Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part three: 2013-2014
- Thread starter Chlidonias
- Start date
a last few photos have now been added to the Chinese Wildlife gallery.
sigh. One of the signs is Nicolas Cage advertising a watch. That is all.
The first sign means "exit this way".
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
But Nicholas Cage advertising a watch for Mont Blanc is like Leonardo DiCaprio advertising for Tag Heur - totally normal. I still don't get it.
Ok, 'exit this way' makes sense. I thought it meant 'gift shop this way' (exports = souvenirs).
interesting article here on why the giant panda reserves were/are closed to foreigners: Why No More Panda Viewing | Mammalwatching.Com Weblog
It is from the Mammalwatching blog so baboon won't be able to read it (China blocks most blogs), but everyone else should be able to.
It is from the Mammalwatching blog so baboon won't be able to read it (China blocks most blogs), but everyone else should be able to.
Thank you! I don't know all of those! Some Chinese can't accept the idea of ecotourism, they believe all the protected area should be closed to all the outsiders.
I imagine the exact same thing is the situation behind the habituated golden monkey groups being forbidden for foreigners now.
The stupid thing about it is that most Chinese love that foreigners are in their part of the world, even if they can't understand what I'm doing there!
The stupid thing about it is that most Chinese love that foreigners are in their part of the world, even if they can't understand what I'm doing there!
oh and you're usually so good at guessing things out of the blue!! No, the mystery country is in fact Burma! I was just waiting till the visa was done before saying so because I didn't want to jinx it. I was always planning on (probably) going to Burma on this trip but it was going to be later. But after I got to Kuala Lumpur, thinking about how I was going up to Thailand, I suddenly decided it made most sense (to me at least!) to go via Burma: i.e. fly KL to Yangon (= Rangoon) and then Yangon to Bangkok. I went to the Myanmar Embassy to see what I needed for the visa and discovered they had outsourced their visa service to a company called Ever Fine Tours. So I went there and found that it is a same day service (!!!) and literally all you need is your passport, two passport photos, a photocopy of your ID page in the passport, your flights in and out of the country, and to fill out a very simple one-page form (eye colour, hair colour, that sort of thing). It costs 140 Ringgit. Simple as anything! I had a look on Air Asia and found a flight from Yangon to Bangkok for 4.64 Ringgit. In case you think that is a typo, it cost NZ$1.70, AU$1.60, US$1.40, 1 Euro or 0.87 UK Pounds (all conversions courtesy of XE). But get this: after the addition of airport tax, fuel surcharge, baggage allowance, and a ridiculous 19 Ringgit credit card fee the cost of the flight ended up being 155 Ringgit!! It is still pretty cheap in real terms, but what an outrageous increase! Then I got an inbound Air Asia flight from KL to Yangon which was 80 Ringgit before tax, and 199 Ringgit after the taxes (and the credit card fee was only 8 Ringgit). So there wasn't much of a difference between the two flights in cost in the end. How bizarre. I think it must be something to do with it being an outbound flight from Burma. By the time I'd sorted flights and booked the accommodation in Yangon it had suddenly become the weekend so I needed to wait till Monday to finalise everything.
So I fly to Burma on the 26 December, and out to Bangkok on 16 January, which makes about three weeks in the country. I have a plan for the route – Yangon (including the zoo), up to Bagan (by the Irrawaddy River), east to Lake Inle, then to Kalaw (forest birds) and up to Mandalay after that (solely for the zoo), then down to Bago for Lake Moeyungyi, and finally back to Yangon. I may find time to make a special trip to Naypyidaw (the current capital of the country) for the zoo there as well, not sure. Mostly I will be trying to find birds; I'm not sure what I will find in terms of mammals, I sort of think maybe just a few species of squirrels. I really have no idea what to expect in Burma. It will be interesting, that's for sure. I know there's internet in Burma but how widespread it is and whether I can get onto the forums will be a mystery until I get there and find out. It's possible I may be MIA for a few weeks....
Odds are not high, but among the nice wildticks you could get in Burma are both species of linsang, marbled cat, Tibetan golden cat and banded civet.
going into most of the country outside the "tourist triangle" is fraught with difficuty because you basically need to organise an expensive government tour. I definitely would like to go after the new snub-nosed monkey one day, but not this trip! Apparently all the endemic birds can be got within the free-access areas which is good (whether I'll get all six, or any at all, will be the question).
by "not high" do you perchance mean "practically non-existent"?
I'm not sure if anywhere I go will even be suitable for spotlighting. I should get Irrawaddy squirrel at Bagan hopefully because I've seen photos from there....I'm not sure if Irrawaddy dolphin is in that part of the river or not (I'll find out when I get there). Rhesus macaques are at Hlawga Park outside of Yangon. It's quite hard to find proper information beyond what birders see, so it will all be playing-it-by-ear!
by "not high" do you perchance mean "practically non-existent"?
Indeed
But then, you never know
I got a leatherback turtle lifetick completely by accident when on a ferry from the Scottish mainland to one of the Inner Hebrides some years ago.
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Post from July.
I'm not bad with my guessing after all.Don't forget to visit the crazy Zoochatter's zoo.