for regular backpackers. For me it was fine because I was only back in town to go the zoo and then to the airport the day after, and this place is actually more convenient for both.

I had checked the directions for getting from Hanoi's My Dinh bus station to the property so I wouldn't get lost. Last time I came into Hanoi to My Dinh (from Tam Dao) the bus had dropped me on the roadside a couple of hundred metres from the station - you know, despite the destination for the bus actually being the My Dinh station! You can't see the station from down the road of course, so that was mildly confusing, but it got sorted quickly enough. I was sort of expecting the same thing here, except this time it wasn't a couple of hundred metres, it was about a kilometre away! By complete coincidence, the place they dropped me was the very road I needed to get to the French-styled House. I did not know this, though, so walked all the way to My Dinh which was the "start-point" in my directions.

Once at My Dinh I looked for city-bus #5 which didn't seem to exist, and got put on bus #70A instead. Five minutes later I arrived right back where I started. Nuts. I think the conductor ripped me off as well, because he charged me 10,000 whereas the last bus I caught from My Dinh (to the Old Quarter, which took an hour) only cost me 7000. I had shown the conductor the exact address so I could get dropped as close as possible. When he said this was where I get off I jumped off all ready to walk a short distance. He had dropped me about two kilometres from the street I needed. Another long walk! Sigh.

The next morning (today) I went to the Hanoi Zoo. City-bus #32 leaves from just around the corner from where I'm staying and goes right past the zoo. The stop where I got off had road-works in progress, so I was working my away round them while trying to find the entrance to the zoo. As I walked past the entrance to a temple I could hear gibbons calling, and the path went along the shore of the small lake where I knew the zoo was located, so I went that way. After a couple of minutes I found myself inside the zoo without having gone through any of the gates. The zoo is a mix of animals and amusement park rides. At first I wasn't even sure I was in the zoo. I figured it would be confusing for the staff if I tried to go and pay at one of the entrances, so I just let it go.

The review of the visit is here: Hanoi Zoo - Hanoi Zoo review, 14 May 2017

An unexpected bonus from the zoo visit was a lifer mammal, with an Asian house rat in one of the masked palm civet cages. I've probably seen these before - I have seen black rats in several southeast Asian cities - but in Vietnam the true black rat (Rattus rattus) is restricted to docks and harbours whereas the common urban species is the Asian house rat (Rattus tanezumi), so I can add it safely to my life list.

Tomorrow morning (11am) I fly out to Bangkok. I'll have a few "Vietnam wrap-up" posts around then, things like money spent, monkeys seen, etc. Then I'll probably be going to some Thai zoos.
 
some Sapa photos from the gallery:

Plumbeous Water Redstart:

full



Black-faced Warbler:

full



The wierd colourful spiny centipedes I found at the Ham Rong Gardens:

full
 
And now I'm back in Thailand.

The air hostesses on Vietjet have a uniform which looks like a boy scout outfit. Just to be clear, I don't have any attraction towards boy scouts. The male air hostesses (air hosts? - what are male air hostesses called?)... anyway, the male air hostesses have a normal uniform of red T-shirt and black trousers, but the girls have a red T-shirt with khaki shorts, a khaki hat and a khaki neck-scarf. They're actually a tartan and not khaki, but unless you're close up they look khaki, so that's what I'm going with. Why would you dress your air hostesses as boy scouts? It's confusing for the male members on the plane. Erm, male passengers on the plane.

As usual, the security checks at the airport had their own little quirks. Everybody had to take off their shoes and belts to put them through the X-ray machine - and this time I even had to put my cap through the machine, whereas normally they just get me to take it off when going through the metal detector. And yet a half-full bottle of water in the side-pocket of my bag went through without comment.

I've lost so much weight on this trip that my trousers don't even stay up without the belt - I literally have to wear the belt as tight as it will go now. You know how sometimes you see those people wandering the streets after escaping from crooked retirement homes where they've been beaten and starved for years, and now they're little more than walking skeletons? That's me. If you've seen the movie Warm Blood, where there are humans, zombies, and "boneys" - I'm like the boneys. In anything more than a gentle breeze I fall over from the force of the air movement.

I had 87,000 Dong left over from Vietnam. All the food outlets past the security check-point were priced in US Dollars. I really don't understand why Vietnam does this, but apparently what I had equalled US$3.80. I bought some fries and a sundae at Burger King, leaving me with 7000 Dong as a wallet souvenir.

The flight landed in Bangkok around 1.15pm. There were so many people at Immigration that I didn't get to the luggage belts until 2.30pm. I'm pretty sure this is the only time I've ever had a long wait at Immigration. Usually I'm through in about twenty minutes at the most. Although, having said that, Immigration and Customs are also the sort of thing that I just forget about after a week or two.

In the queue next to mine there was a Vietnamese woman who wasn't getting through. The officer was looking at her passport, looking at her, looking at her passport, looking at her. He showed the officer at the next desk, and he shook his head as well. The officer kept scrutinising her, then asked for another ID. She gave him a driver licence or ID card or something. He looked at that, looked at her, looked at the passport, looked at her. Nope. I don't know what happened in the end, but she clearly was not the person on the passport photo.

So Vietnam is now done and dusted. I'll have some wrap-up posts soon.
 
Vietnam Primate Final Update
(Lifers are in bold)


CHUA HANG
Indochinese Silvered Langur Trachypithecus germaini - 1 of 25

TA CU MOUNTAIN
Crab-eating Macaque Macaca fascicularis
Black-shanked Douc Pygathrix nigripes
Annamese Silvered Langur Trachypithecus margarita - 4 of 25

CAT TIEN NATIONAL PARK
Southern Buff-cheeked Gibbon Nomascus gabriellae
Rhesus Macaque Macaca mulatta - 6 of 25

SON TRA PENINSULA (DANANG)
Red-shanked Douc Pygathrix naemeus - 7 of 25

BACH MA NATIONAL PARK
Stump-tailed Macaque Macaca arctoides - 8 of 25
*Annamite (Northern Buff-cheeked) Gibbon Nomascus annamensis - call only

PHONG NHA-KE BANG NATIONAL PARK
Hatinh Langur Trachypithecus hatinhensis - 9 of 25

VAN LONG NATURE RESERVE
Delacour's Langur Trachypithecus delacouri - 10 out of 25


CONCLUSION:

So I saw 10 out of the 25 primate species of Vietnam on this trip. I probably saw Northern Pig-tailed Macaque, and I definitely saw it in 2015, so I'm including it here to make 11 species. If the "call-only" Annamite Gibbon is counted then that makes 12 out of 25.


Following are all the 25 species with notes. The ones in bold are simply those I saw (not denoting lifers as is usually the case). See this post (#256) for the more-annotated full list of Vietnamese primates:
Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part five: 2016-2017


1) Bengal Slow Loris: didn't see it, but also didn't really expect to. They seem to be rarely recorded in Vietnam, and I only went spotlighting at Ta Cu, Cat Tien, and Cuc Phuong.

2) Pigmy Slow Loris: as for the Bengal Slow Loris. There was probably a better chance for this one than the Bengal, but I'm still not surprised I missed it.

3) Crab-eating Macaque: seen first at Ta Cu and then at Cat Tien. I thought I would have seen it earlier than that but that's the way it goes. Surprisingly I didn't see them at any other point on this Vietnam trip! I did also see them captive at the Vinpearl Safari on Phu Quoc Island and at Hanoi Zoo.

4) Rhesus Macaque: seen at Cat Tien where I wasn't expecting it, and then later at Ba Be. The macaques I saw at Phong Nha were probably also Rhesus but they weren't close enough to completely rule out Assamese Macaques. Also seen captive at hanoi Zoo.

5) Stump-tailed Macaque: this one I wasn't sure I'd see at all because they seem difficult to see anywhere, and they are very vulnerable to trapping due to their predominantly terrestrial lifestyle. However I saw them at both Bach Ma and Phong Nha, which was a pleasant turn of events. Also seen captive at the Vinpearl Safari and Hanoi Zoo.

6) Northern Pig-tailed Macaque: a narrow miss at Cat Tien where the one individual I saw scarpered before I could get a proper look at it. I'm about 95% sure it was this species but there are several other macaques in the park. I did expect to see it more easily, at Cat Tien and at the many other parks in which it occurs. I saw a number of animals at Cat Tien in 2015 though so I'm treating it here as "seen" for Vietnam. Seen captive at the Vinpearl Safari and Hanoi Zoo also.

7) Assamese Macaque: this one I was sure I would see because it is found throughout the north - and it is the one Vietnamese macaque species which I haven't seen in the wild anywhere else either. So this kind of burns. Seen captive at Hanoi Zoo.

8) Indochinese Silvered Langur: seen really well at Chua Hang in south Vietnam. Easily the best place to see them. Also captive at Vinpearl Safari.

9) Annamese Silvered Langur: seen very poorly at Ta Cu, but much better in 2015 at Cat Tien. Either way, I've seen them, albeit in neither case as well as the preceding species. Also captive at Saigon Zoo.

10) Black-shanked Douc: seen briefly at Ta Cu, and numerous times at Cat Tien on both this visit and in 2015. Also captive at the Saigon Zoo.

11) Grey-shanked Douc: a big miss in both 2015 and on this visit. I did see the captive ones at the Endangered Primate Rescue Centre (EPRC) though, so that's something at least.

12) Red-shanked Douc: seen at both Son Tra and at Bach Ma, after having missed them at both places in 2015 (apart for a too-brief glimpse at Bach Ma that year). Also captive at the EPRC and at Saigon Zoo.

13) Hatinh Langur: several days of waiting at the sleeping cliffs paid off, and I saw two individuals at Phong Nha. Also captive animals at the EPRC later.

14) Indochinese Black Langur: I didn't bother looking for this one at Phong Nha. There seemed little chance of seeing any, and in any case I follow the treatment that they are just a colour-morph of the Hatinh Langur. I did see some captive ones at the EPRC.

15) Delacour's Langur: seen easily and really well at Van Long. I can't complain about that at all. Also a few captive ones at the EPRC.

16) Indochinese Grey Langur: I saw four captive ones at the EPRC and one at Hanoi Zoo, but the only park I visited where they are (supposedly) found wild was Cuc Phuong where there are basically no mammals left alive.

17) Cat Ba Langur: I didn't bother with this one either. According to the people who run the conservation programme on Cat Ba Island (I emailed them prior to the trip) there is no legal way for random people to see them and they said that the photos I'd seen on Tripadvisor from kayakers were from people entering the reserve illegally. However I have also come across references to tours which quite legally pass an area where there is a troop of langurs living, so who knows. Anyway, I didn't go there, partly because by the time I got that far north my funds were too depleted for tourist cruises. I did see some captive at the EPRC.

18) Francois' Langur: my hope was that the troops at Ba Be would have been sufficiently protected for them to still be alive when I got there. They were not.

19) Tonkin Snub-nosed Monkey: yeah, no chance for this one unfortunately. They'll be extinct within my lifetime.

20) Southern Buff-cheeked Gibbon: the only Vietnamese gibbon I had seen in the wild prior to this trip, and still the only Vietnamese gibbon I have seen in the wild! As in 2015, the place I saw it was at Cat Tien. Also seen captive at the Vinpearl Safari, at the EPRC, and at Saigon Zoo.

21) Annamite (Northern Buff-cheeked) Gibbon: missed at the same time as Grey-shanked Doucs (they are found in the same forests), but I instead looked for them at Bach Ma. I heard a few individuals calling but none were seen.

22) Southern White-cheeked Gibbon: found at Phong Nha, but I didn't bother looking because I decided to concentrate on the Hatinh Langur instead. I think it was the best decision. Seen captive at the EPRC.

23) Northern White-cheeked Gibbon: I was planning on going to Pu Mat, but skipped it due to low funds. Seen captive at the EPRC and at Hanoi Zoo.

24) Black Crested Gibbon: one population left in a single forest. I think it may require a permit to visit but I don't really know.

25) Cao Vit Gibbon: as above, the few remaining animals are found in one forest which straddles the border of Vietnam and China. The forest is a protected reserve which you cannot enter without a permit, and they are only given for research purposes.
 
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, 89 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)


VIETNAM:

Overall, I loved Vietnam. This visit went rather better than the last trip (2015) in terms of actually finding animals. There were species I missed, of course, and some that I just didn't even bother looking for, but I saw a lot of the ones I was after and I got to visit most of the places I wanted to. I'm not sure when or if I'll be back because, like Sri Lanka, I feel like I covered enough ground to consider it "done". If I was to go back it would be for Grey-shanked Doucs.

*36,439,000 Dong spent over 77 days (NZ$2324, US$1606, UK£1243, €1463)
*Average spent per day: NZ$30.20, US$20.85, UK£16.15, €19
*259 birds seen, 42 lifers (c.16 percent of total)
*33 mammals seen, 10 lifers (c.30 percent of total)


*The average daily spend for the entire trip is currently on NZ$33.30 (US$23.70, UK£18.70, €22).
 
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Chlidonias said:
And now I'm back in Thailand.

The air hostesses on Vietjet have a uniform which looks like a boy scout outfit. Just to be clear, I don't have any attraction towards boy scouts. The male air hostesses (air hosts? - what are male air hostesses called?)
Click to expand...

I don't think you're supposed to call them air hosts/hostesses or stewards/stewardesses anymore. I think the correct term is either flight attendant or cabin crew.
 
WAT PHO BANG KHLA

For my first day in Bangkok I went to see some bats. I had recently discovered that outside Bangkok in the nearly-impossible-to-pronounce town of Chachoengsao there is a Buddhist temple called Wat Pho Bang Khla which is home to a large colony of Lyle's fruit bats. I have seen this species before at Siem Reap in Cambodia (in 2006 and then again this February) but I thought it would be a good plan to see them in Thailand as well. Because why not.

I did some googling to find directions to the temple. The original place I had read about it (on Mammalwatching) had said the temple was just named Wat Pho, which is actually a temple in the middle of Bangkok. From more reliable internet sources, like Tripadvisor (!), I found out the real name of the temple and where it was located. Getting there sounded easy, although it is quite a long way outside Bangkok so you'd really want to see the bats because it's basically an all-day trip.

First I took the river boat from Pier 13 (by the Khao San Road area) down to Pier 4 for 15 Baht, and walked to the Hualamphong train station which takes about 15 minutes or so. The trains to Chachoengsao seem to run every two hours. I got to the station at about 9.30am and the next train was at 10.10 so I didn't have to wait long. I did almost miss the train though, because I was sitting in the station day-dreaming and when I randomly looked at my watch it was already 10.05! The train takes an hour and a half to reach Chachoengsao - the end of that line so you can't miss the station - and it only costs 13 Baht! That's about fifty NZ cents! This was a really cheap day I must say. The entire cost of transport from leaving my guesthouse to getting back to the guesthouse was just 104 Baht, or roughly NZ$4.

Most of the trip is through rice-fields and farmland. After spending the last three months in the dead-zone which is Vietnam, it was amazing seeing birds everywhere. Not just a few birds, but large flocks of birds of all kinds. Most of the smaller ones were unidentifiable but there were spotted doves, red collared doves, zebra doves, plaintive cuckoos. At one station was a colony of baya weavers. In the flooded paddies were literally hundreds of Javan pond herons, cattle egrets, great and intermediate and little egrets, lesser whistling ducks, jacanas, gallinules, openbill storks, even a flock of painted storks at one point. I saw 26 species just by looking out of the train windows, which is more than you'd normally see in a full day's birding in most of Vietnam.

Once at the Chachoengsao train station it is really easy to get to the temple. Of course, I made it as convoluted as possible in order to find out what that easy way is. I do it on purpose to provide accurate travel information...

The temple is about 20km outside Chachoengsao at a place called Bang Khla. From the internet I had only found information on people going there in their own cars, by taxis (500 Baht return, apparently), and lastly by what should have been the cheapest option, a river boat from the Tawan-Ok Plaza Pier which goes up-river to the temple. A songthaew from the station to the Plaza costs 8 Baht but I walked it because the only songthaews by the station were empty. Sometimes when you ask at an empty songthaew if they go to a certain place the driver says yes, but then when you arrive you find out that you've inadvertently hired the whole vehicle and now have to pay a huge fee. I wanted to avoid any such mistake! It was about 2.5km to the river, no detours, nice and easy. It took me a while to find the right building because nobody spoke any English, but eventually I found it, couldn't find the pier, managed to ascertain that it was actually on the other side of the river, and then got taken to a songthaew which I was told goes to the temple for 8 Baht. Huh.

The songthaew set off - all the way back along the road I'd walked up, past the train station, and stopped at the bus station which is just nearby. The driver pointed at a bright orange songthaew and said that one goes to Bang Khla. And that's how I found the easy way to get there! Basically, from the train station you just walk to the bus station (or take a songthaew or motorbike or tuktuk) and find the orange songthaews which go to Bang Khla. They cost 20 Baht, it takes about forty minutes, and they stop about five minutes walk from the temple. Easy-peasy!

Although I was looking forward to seeing the bats I was also a bit unsure about whether it was worth having spent so much time to get there, given that I've seen Lyle's fruit bats before. It was totally worth it! The colony is huge and because it is inside the grounds of the temple it is completely protected. The bats at Siem Reap (in the Royal Gardens) are high up in the tops of tall trees so you need binoculars to see them properly. The bats at Wat Pho Bang Khla are in low trees, often no more than six or seven metres off the ground. The noise was incredible, constant screeching and screaming from the bats, and with that characteristic pungent bat odour filling the air. Lots of the bats had babies, of all ages. I spent about an hour there all together. I'm hoping I got at least some good photos but, firstly, my camera doesn't seem to want to work properly on auto-focus any more when the zoom lens is on it, and secondly I'd been having some trouble with my contact lenses shifting meaning I couldn't be sure if the camera was even in focus when doing it manually.
 
ZOO VISITS

Bangkok is really quiet. It is outside the tourist season so the streets around the backpacker area are almost deserted. It's nice. I don't stay on Khao San Road any more. I did when I first came to Thailand a decade ago but Khao San isn't what it used to be - even a decade ago it wasn't what it used to be! Now I always stay a couple of streets over nearer the river. It is a bit cheaper, not *as* tourist-filled (but still tourist-filled), closer to the river boat which is the most convenient public transport for the area, just overall a bit of a better place.

There were a few Bangkok zoos I was not going to be visiting. I'm a firm believer in visiting zoos to make up my own mind on what they are like, but for some zoos I don't need to do that. I already know what I need to know to make my decisions. Bangkok Safari World has been heavily-involved (and probably still is) in animal smuggling, particularly of orangutans, and I'll have no part of that. The deplorable Pata Zoo is an avoid-at-all-costs for me. And similarly for the Samutprakan Crocodile Farm with its animal abuse and drugged tigers used for photo props.

My first zoo visit was instead to a zoo waaaaay outside Bangkok, the Korat Zoo at Nakhon Ratchasima, a city four hours away by bus. I rather stupidly did this as a day-trip, which I would not advise.

The review of that visit is here: Korat Zoo - Review of the Korat Zoo - 17 May 2017

The following zoo was a return to the Dusit Zoo, Bangkok's real zoo. I've been here several times but it is a very good zoo. I haven't done a review of it, but just added some comments to the bottom of this thread from a visit earlier in the year: Dusit Zoo - Species list, 5 February 2017
 
I wish I'd known about the bats at Chachoengsao before my trip to Thailand because I went fairly near there on the way from Bang Pra to Khao Yai and I may have been able to stop. I should probably look at mammalwatching more when planning trips. I don't know if you've been there, but if you have a free day in Bangkok I'd recommend a morning in Sri Nakhon Khuean Khan Park.
 
LaughingDove said:
I wish I'd known about the bats at Chachoengsao before my trip to Thailand because I went fairly near there on the way from Bang Pra to Khao Yai and I may have been able to stop. I should probably look at mammalwatching more when planning trips. I don't know if you've been there, but if you have a free day in Bangkok I'd recommend a morning in Sri Nakhon Khuean Khan Park.
Click to expand...
I've tried to get to that park before (must have been 2014). The taxi driver had no clue how to get there as it turned out, and I wasted a lot of money getting nowhere.

Mammalwatching is not great for planning trips, other than for very basic information. There are some notable exceptions, but generally-speaking almost all the trip reports are from people doing tours (or especially now-days, by the tour companies themselves) and there is usually very little usable information in them for anyone going independently. For a lot of the reports the best that can be said is that you can at least see what sort of mammals might be at a site.
 
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