I don't suppose you were able to pin that Silver Pheasant down to a subspecies? Should have been berliozi I think.
Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part five: 2016-2017
- Thread starter Chlidonias
- Start date
I hadn't got to subspecies yet for Cuc Phuong. The field guide for southeast Asia isn't much help when it comes to the silver pheasant subspecies. However, looking online berliozi is from the Annamite Ranges in central Vietnam. In northern Vietnam you've got beaulieui and nycthemera. I found one list which had beaulieui for Cuc Phuong.
Looking at photos (or trying to look at photos and wondering if they actually show the subspecies they purport to), beaulieui and nycthemera look much the same to me. Photos of berliozi mostly seem to be much darker birds, although some photos also show very white ones. In any case the male I saw was very white indeed.
There must be a wormhole to California from that park, because I'm pretty sure I did hear you say that. As we've not yet met in person I couldn't be sure it was you, but the funny accent made me suspect it was.
I googled the birds that you suggested looking for and they ARE spectacular.
I dunno. I hear there are lots of kooky people in California. It would have been around midnight your time, and I wouldn't have trouble believing someone there is wandering around in the suburbs in the middle of the night exclaiming about parrotbills. In fact, I'd be surprised if there wasn't!
a bit of an update on this. (It isn't important to the story at all, but it's just if any random person is looking for information on the internet and comes across this page).
There is indeed a mini-van (or mini-bus) which goes from Tam Dao to Vinh Yen at 8.30am and 2pm, and it does cost 50,000 Dong. It takes about 40 minutes or so, and will drop you at the Vinh Yen bus station from which you can then get a bus to Hanoi. The bus I got to Hanoi cost me 30,000 Dong (although the posted price said 50,000), took about an hour, and dropped me at the My Dinh bus station from which I got city-bus #34 to Hang Moui street in the Old Quarter. The #34 bus took almost an hour to cross the city (which means that my bus choices to get to Vinh Yen from Hanoi a few days ago worked better for me, because I had been able to just walk to the first bus I caught).
I checked with the driver of the mini-van and the times for going from the Vinh Yen bus station to Tam Dao are 11.30am and 5pm. I haven't seen this information on the internet, so it is probably something that only the locals know about and none of the tourists. I'm not sure if the van comes to the station as a matter of course, though, or only if there are passengers to pick up.
..........................
I'm at a different hotel from last time, the Hoan Kiem Hostel, and I'm just here overnight (hopefully - I'm feeling a little seedy, so I may have some mosquito-borne virus). Tomorrow morning I plan on heading off to Ba Be National Park which is, I think, the only place outside China one can realistically see white-eared night herons. Seeing them involves paying a particular boatman to take you to the roost-site before dawn or at dusk so you can watch them leaving or arriving. I'm hoping the cost will not be excessive!
Also in the park are a few groups of Francois' langurs. My hope there is that, firstly, they are still alive; and secondly, that the boatman or someone else from the park knows where they live.
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I keep meaning to mention this and keep forgetting: when on the bus between Cuc Phuong and Hanoi, I passed a cat restaurant. The speciality restaurants always have a signboard outside with a picture of the animal on it, usually a goat or a chicken although dog is quite common. But this was the first cat restaurant I had seen.
And, another non-related topic: seeing I have mentioned the area of Hanoi named Hoan Kiem a few times, I should also say something about the Hoan Kiem turtle. There's a good Wikipedia page (titled "Hoan Kiem turtle") which summarises it all, but basically the little lake of Hoan Kiem in the middle of Hanoi was until recently home to one of only four surviving individuals of the Yangtze softshell turtle Rafetus swinhoei. Of the other three known animals, one is still living wild in a lake in Vietnam and the other two are living at Suzhou Zoo in China (where I have seen them). Repeated attempts to breed the pair at Suzhou Zoo have so far failed unfortunately. The turtle in Hoan Kiem Lake died in January 2016.
Aren't those two things mutually exclusive in Vietnam
, if someone knows where exactly they live, they are probably eaten
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FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
I have a funny feeling I stayed in this hostel in February. It's main selling point was that it had a bed free at 11.00 p.m. which is when I arrived
well yes, that is generally the case. But I'm hoping it to not be this time!lintworm said:Aren't those two thins mutually exclusive in Vietnam
BA BE NATIONAL PARK
Almost a day's travel north of Hanoi is the Ba Be National Park, protecting a large but skinny lake surrounded by limestone mountains with remnant forests. Birders go here for just one reason, to try and see white-eared night herons. This is one of the rarest species of herons and is largely restricted to southern China. Until 2008 there were only two records from Vietnam, a specimen from 1975 and a sighting in 2001. In 2008-9 they were discovered at Ba Be - where they are breeding - and the rangers keep track of them, meaning that finding them is often straight-forward for visiting birders. All the trip reports are the same: you go to Ba Be, find Mr. Chat, and he will take you in a boat before dawn (or maybe in the late afternoon) to see the herons at their roost-site.
I also had a secondary reason for visiting. Francois' langurs, another of the "limestone langurs" like the Delacour's and Hatinh langurs, are still found here. Francois' langurs probably number a few hundred in Vietnam, but they are scattered about in isolated populations, often consisting of just a few individuals, so their future is bleak. Not surprisingly, given that they are very heavily hunted, most of the remaining groups in the country are in remote areas difficult of access. I had found a 2009 survey of the langurs at Ba Be which showed there were (then) several groups still in the park, although all of them were very small. This was my best bet for seeing them in the wild, although being almost a decade after the survey I wasn't overly optimistic they would still exist.
I had found some instructions on the internet for getting to Ba Be National Park by public transport, with the start-point being the Gia Lam bus station in Hanoi. I already knew which city-bus to catch for Gia Lam because the #34 I had caught the day before runs between the My Dinh station and the Gia Lam station, and as it turned out the latter is only fifteen minutes ride from the Old Quarter where my hotel was.
From Gia Lam there was supposed to be a red mini-bus leaving for Thai Nguyen at 9.30am, and then at that town's bus station I had to find a white mini-bus with the licence plate "TRUONG GIANG 97B-000.75" which would be leaving at midday. Apparently this bus, and only this bus, goes all the way to Ba Be. All the other buses claiming to go to Ba Be only go as far as the town of Chon Ra which is 20km short and you then need to take a motorbike-taxi the rest of the way.
I had found all that out before leaving New Zealand, but while re-checking it on the evening before I went to Ba Be I came across an additional bit of information which said that there was a direct bus to the park from the Old Quarter, leaving from Mr. Linh's tourist shop at 83 Ma May Street. This made sense because Ba Be is, it seems, a popular tourist spot and Mr. Linh runs not only this shop but also a homestay and a little information centre at Ba Be. I had also read (on Tripadvisor) that he was the manager of the national park but I don't know if that's true or not. It was too late to find out about this direct bus right away, but its departure time was 7.30am so in the morning I just walked around the corner to the spot. The shop wasn't open yet, so I ducked into the shop next door and asked them how much the bus would cost. I had a rough idea of how much the multi-bus option would cost - and it was a lot cheaper than the 660,000 Dong which was being asked for the single-bus option. In fact my total travel costs from the hotel in Hanoi to Ba Be (four buses in all) was 172,000 Dong, although it did take about nine hours whereas the direct bus apparently takes about five hours.
The #34 city-bus cost 7000 Dong and took fifteen minutes to get to Gia Lam. I arrived at 8.30am, way too early because I hadn't know how far it would be, but there was a mini-bus leaving at 9.10am so no problem. It cost 45,000 and I was told it would get to Thai Nguyen at 11.30am, which would give me a good half an hour to locate the next bus. The bus did indeed leave at 9.10, but it then spent the next 35 minutes literally crawling through the city. Well, not literally crawling, because buses don't have knees, but it did drive very slowly for no apparent reason. Even bicycles were passing us. Then at 9.45 it suddenly picked up speed and started driving normally. Ten minutes later we left the city, and dead on 11.30am arrived at the Thai Nguyen bus station. The driver said he would take me to Ba Be for 200,000 but I declined this offer. I knew the next bus would be cheaper than that, and I wasn't sure whether he was actually saying he would take me all the way to Ba Be or if he was planning on only taking me to Chon Ra.
The "white" mini-bus (actually beige) with the licence plate "TRUONG GIANG 97B-000.75" was sitting by the restaurant area of the station. The destination label said Cho Don. The driver let me know that it was 75,000 to Cho Don and then 50,000 to Ba Be. This was fine, although because he spoke no English I wasn't sure if this bus was going the whole way (as the internet said it did) or if I was transferring to another bus in Cho Don. It turned out to be the latter. We got into town just after 3pm and the driver put me onto a red mini-bus - also labelled "Thai Nguyen - Cho Don" - which was heading to Ba Be. All the buses at Cho Don seem to have this destination, no matter where they go! There were two separate locals who got on this red bus thinking it was going to Thai Nguyen and then had to jump off as the bus started leaving town in the wrong direction, so it wasn't just me having the standard tourist-confusion.
I discovered on the return trip that this red mini-bus is, in fact, the real direct bus to Ba Be. I think there's only one a day - leaving Thai Nguyen at 12.30pm and going back in the other direction from Ba Be the next morning between 5.30 and 6am. It runs a different route to Cho Don, most of the way being along a single-lane winding road through the rural villages. And it only costs 100,000 so is cheaper than the two-bus combination I took.
It is something like 40km from Cho Don to Ba Be, along a narrow and sometimes unpaved road, so I didn't get there until 5.30pm. There are a load of homestays at Bo Lu (the area by the south end of the lake, where the bus stops) - pretty much every building is a homestay. I had nowhere booked so the driver just stopped at one called Hong Gam which, super conveniently, was the guesthouse of Mr. Chat! I really liked staying here. I think it is perhaps my favourite accommodation I've had in Vietnam, and the room was only 100,000 Dong. There isn't really anywhere to eat except the homestay - there's a sort of village/market area with some shops and little restaurants, but it's about 3km back up the road - however this isn't such a problem because the food at the homestay is excellent and in great quantity.
By the time I left Ba Be I had decided that being deposited at Mr. Chat's guesthouse wasn't actually a huge coincidence after all. The driver had asked me "Ba Be Lake?" and I said "yes, Bo Lu" and showed him it written down in case he didn't understand my pronunciation. While out on the lake I saw several other boats with foreign tourists in them, and also saw a number of foreigners on motorbikes going up and down the road. This didn't make sense to me, because there were no foreigners except me staying in Bo Lu, and Ba Be is too far from Hanoi to be a day-trip. Where were they all? It wasn't until I had a wander along the road which goes up the eastern lake shore that I realised there was another village a couple of kilometres further on, in which even from a distance I could see lots of white people wandering about. So I'm guessing that village is the tourist village, probably one in Lonely Planet or something, and so when I told the bus driver I wanted Bo Lu he would have naturally thought "okay, he wants Mr. Chat's place then."
The first thing I did upon arriving was sort out an arrangement for seeing the white-eared night heron the next morning. The boat, Mr. Chat said, would be 400,000 Dong. I don't like spending money but there's no other way to see the heron than with one of the rangers. There is simply no way you would be able to find the few birds on your own. He rang the ranger (named Mr. Tu) who would be taking me out, and then told me I wouldn't need the boat because the birds weren't roosting at the lake but rather in the farmland to the south. Mr. Tu could take me there by motorbike for 200,000 the next morning.
I also wanted to try and see Francois' langur. I asked Mr. Chat if he knew these - being clear it was the black monkey with white on the face - and he said that after seeing the herons Mr. Tu could take me on the boat to the other side of the lake to look for monkeys. Excellent.
At 4.30 the next morning I was on the back of a motorbike. We went about 8km back along the road towards Cho Don, and then had to wade across a crocodile-infested river. Well, maybe "crocodile-infested" is a bit of an exaggeration, but some of the stones were quite sharp. Then we walked up a stream and turned off onto a dirt track through the rice-fields. After a few minutes we stopped, and Mr. Tu pointed to a tree-covered hill opposite, which was basically a little island of forest surrounded everywhere by fields. This was where the herons were roosting. Both of them. As far as I could make out - his English was fairly limited - there were only two herons using this area, but I may have misunderstood. There were, at any rate, only two birds calling before it got light.
Once it was light we made our way around the paddies and started climbing up the hill to the forest. I think the reason we had been standing looking at the hill in the dark was so that Mr. Tu could get a rough bearing on where the birds were calling from. There were very indistinct tracks running through the forest, perhaps partly made by birders, but also clearly by locals cutting out the trees. The undergrowth was thick and tangled, and sodden from the morning fog, so I got thoroughly soaked. Not helped by me being somewhat larger than Mr. Tu! While he could slip between vines and saplings and under spiny creepers, I had to be a bit more cassowary-like and just bludgeon my way through - while trying to also be as silent as a Mohican tracker.
At the top of the hill we came out on a clear dirt track - that would have been nice going up the hill! There was also a white-eared night heron up there. I didn't see it. Mr. Tu was a couple of feet in front of me, being all sneaky as we were, and he saw the heron flush up from the ground inside the forest and fly onto a branch. He quickly motioned for me but it was already gone. A few minutes later, I did see it. Just. It flapped through the trees to my left, landed for half a second in one of them and then kept going and disappeared. So... I saw it, but I wasn't exactly happy with how poorly. I didn't even know if I should "count" it as having been seen. We kept looking but didn't see that one again. We also tried a different spot on the hill where we found a dropping and a broken egg-shell under a tree, but there was no nest in evidence.
We returned to the homestay where I had breakfast, and then we set off on the boat ride to look for monkeys. The lake is surrounded by cliffs covered in forest, but I don't think there is much beyond that. I know at one point we got off the boat and walked up a steep track, and at the top after just a few minutes the forest was cleared for crops. I think probably all around the lake, if you could get ashore, it wouldn't be far in before you hit clearings.
We motored quite slowly along the edge of the lake checking out the forest for langurs, and soon enough Mr. Tu pointed excitedly up ahead, exclaiming "monkey!". I couldn't see them. I thought I was going to miss seeing Francois' langurs, because I couldn't imagine they would hang around once spotted. Mr. Tu was trying to point them out, high up on the cliff ahead, and then I saw them. Rhesus macaques. Not Francois' langurs. It's still good seeing rhesus macaques - in Vietnam seeing any mammal is a job well done (!) - but they weren't what I was after. I didn't want to seem ungrateful, even if I was paying 400,000 Dong to only see macaques, so we sat and watched them for a while. Then I drew a picture of a Francois' langur and a rhesus macaque for comparison, and asked if he knew the langurs. Yes, he did, but they were only found far back in the mountains - he pointed into the distance where the mountains were barely visible through the clouds. The only monkeys left around the lake were the macaques.
Back on shore I went off for a walk up the road, which is edged with forest. There were a few common birds around, including a green-billed malkoha, and also an inornate squirrel. I did the same walk the next afternoon and saw what was probably the same inornate squirrel and also a maritime squirrel.
Mr. Tu was coming back at 8pm to take me to a place where the night herons feed. I looked up the 2009 Francois' langur survey and wrote down the names of the places they had been recorded. There is even a map on the survey so I could see that one of the main sites, Pac Ngoi, was quite close to Bo Lu. When Mr. Tu arrived in the evening I asked him if the langurs were still found there. They were not. It seems that in the last eight years the family groups in those accessible areas had all been shot or trapped.
There was no joy with spotlighting for herons either, but the next morning we returned to the roost-site. It went pretty much the same as the first morning, except this time the heron we flushed had been in the open and not in the forest so I actually saw it properly. It wasn't the ideal "perched stationary on a branch so I could sit and look at it" kind of sighting, but it was good enough.
Two things surprised me about the night heron(s) we saw.The first was how flighty they were. This really shouldn't have surprised me, this being Vietnam where anything that breathes is considered food (and, apparently, unlike most herons the white-eared night heron is good to eat). The second thing was that on both mornings the bird we saw was on the ground when we disturbed it. The impression I'd had from reports and photos was that they were usually seen perched. If they habitually roost on the ground then that leaves them much more vulnerable to trapping.
So I didn't see Francois' langurs. Although it sounds counter-intuitive to say this, I think China would be the best place to see them. The ones left in Vietnam are too scattered and are disappearing fast. However I did see the white-eared night heron, so the visit to Ba Be was a success in that regard.
Almost a day's travel north of Hanoi is the Ba Be National Park, protecting a large but skinny lake surrounded by limestone mountains with remnant forests. Birders go here for just one reason, to try and see white-eared night herons. This is one of the rarest species of herons and is largely restricted to southern China. Until 2008 there were only two records from Vietnam, a specimen from 1975 and a sighting in 2001. In 2008-9 they were discovered at Ba Be - where they are breeding - and the rangers keep track of them, meaning that finding them is often straight-forward for visiting birders. All the trip reports are the same: you go to Ba Be, find Mr. Chat, and he will take you in a boat before dawn (or maybe in the late afternoon) to see the herons at their roost-site.
I also had a secondary reason for visiting. Francois' langurs, another of the "limestone langurs" like the Delacour's and Hatinh langurs, are still found here. Francois' langurs probably number a few hundred in Vietnam, but they are scattered about in isolated populations, often consisting of just a few individuals, so their future is bleak. Not surprisingly, given that they are very heavily hunted, most of the remaining groups in the country are in remote areas difficult of access. I had found a 2009 survey of the langurs at Ba Be which showed there were (then) several groups still in the park, although all of them were very small. This was my best bet for seeing them in the wild, although being almost a decade after the survey I wasn't overly optimistic they would still exist.
I had found some instructions on the internet for getting to Ba Be National Park by public transport, with the start-point being the Gia Lam bus station in Hanoi. I already knew which city-bus to catch for Gia Lam because the #34 I had caught the day before runs between the My Dinh station and the Gia Lam station, and as it turned out the latter is only fifteen minutes ride from the Old Quarter where my hotel was.
From Gia Lam there was supposed to be a red mini-bus leaving for Thai Nguyen at 9.30am, and then at that town's bus station I had to find a white mini-bus with the licence plate "TRUONG GIANG 97B-000.75" which would be leaving at midday. Apparently this bus, and only this bus, goes all the way to Ba Be. All the other buses claiming to go to Ba Be only go as far as the town of Chon Ra which is 20km short and you then need to take a motorbike-taxi the rest of the way.
I had found all that out before leaving New Zealand, but while re-checking it on the evening before I went to Ba Be I came across an additional bit of information which said that there was a direct bus to the park from the Old Quarter, leaving from Mr. Linh's tourist shop at 83 Ma May Street. This made sense because Ba Be is, it seems, a popular tourist spot and Mr. Linh runs not only this shop but also a homestay and a little information centre at Ba Be. I had also read (on Tripadvisor) that he was the manager of the national park but I don't know if that's true or not. It was too late to find out about this direct bus right away, but its departure time was 7.30am so in the morning I just walked around the corner to the spot. The shop wasn't open yet, so I ducked into the shop next door and asked them how much the bus would cost. I had a rough idea of how much the multi-bus option would cost - and it was a lot cheaper than the 660,000 Dong which was being asked for the single-bus option. In fact my total travel costs from the hotel in Hanoi to Ba Be (four buses in all) was 172,000 Dong, although it did take about nine hours whereas the direct bus apparently takes about five hours.
The #34 city-bus cost 7000 Dong and took fifteen minutes to get to Gia Lam. I arrived at 8.30am, way too early because I hadn't know how far it would be, but there was a mini-bus leaving at 9.10am so no problem. It cost 45,000 and I was told it would get to Thai Nguyen at 11.30am, which would give me a good half an hour to locate the next bus. The bus did indeed leave at 9.10, but it then spent the next 35 minutes literally crawling through the city. Well, not literally crawling, because buses don't have knees, but it did drive very slowly for no apparent reason. Even bicycles were passing us. Then at 9.45 it suddenly picked up speed and started driving normally. Ten minutes later we left the city, and dead on 11.30am arrived at the Thai Nguyen bus station. The driver said he would take me to Ba Be for 200,000 but I declined this offer. I knew the next bus would be cheaper than that, and I wasn't sure whether he was actually saying he would take me all the way to Ba Be or if he was planning on only taking me to Chon Ra.
The "white" mini-bus (actually beige) with the licence plate "TRUONG GIANG 97B-000.75" was sitting by the restaurant area of the station. The destination label said Cho Don. The driver let me know that it was 75,000 to Cho Don and then 50,000 to Ba Be. This was fine, although because he spoke no English I wasn't sure if this bus was going the whole way (as the internet said it did) or if I was transferring to another bus in Cho Don. It turned out to be the latter. We got into town just after 3pm and the driver put me onto a red mini-bus - also labelled "Thai Nguyen - Cho Don" - which was heading to Ba Be. All the buses at Cho Don seem to have this destination, no matter where they go! There were two separate locals who got on this red bus thinking it was going to Thai Nguyen and then had to jump off as the bus started leaving town in the wrong direction, so it wasn't just me having the standard tourist-confusion.
I discovered on the return trip that this red mini-bus is, in fact, the real direct bus to Ba Be. I think there's only one a day - leaving Thai Nguyen at 12.30pm and going back in the other direction from Ba Be the next morning between 5.30 and 6am. It runs a different route to Cho Don, most of the way being along a single-lane winding road through the rural villages. And it only costs 100,000 so is cheaper than the two-bus combination I took.
It is something like 40km from Cho Don to Ba Be, along a narrow and sometimes unpaved road, so I didn't get there until 5.30pm. There are a load of homestays at Bo Lu (the area by the south end of the lake, where the bus stops) - pretty much every building is a homestay. I had nowhere booked so the driver just stopped at one called Hong Gam which, super conveniently, was the guesthouse of Mr. Chat! I really liked staying here. I think it is perhaps my favourite accommodation I've had in Vietnam, and the room was only 100,000 Dong. There isn't really anywhere to eat except the homestay - there's a sort of village/market area with some shops and little restaurants, but it's about 3km back up the road - however this isn't such a problem because the food at the homestay is excellent and in great quantity.
By the time I left Ba Be I had decided that being deposited at Mr. Chat's guesthouse wasn't actually a huge coincidence after all. The driver had asked me "Ba Be Lake?" and I said "yes, Bo Lu" and showed him it written down in case he didn't understand my pronunciation. While out on the lake I saw several other boats with foreign tourists in them, and also saw a number of foreigners on motorbikes going up and down the road. This didn't make sense to me, because there were no foreigners except me staying in Bo Lu, and Ba Be is too far from Hanoi to be a day-trip. Where were they all? It wasn't until I had a wander along the road which goes up the eastern lake shore that I realised there was another village a couple of kilometres further on, in which even from a distance I could see lots of white people wandering about. So I'm guessing that village is the tourist village, probably one in Lonely Planet or something, and so when I told the bus driver I wanted Bo Lu he would have naturally thought "okay, he wants Mr. Chat's place then."
The first thing I did upon arriving was sort out an arrangement for seeing the white-eared night heron the next morning. The boat, Mr. Chat said, would be 400,000 Dong. I don't like spending money but there's no other way to see the heron than with one of the rangers. There is simply no way you would be able to find the few birds on your own. He rang the ranger (named Mr. Tu) who would be taking me out, and then told me I wouldn't need the boat because the birds weren't roosting at the lake but rather in the farmland to the south. Mr. Tu could take me there by motorbike for 200,000 the next morning.
I also wanted to try and see Francois' langur. I asked Mr. Chat if he knew these - being clear it was the black monkey with white on the face - and he said that after seeing the herons Mr. Tu could take me on the boat to the other side of the lake to look for monkeys. Excellent.
At 4.30 the next morning I was on the back of a motorbike. We went about 8km back along the road towards Cho Don, and then had to wade across a crocodile-infested river. Well, maybe "crocodile-infested" is a bit of an exaggeration, but some of the stones were quite sharp. Then we walked up a stream and turned off onto a dirt track through the rice-fields. After a few minutes we stopped, and Mr. Tu pointed to a tree-covered hill opposite, which was basically a little island of forest surrounded everywhere by fields. This was where the herons were roosting. Both of them. As far as I could make out - his English was fairly limited - there were only two herons using this area, but I may have misunderstood. There were, at any rate, only two birds calling before it got light.
Once it was light we made our way around the paddies and started climbing up the hill to the forest. I think the reason we had been standing looking at the hill in the dark was so that Mr. Tu could get a rough bearing on where the birds were calling from. There were very indistinct tracks running through the forest, perhaps partly made by birders, but also clearly by locals cutting out the trees. The undergrowth was thick and tangled, and sodden from the morning fog, so I got thoroughly soaked. Not helped by me being somewhat larger than Mr. Tu! While he could slip between vines and saplings and under spiny creepers, I had to be a bit more cassowary-like and just bludgeon my way through - while trying to also be as silent as a Mohican tracker.
At the top of the hill we came out on a clear dirt track - that would have been nice going up the hill! There was also a white-eared night heron up there. I didn't see it. Mr. Tu was a couple of feet in front of me, being all sneaky as we were, and he saw the heron flush up from the ground inside the forest and fly onto a branch. He quickly motioned for me but it was already gone. A few minutes later, I did see it. Just. It flapped through the trees to my left, landed for half a second in one of them and then kept going and disappeared. So... I saw it, but I wasn't exactly happy with how poorly. I didn't even know if I should "count" it as having been seen. We kept looking but didn't see that one again. We also tried a different spot on the hill where we found a dropping and a broken egg-shell under a tree, but there was no nest in evidence.
We returned to the homestay where I had breakfast, and then we set off on the boat ride to look for monkeys. The lake is surrounded by cliffs covered in forest, but I don't think there is much beyond that. I know at one point we got off the boat and walked up a steep track, and at the top after just a few minutes the forest was cleared for crops. I think probably all around the lake, if you could get ashore, it wouldn't be far in before you hit clearings.
We motored quite slowly along the edge of the lake checking out the forest for langurs, and soon enough Mr. Tu pointed excitedly up ahead, exclaiming "monkey!". I couldn't see them. I thought I was going to miss seeing Francois' langurs, because I couldn't imagine they would hang around once spotted. Mr. Tu was trying to point them out, high up on the cliff ahead, and then I saw them. Rhesus macaques. Not Francois' langurs. It's still good seeing rhesus macaques - in Vietnam seeing any mammal is a job well done (!) - but they weren't what I was after. I didn't want to seem ungrateful, even if I was paying 400,000 Dong to only see macaques, so we sat and watched them for a while. Then I drew a picture of a Francois' langur and a rhesus macaque for comparison, and asked if he knew the langurs. Yes, he did, but they were only found far back in the mountains - he pointed into the distance where the mountains were barely visible through the clouds. The only monkeys left around the lake were the macaques.
Back on shore I went off for a walk up the road, which is edged with forest. There were a few common birds around, including a green-billed malkoha, and also an inornate squirrel. I did the same walk the next afternoon and saw what was probably the same inornate squirrel and also a maritime squirrel.
Mr. Tu was coming back at 8pm to take me to a place where the night herons feed. I looked up the 2009 Francois' langur survey and wrote down the names of the places they had been recorded. There is even a map on the survey so I could see that one of the main sites, Pac Ngoi, was quite close to Bo Lu. When Mr. Tu arrived in the evening I asked him if the langurs were still found there. They were not. It seems that in the last eight years the family groups in those accessible areas had all been shot or trapped.
There was no joy with spotlighting for herons either, but the next morning we returned to the roost-site. It went pretty much the same as the first morning, except this time the heron we flushed had been in the open and not in the forest so I actually saw it properly. It wasn't the ideal "perched stationary on a branch so I could sit and look at it" kind of sighting, but it was good enough.
Two things surprised me about the night heron(s) we saw.The first was how flighty they were. This really shouldn't have surprised me, this being Vietnam where anything that breathes is considered food (and, apparently, unlike most herons the white-eared night heron is good to eat). The second thing was that on both mornings the bird we saw was on the ground when we disturbed it. The impression I'd had from reports and photos was that they were usually seen perched. If they habitually roost on the ground then that leaves them much more vulnerable to trapping.
So I didn't see Francois' langurs. Although it sounds counter-intuitive to say this, I think China would be the best place to see them. The ones left in Vietnam are too scattered and are disappearing fast. However I did see the white-eared night heron, so the visit to Ba Be was a success in that regard.
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FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
Here's a question: out of all the countrie you've visited, which cuisine do you like the most?
hmm, I really don't know.
On my first trip to Asia, many years ago now, I started in Singapore and thought "wow the food here is amazing!". Then I moved up to Malaysia and thought "wow the food here is much more amazing than Singapore!". Then I moved up into Thailand and thought "wow Malaysian food sucks - Thai food is the best ever!"
I still think Malaysian food is really ordinary. Compared to other countries in Asia it is just boring. And Thai food would still rank high.
I did not like Chinese food at all. Well, not "at all" - there were some things I liked - but generally it was horrible. Grease and oil and fat and things that didn't taste or feel or look like anything edible. I think to a large degree that was simply due to me not being able to communicate effectively. If I'd been an a tour or something like that, then the food probably would have been fantastic.
Sri Lankan food was good. Indian food was okay - some was great and some was not; and it was often difficult finding anything to eat early in the morning which was a surprise.
I don't really recall Cambodian or Burmese food. They would be much like Thai I guess.
I guess I would probably say Thailand and Vietnam as being my favourites. But on long trips I do start to miss basic Western things like potatoes and sandwiches.
I have a cousin who moved to Cambodia and ended up opening a Mexican restaurant there. Maybe that is a business model you could follow. How many cafes are there in Southeast Asia serving New Zealand cuisine?
What country did you have visit?And what countries do you plan to go?
on this trip I have been to Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah), India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
In general: New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Samoa, New Caledonia, Indonesia, Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak), Brunei, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, India, Sri Lanka, China, Mongolia, Russia, South Korea, Germany, and the UK. Also the Zurich and Hong Kong airports. I think that's all of them.
I did see a New Zealand cafe on Phu Quoc Island (Vietnam) actually. I didn't eat there because it was too expensive.
SAPA
I am now in Sapa. In a hotel room. Doing nothing.
I caught the red mini-bus from Ba Be back to Thai Nguyen - this turns out to be the direct bus, contrary to what is said on the internet. It goes a different route to the beige mini-bus, most of the way from Cho Don to Thai Nguyen being along a winding one-bus-wide road through the rural villages. It only costs 100,000 as well, so is slightly cheaper than the two-bus method I used coming the other way. It leaves Ba Be between 5.30 and 6am, and I got to the Thai Nguyen bus station at 10.40am.
I was intending to go to Sapa in the far north of West Tonkin because this is renowned for excellent montane birding, but it is quite a long way to get up there. I knew there was an "express" bus from Hanoi to Sapa at 7am, and also an "express" train for several times the price. I figured I'd get to Thai Nguyen and see if there was a Sapa bus there, otherwise I'd return to Hanoi for the night.
The bus people are excellent up here. If they know where you want to go (say, Sapa), when you arrive at the bus station they will drop you at exactly the right bus rather than leave you to wander round getting lost and confused.
So there was a bus leaving at 12.10 for Lao Cai which is the main town nearest Sapa. It was one of the sleeper buses which I dislike - they aren't great for Westerners over a certain height. In 2015 when I was going from Saigon to Mang Den I caught my first Vietnamese sleeper bus. That was an overnight one, and I ended up in a bed directly under one of the air-con vents. The next day my face was rashed up like I'd been attacked by millions of blackflies. That happened again on this bus. It's not pleasant.
It cost 200,000 from Thai Nguyen to Lao Cai (cheaper than the Hanoi express bus), and on arrival at 5.20pm there was a local bus waiting to take people to Sapa. This cost 30,000 and took an hour and a half, arriving at 6.50pm. The first third of the route is through the city which seems like a nice sort of place, and then the rest is up a winding road into the mountains.
I went to a couple of guesthouses where the bus stopped, which were a bit too expensive, and then a lady on a motorbike said she had a room for 160,000 so I went with her to the Honeymoon Hotel. It was a Wednesday night when I arrived. I can stay here for three nights but the weekend is booked.
I knew Sapa is a popular weekend destination for Vietnamese, but I didn't realise how much the weekend prices differ from the weekday prices. My room is 160,000 - but on the weekend it will be one million Dong! Also it turns out that this weekend is a public holiday, so pretty much the entire town is booked up until Monday, and anywhere that isn't booked yet is ridiculously expensive. I'm not sure yet how I'll work around this!
Today is Thursday morning. I slept a bit later than normal because I was tired after several days of little sleep (getting up so early to look for night herons). My plans for Sapa are to visit the Ham Rong Gardens in town which are a particularly good bird spot; to visit the Tram Ton Pass area for more birds; and to go to the summit of Mt. Fansipan for even more birds. These are all basic sites to get to - walk to the first one, motorbike to the second one, and cable-car to the third one - but Sapa has some unreasonable weather patterns.
This morning after breakfast I went outside to go to the Ham Rong Gardens. It was so foggy that from across the street I could no longer see the hotel. I walked to the gardens anyway, just to see where they were and in case the fog was clearer there. It wasn't and I didn't want to pay the entry fee when I wouldn't be able to see anything, so I returned to the hotel. I checked all the other hotels along the way for weekend rooms, to no avail.
So with nothing to do while sitting inside a fog bank, I'm writing this.
I am now in Sapa. In a hotel room. Doing nothing.
I caught the red mini-bus from Ba Be back to Thai Nguyen - this turns out to be the direct bus, contrary to what is said on the internet. It goes a different route to the beige mini-bus, most of the way from Cho Don to Thai Nguyen being along a winding one-bus-wide road through the rural villages. It only costs 100,000 as well, so is slightly cheaper than the two-bus method I used coming the other way. It leaves Ba Be between 5.30 and 6am, and I got to the Thai Nguyen bus station at 10.40am.
I was intending to go to Sapa in the far north of West Tonkin because this is renowned for excellent montane birding, but it is quite a long way to get up there. I knew there was an "express" bus from Hanoi to Sapa at 7am, and also an "express" train for several times the price. I figured I'd get to Thai Nguyen and see if there was a Sapa bus there, otherwise I'd return to Hanoi for the night.
The bus people are excellent up here. If they know where you want to go (say, Sapa), when you arrive at the bus station they will drop you at exactly the right bus rather than leave you to wander round getting lost and confused.
So there was a bus leaving at 12.10 for Lao Cai which is the main town nearest Sapa. It was one of the sleeper buses which I dislike - they aren't great for Westerners over a certain height. In 2015 when I was going from Saigon to Mang Den I caught my first Vietnamese sleeper bus. That was an overnight one, and I ended up in a bed directly under one of the air-con vents. The next day my face was rashed up like I'd been attacked by millions of blackflies. That happened again on this bus. It's not pleasant.
It cost 200,000 from Thai Nguyen to Lao Cai (cheaper than the Hanoi express bus), and on arrival at 5.20pm there was a local bus waiting to take people to Sapa. This cost 30,000 and took an hour and a half, arriving at 6.50pm. The first third of the route is through the city which seems like a nice sort of place, and then the rest is up a winding road into the mountains.
I went to a couple of guesthouses where the bus stopped, which were a bit too expensive, and then a lady on a motorbike said she had a room for 160,000 so I went with her to the Honeymoon Hotel. It was a Wednesday night when I arrived. I can stay here for three nights but the weekend is booked.
I knew Sapa is a popular weekend destination for Vietnamese, but I didn't realise how much the weekend prices differ from the weekday prices. My room is 160,000 - but on the weekend it will be one million Dong! Also it turns out that this weekend is a public holiday, so pretty much the entire town is booked up until Monday, and anywhere that isn't booked yet is ridiculously expensive. I'm not sure yet how I'll work around this!
Today is Thursday morning. I slept a bit later than normal because I was tired after several days of little sleep (getting up so early to look for night herons). My plans for Sapa are to visit the Ham Rong Gardens in town which are a particularly good bird spot; to visit the Tram Ton Pass area for more birds; and to go to the summit of Mt. Fansipan for even more birds. These are all basic sites to get to - walk to the first one, motorbike to the second one, and cable-car to the third one - but Sapa has some unreasonable weather patterns.
This morning after breakfast I went outside to go to the Ham Rong Gardens. It was so foggy that from across the street I could no longer see the hotel. I walked to the gardens anyway, just to see where they were and in case the fog was clearer there. It wasn't and I didn't want to pay the entry fee when I wouldn't be able to see anything, so I returned to the hotel. I checked all the other hotels along the way for weekend rooms, to no avail.
So with nothing to do while sitting inside a fog bank, I'm writing this.
FunkyGibbon
Well-Known Member
Chinese food is so varied that it doesn't make sense to talk of it as one cuisine, so I couldn't call it my favourite. However, if I was to limit myself to eating in one Asian country it would be China. You can get really decent cheap food, but usually the menu has no pictures and the staff speak no English, so it's pretty difficult. If you spend a bit more then the food gets crazy good. China has a much larger eating out culture than the UK, and the living density means that there are literally restaurants everywhere.
Malaysian and Indonesian food both struck me the same way, mostly unremarkable. The upmarket traditional food I've eaten there has basically confirmed this impression for me. It's just not delicious. The best meals in Malaysia are the really cheap curry buffet houses; I love those.
In Singapore I just want to eat curry from the Indian diaspora. Supposedly it's one of the three best countries in the world for curry, along with India and the UK.
However, my top Asian cuisine is Vietnamese. The noodle soups are out of this world and the flavours are so fresh and distinctive. Plus the banh mi (sandwiches) are wonderful and a great way to hit that Western food craving spot.
Indian food is probably the best thing about Singapore cuisine. They closed down most of the street stall areas years ago on health reasons and started up food-courts instead which simply doesn't cut it.
Banh mi is an odd one really. Asia doesn't do sandwiches as such - if you get bread anywhere it is in terms of sweet buns with chocolate inside or something like that. But Vietnam does actual sandwiches. They are really convenient for eating on the run.
Another item worth mentioning, in both Vietnam and China, are the steamed buns with meat and eggs inside. I love those.
SAPA CONTINUED
Continuing on from the last post, on Friday morning the fog wasn't as bad as on Thursday. It was more drizzle than fog really, so I went to the Ham Rong Gardens. From my hotel I just walk the wrong way up the one-way street outside and after about five minutes or so I arrive at a church and turn left. The entrance to the gardens are just up there. They cost 70,000 Dong for entry. While there I discovered a homestay, actually inside the gardens, which has (very basic) rooms for 100,000 Dong. I guess nobody knows it's there because they were empty. So that's me sorted for the weekend. I had been going to catch the bus back to Lao Cai and find somewhere there until Monday, but this is much more convenient.
Not so convenient was the fog which re-appeared soon after I arrived. I could hear birds but almost all of those I could see were little more than shadowy outlines. The first birds I could identify were right after I entered, a small flock of puff-throated bulbuls which are common all over Vietnam. The next identifiable ones weren't for about two hours more, and they were hair-crested drongos which are also very common. It's very frustrating being able to see that there are birds in trees no more than ten metres away, and not be able to tell at all what they are! I did see a few others over the day which were close enough to be seen, although the warblers had to remain as unknowns because I just don't do warblers. Otherwise there were some black-headed greenfinches calling from the tops of pine trees, a white-tailed robin, and best of all a noisy little flock of vinous-throated parrotbills. I've seen these before, in China, but all the parrotbills are great and these one appeared right when there was a break in the fog so I even got to see them properly.
There was also a mole cricket crossing the path which was exciting. I think that's the first one I've ever seen. I wasn't so excited about the leeches though. I haven't encountered many leeches in Vietnam and I hadn't expected any here, so I got leeched of blood a little.
The gardens are quite large and being on a hill there are lots of steps. It's more of a wild garden than an ornamental garden, although there are cartoonish statues scattered around, some ornamental flower beds, and such like. However most of the area is just forest and scrub. Most visitors are there just to visit the pagoda and to go up to the look-out on the summit. I went up to the pagoda but couldn't see it in the fog. There's no point continuing on past there because all the forest has been cleared and turned into bare crop-fields, although that is where I saw the white-tailed robin. The route to the look-out is really interesting, winding through huge limestone outcrops covered in moss and ferns. Actual rock gardens.
The following morning I left the Honeymoon Hotel and moved to the homestay at the Ham Rong Gardens. I left most of my stuff at the hotel because I didn't want to carry it all round there and then back again a couple of days later. The streets were packed with people and buses and cars and policemen. Sapa really is a weekend town. The lady I had talked to at Ham Rong the previous day wasn't there, so I went from person to person asking which room to take, but getting only a shake of the head in reply because none of them spoke English. After a few tries I found a lady who expressly said "no, no homestay!" - while we were literally standing under the big sign saying "Homestay". I assumed she meant they were full, and protested that I had booked the room yesterday. She kept saying there was no homestay, but luckily the original woman turned up just then, and there was what sounded like an argument. I thought I might be going to Lao Cai for the weekend after all! But it got sorted and I was allowed to stay. I'm not sure what the problem was. They certainly weren't full. Almost every other room was empty. It was like they just didn't want anybody staying there.
The homestay isn't really a homestay at all, just a building with about twenty rooms, each bare except for a mattress. There's nothing else provided, not food, not even a towel. I had forgotten to bring a towel round, because everywhere in Vietnam provides towels. I asked the man who was showing me to the room if he had one, which I thought was a reasonable enough request. He sort of laughed and said "no, it's not a hotel". If you were wanting to be in the gardens for a couple of days (and the only reason you'd want to be doing that is if you were a birder) then this is a good enough place to stay, but otherwise it isn't very convenient and you can't go out of the gardens to do anything else without paying the entry fee every time to come back in again.
The corridor leading out to the toilets was lower than necessary. The ceiling beams were just around my head height. I was following the man along here, walking fast with my head bowed to avoid them, and hence didn't notice the last beam across the corridor was much lower, right on my face-height. Seriously, who puts a ceiling beam down at face-height?! I hit it so hard I just about knocked myself out. I'm not exaggerating either; I ended up on the floor wondering what the heck just happened. I think I got a concussion.
The morning was foggy as with the previous days, but at 11am the fog just vanished, like a snap of the fingers and it was suddenly gone. I had a splitting headache, not surprisingly, and my vison had started to blur which wasn't good. This is apparently also the part of the trip where I get sick. I've had a sore throat for a few days and the achy joints have just appeared, so that combined with the head-banging meant I wasn't in the best of shape. I didn't want to waste the first clear day here, but at 2pm I had to give up and go lie down for the rest of the day. I didn't see much before that. Japanese white-eyes, black-throated tits and a hill prinia were new for the trip, but most birds were the same as I'd seen yesterday. I did find these very cool little centipedes congregating on some of the rock-faces, brightly-coloured in purple and blue, and with long pairs of spines on each body segment.
On Sunday I only made it to 9.30am before having to go back to my room and lie down in the dark for the rest of the day. Brown-breasted bulbul was new.
Monday morning was again clear. I think the Sapa tourism department has made a deal with the weather, because all three days of the long weekend were clear and sunny. I actually felt much better, having sweated all the bad sickness out during the night. I decided to see what walking felt like. There were lots of brown-breasted bulbuls about, and some hill prinias and drongos. Nothing I hadn't already seen. I quickly realised that although I felt fine otherwise, I still had a bad headache. So I decided to be sensible and stop for the day before it got worse. Sapa hasn't been going great so far, with the fog to start with, then the unexpected holiday weekend, and then the sickness. Grand total for three days at the gardens was just fifteen species of birds!
The Honeymoon Hotel had a room for me again, so I went back round there. Its a simple walk, all downhill too, but it left me with a swimming head. Another rest day really seemed like the best choice, although the feeling of just wasting time is gnawing away at me. Hopefully the good weather will hold until I can actually get out and do something.
I'm having some connectivity issues with the hotel's WIFI as well, so I might be in and out.
Random observation time:
*I don't think I have ever seen so many sturgeons as I have in Vietnam. They are in tanks outside restaurants everywhere. I'm assuming they are pool-bred somewhere.
*When movies and programmes are dubbed into Vietnamese for tv, they just lower the sound and talk over the top of the original dialogue, so you can hear both at once which is distracting in so many ways. And they generally just have one person doing all the dialogue which must surely make it difficult to follow the story? Imagine, say, Captain America: Civil War or Batman vs Superman with every line read by one Vietnamese woman.
Continuing on from the last post, on Friday morning the fog wasn't as bad as on Thursday. It was more drizzle than fog really, so I went to the Ham Rong Gardens. From my hotel I just walk the wrong way up the one-way street outside and after about five minutes or so I arrive at a church and turn left. The entrance to the gardens are just up there. They cost 70,000 Dong for entry. While there I discovered a homestay, actually inside the gardens, which has (very basic) rooms for 100,000 Dong. I guess nobody knows it's there because they were empty. So that's me sorted for the weekend. I had been going to catch the bus back to Lao Cai and find somewhere there until Monday, but this is much more convenient.
Not so convenient was the fog which re-appeared soon after I arrived. I could hear birds but almost all of those I could see were little more than shadowy outlines. The first birds I could identify were right after I entered, a small flock of puff-throated bulbuls which are common all over Vietnam. The next identifiable ones weren't for about two hours more, and they were hair-crested drongos which are also very common. It's very frustrating being able to see that there are birds in trees no more than ten metres away, and not be able to tell at all what they are! I did see a few others over the day which were close enough to be seen, although the warblers had to remain as unknowns because I just don't do warblers. Otherwise there were some black-headed greenfinches calling from the tops of pine trees, a white-tailed robin, and best of all a noisy little flock of vinous-throated parrotbills. I've seen these before, in China, but all the parrotbills are great and these one appeared right when there was a break in the fog so I even got to see them properly.
There was also a mole cricket crossing the path which was exciting. I think that's the first one I've ever seen. I wasn't so excited about the leeches though. I haven't encountered many leeches in Vietnam and I hadn't expected any here, so I got leeched of blood a little.
The gardens are quite large and being on a hill there are lots of steps. It's more of a wild garden than an ornamental garden, although there are cartoonish statues scattered around, some ornamental flower beds, and such like. However most of the area is just forest and scrub. Most visitors are there just to visit the pagoda and to go up to the look-out on the summit. I went up to the pagoda but couldn't see it in the fog. There's no point continuing on past there because all the forest has been cleared and turned into bare crop-fields, although that is where I saw the white-tailed robin. The route to the look-out is really interesting, winding through huge limestone outcrops covered in moss and ferns. Actual rock gardens.
The following morning I left the Honeymoon Hotel and moved to the homestay at the Ham Rong Gardens. I left most of my stuff at the hotel because I didn't want to carry it all round there and then back again a couple of days later. The streets were packed with people and buses and cars and policemen. Sapa really is a weekend town. The lady I had talked to at Ham Rong the previous day wasn't there, so I went from person to person asking which room to take, but getting only a shake of the head in reply because none of them spoke English. After a few tries I found a lady who expressly said "no, no homestay!" - while we were literally standing under the big sign saying "Homestay". I assumed she meant they were full, and protested that I had booked the room yesterday. She kept saying there was no homestay, but luckily the original woman turned up just then, and there was what sounded like an argument. I thought I might be going to Lao Cai for the weekend after all! But it got sorted and I was allowed to stay. I'm not sure what the problem was. They certainly weren't full. Almost every other room was empty. It was like they just didn't want anybody staying there.
The homestay isn't really a homestay at all, just a building with about twenty rooms, each bare except for a mattress. There's nothing else provided, not food, not even a towel. I had forgotten to bring a towel round, because everywhere in Vietnam provides towels. I asked the man who was showing me to the room if he had one, which I thought was a reasonable enough request. He sort of laughed and said "no, it's not a hotel". If you were wanting to be in the gardens for a couple of days (and the only reason you'd want to be doing that is if you were a birder) then this is a good enough place to stay, but otherwise it isn't very convenient and you can't go out of the gardens to do anything else without paying the entry fee every time to come back in again.
The corridor leading out to the toilets was lower than necessary. The ceiling beams were just around my head height. I was following the man along here, walking fast with my head bowed to avoid them, and hence didn't notice the last beam across the corridor was much lower, right on my face-height. Seriously, who puts a ceiling beam down at face-height?! I hit it so hard I just about knocked myself out. I'm not exaggerating either; I ended up on the floor wondering what the heck just happened. I think I got a concussion.
The morning was foggy as with the previous days, but at 11am the fog just vanished, like a snap of the fingers and it was suddenly gone. I had a splitting headache, not surprisingly, and my vison had started to blur which wasn't good. This is apparently also the part of the trip where I get sick. I've had a sore throat for a few days and the achy joints have just appeared, so that combined with the head-banging meant I wasn't in the best of shape. I didn't want to waste the first clear day here, but at 2pm I had to give up and go lie down for the rest of the day. I didn't see much before that. Japanese white-eyes, black-throated tits and a hill prinia were new for the trip, but most birds were the same as I'd seen yesterday. I did find these very cool little centipedes congregating on some of the rock-faces, brightly-coloured in purple and blue, and with long pairs of spines on each body segment.
On Sunday I only made it to 9.30am before having to go back to my room and lie down in the dark for the rest of the day. Brown-breasted bulbul was new.
Monday morning was again clear. I think the Sapa tourism department has made a deal with the weather, because all three days of the long weekend were clear and sunny. I actually felt much better, having sweated all the bad sickness out during the night. I decided to see what walking felt like. There were lots of brown-breasted bulbuls about, and some hill prinias and drongos. Nothing I hadn't already seen. I quickly realised that although I felt fine otherwise, I still had a bad headache. So I decided to be sensible and stop for the day before it got worse. Sapa hasn't been going great so far, with the fog to start with, then the unexpected holiday weekend, and then the sickness. Grand total for three days at the gardens was just fifteen species of birds!
The Honeymoon Hotel had a room for me again, so I went back round there. Its a simple walk, all downhill too, but it left me with a swimming head. Another rest day really seemed like the best choice, although the feeling of just wasting time is gnawing away at me. Hopefully the good weather will hold until I can actually get out and do something.
I'm having some connectivity issues with the hotel's WIFI as well, so I might be in and out.
Random observation time:
*I don't think I have ever seen so many sturgeons as I have in Vietnam. They are in tanks outside restaurants everywhere. I'm assuming they are pool-bred somewhere.
*When movies and programmes are dubbed into Vietnamese for tv, they just lower the sound and talk over the top of the original dialogue, so you can hear both at once which is distracting in so many ways. And they generally just have one person doing all the dialogue which must surely make it difficult to follow the story? Imagine, say, Captain America: Civil War or Batman vs Superman with every line read by one Vietnamese woman.