Vision Visits Vietnam

[Vision]

Prologue
​

As some of you will have noticed in the Big Year 2019 topic, I spent the first two weeks of April birding in Vietnam. There’s already some fantastic trip reports of the country around on the site, which helped me a lot in planning out my own trip, but I figured why not share my experiences as well to offer more information in case anyone is interested in visiting the country!

This wasn’t my first time in Vietnam. I had already visited the country once in 2007 on a family holiday, when we visited Hanoi, Hoi An, and Ho Chi Minh and did a lot of the touristy things. However, this (and the many other Asian countries we visited around that period) was well before I knew anything about birds, so since I got more and more into birding I’ve always wanted to go back to properly visit and get an idea of what wildlife watching in Asia is actually like.

A good friend of mine, also a birder, spent the first 5 months of this year travelling through multiple countries in Asia, with his ‘halfway point’ of the adventure being a 6-week volunteering period at the EPRC (Endangered Primate Rescue Centre) at Cuc Phuong National Park, in Northern Vietnam. After those 6 weeks he would have just over 2 weeks to get to Ho Chi Minh and then Cambodia, where he was going on a birding tour to see the specialties there.

Coincidentally, we found out that those two weeks were at the exact time of my Easter Holiday. I toyed around with the idea of joining him for those two weeks, and when I found out that flights would be quite affordable I had booked flights shortly after: I’d land in Hanoi on the 7th of April and fly out of Ho Chi Minh on the 21st. Not a lot of time for such a large and diverse country, but 2 weeks was all I had so it would have to be enough! I can’t thank @Chlidonias enough for helping us puzzle together a way to visit a large variety of different national parks in such a short period of time.

The very basic itinerary we planned ahead was this, and this also ended up being the itinerary we followed:

07/04 - Arrive in Hanoi and make my way to Cuc Phuong/EPRC
08/04 - Cuc Phuong NP
09/04 - Cuc Phuong NP
10/04 - Van Long and take the night train to Hue/Bach Ma
11/04 - Bach Ma NP
12/04 - Bach Ma NP and take the bus to Da Nang
13/04 - Son Tra and take the night bus to Da Lat
14/04 - Da Lat
15/04 - Da Lat
16/04 - Da Lat and take the bus to Cat Tien
17/04 - Cat Tien
18/04 - Cat Tien
19/04 - Cat Tien
20/04 - Cat Tien and take the bus to Ho Chi Minh
21/04 - Leave from Ho Chi Minh

Over the course of this thread, I'm going to attempt to describe everything as accurately as I can, to hopefully inspire and help others that might want to visit Vietnam as well but are as limited in time as we were! Reviews of most/all places I visited are already present in other excellent travel threads on the site, but it's wildlife watching and nature never does what you expect it to, so my findings might hopefully be interesting to someone!

I will base my writings around the posts that I've already typed up in the Big Year topic, so they'll be a mix of text paragraphs and lists. I will try not to say something about every single bird and mammal I saw, but in some situations that'll be quite difficult! Feel free to ask me any questions or to give opinions about anything!

 

[Vision]

DAY 1: Arriving, Cuc Phuong and the EPRC
​

Time zones are a weird thing! The reason I had been able to find cheap flights was because I didn’t limit the flights to and from Belgium, but also searched for flights from other airports in the area, meaning my flights would be via Paris. Paris and Antwerp have a great train connection so it wasn’t really an issue, but it did mean I had to wake up very early for my flight. The entire flight felt like day time, and at the time of arriving in Vietnam (6 AM, which is 1 AM in Belgium) I was already awake for 20 hours, but the day in Vietnam was just starting.

Upon exiting the airport after withdrawing cash and buying a SIM card with mobile data, I had to make my way to Giap Bat bus station, then take a local bus to Nho Quan, and once there find a taxi or motorbike taxi to take me to the entrance of Cuc Phuong. The problem is, and the taxi drivers know this well enough, that for people travelling in Asia for the first time it’s fairly hard to judge what the right price is - for European standards I didn’t pay much at all for the two taxis I took on the first day, but I know now that I massively overpaid both drivers for Vietnamese standards - oh well, I did get to Cuc Phuong fairly quickly (by 11:30 AM). For the rest of the two weeks we used the app ‘Grab’ often, which is basically Uber but you pay cash. It has the advantage that the driver doesn’t know you’re a tourist until after they’ve already accepted the ride, so they can’t charge you more than they’d charge locals. On my way from Hanoi to Cuc Phuong I saw mainly species that I had already seen that year (barn swallows, tree sparrows, little egrets) but the first new species for the year were my first ever brown shrikes.

134) Brown shrike, Lanius cristatus
135) Red-rumped swallow, Cecropis daurica

Once there, I met my friend who had been volunteering there, and he showed me around the place. On a quick walk around the entrance area we saw a good amount of the common bird species and made some short visits to a peafowl/deer breeding centre and the new bear rescue centre, where we had lunch. We were staying in the room that my friend had been staying in for the past 6 weeks, which was an interesting experience because even though it meant that we had to wake up very early to be at the centre of the park by sunrise the next two days, it also meant that I got to experience the entire vibe of the place for a few days; getting to know a lot of the volunteers at the centres was great! The birds, of course, were also great - I never knew what barbets sounded like until this first day!

136) Oriental magpie-robin, Copsychus saularis
137) Common tailorbird, Orthotomus sutorius
138) Stripe-throated bulbul, Pycnonotus finlaysoni
139) Rufescent prinia, Prinia rufescens
140) Black-crested bulbul, Pycnonotus flaviventris
141) Green-eared barbet, Psilopogon faiostrictus
142) Lesser coucal, Centropus bengalensis
143) Blue rock thrush, Monticola solitarius
144) Asian palm swift, Cypsiurus balasiensis
145) Asian brown flycatcher, Muscicapa dauurica
146) Crested serpent-eagle, Spilornis cheela
147) Sooty-headed bulbul, Pycnonotus aurigaster
148) Ashy woodswallow, Artamus fuscus
149) Puff-throated bulbul, Alophoixus pallidus
150) Olive-backed sunbird, Cinnyris jugularis
151) Crimson sunbird, Aethopyga siparaja

After lunch, we did the tour of the Endangered Primate Rescue Centre that I had been looking to! Unfortunately it is very hard to photograph the species there well, as the vast majority of the animals are in chainlink cages away from the path that you can’t leave (to prevent diseases etc.). It is truly a wonderful place, though, that obviously knows what they’re doing and is doing so well. Seeing so many doucs and other langurs is of course an amazing experience, and waking up to the sound of however many gibbons they have in the morning is something truly unique. They currently keep 15 primate species (Grey-shanked and Red-shanked doucs, Northern and Southern buff-cheeked gibbons, Northern and Southern white-cheeked gibbons, Bengal and Pygmy slow loris, and Hatinh, Delacour’s, Cat Ba, Laotian, Francois’, Phayre’s and Indochinese grey langurs) of which 9 were lifers for me - wow!

After that I wanted to see more birds, so we decided to go to the ‘botanical gardens’ - a closed off, very large ‘garden’ or park right next to the national park itself that had quite a bit of good, foresty habitat. We got another good few species there, of which 4 species (156-159) we only saw here on the entire trip. What’s interesting about the botanical garden is that there only seems to be one key to the place - you have to get it at the entrance booth and return it after you’re done. I’m not sure why they even close it off to begin with, but it does mean that you have the place to yourself, which is always good for birding.

152) Ashy drongo, Dicrurus leucophaeus
153) Square-tailed drongo-cuckoo, Surniculus lugubris
154) Grey-capped pygmy woodpecker, Yungipicus canicapillus
155) Common iora, Aegithina tiphia
156) Fork-tailed sunbird, Aethopyga christinae
157) Arctic warbler, Phylloscopus borealis
158) Brown-breasted flycatcher, Muscicapa muttui
159) Grey-faced buzzard, Butastur indicus
160) Yellow-browed warbler, Phylloscopus inornatus

One day in and I’ve gotten 27 birds for the year already! The great thing about birding a continent for the first time is that a lot of things, even the very common and widespread species, are lifers and thus extremely interesting. The day after, we were ready to try for some less common and widespread species, though!

 

[Dannelboyz]

Eyyy! Finally writing this I see... I must say I am very jealous and cannot wait to visit SE Asia again. Look forward to seeing the rest of your report and I will keep this handy if I visit Vietnam any time soon

 

[Mehdi]

I was eager to read this thread and as I've already told you, it is very well-written and truly fascinating! Can't wait for you to get to the less common, more highlight-type; species.

 

[Vision]

DAY 2: Cuc Phuong National Park
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The first day of actual birding! Cuc Phuong is an interesting National Park, because there are two main areas with sleeping facilities: one near the entrance (where we stayed because this is where the rescue centres are - I actually don’t know if tourists to the park can sleep there) where there aren’t that many birds left, and one in the middle of the park called Bong Substation. Between the two is an 18km long road, so it’s not exactly doable by foot. I believe there are taxis and/or motorbike taxis that can take you to Bong substation, but as we spared the cost of accomodation we hired a motorbike for the four days we were going to be here, which gave us a lot of flexibility and allowed us to be at the Bong substation very early in the morning. On the drive there we saw a few species, including a very surprising sighting of a mongoose darting over the road.

161) White-rumped shama, Copsychus malabaricus
162) Plain flowerpecker, Dicaeum minullum
163) Red junglefowl, Gallus gallus
164) Plaintive cuckoo, Cacomantis merulinus
165) Bronzed drongo, Dicrurus aeneus

8) Javan mongoose, Herpestes javanicus
9) Maritime striped squirrel, Tamiops maritimus
10) Pallas’ squirrel, Callosciurus erythraeus

On one of the previous weekends, my friend had already done a birding tour here, in which a guide had taken him through the national park itself and to three different hides with feeding stations. He had seen two pitta species at those hides, so we were going to test our luck there for a short amount of time. We figured we might as well ask the people at the substation for mealworms/other insects though, to improve our odds of actually seeing something.

Bong substation is divided in two areas, a first area with two larger buildings and a ‘restaurant’ and then, a bit further down the road, an area with a few bungalows. In the restaurant area we showed people a picture of mealworms, and they understood what we meant immediately: someone took us to a nearby hide, where he scattered a few insects and hung up a plastic bottle from which insects would occasionally fall. Immediately after he had left we could hear the very characteristic calls of the number one species we were looking for, and less than 5 minutes later we were looking at it: a stunning male bar-bellied pitta! Seeing pittas usually involves sitting in hides for hours and views are apparently often poor, but we had an amazing sighting of a pitta super closeby after only minutes of waiting. Not much else at this hide, but we definitely couldn’t complain!

166) Bar-bellied pitta, Hydrornis elliotii

After the pitta had left and everything seemed quiet, we decided we’d move on and do a bit of birding around the Bong substation before having breakfast at the restaurant. The tall trees between the restaurant area and the bungalow area proved to be fairly good for birds, and so did the short stretch of path directly beyond the Bong substation. Right in between the bungalows on our way back was a beautiful pair of red-headed trogons that didn’t seem very bothered by the people walking next to them at all, which was interesting - for some reason I had always expected trogons to be very shy birds! We did see quite a few red-headed trogons throughout the rest of Vietnam, but none of them as well and as closeby as these! After grabbing something quick to eat in the restaurant area we walked toward a second hide (without insects this time) to try our luck there as well. Not much there except for a pair of shamas and a white-tailed robin, but on the way there we did see an owlet which was a nice surprise.

167) Brown-backed needletail, Hirundapus giganteus
168) Hair-crested drongo, Dicrurus hottentottus
169) Red-vented barbet, Psilopogon lagrandieri
170) Dark-necked tailorbird, Orthotomus atrogularis
171) Bar-winged flycatcher-shrike,Hemipus picatus
172) Grey-headed canary-flycatcher, Culicicapa ceylonensis
173) Greater racket-tailed drongo, Dicrurus paradiseus
174) Little spiderhunter, Arachnothera longirostra
175) Yellow-rumped flycatcher, Ficedula zanthopygia
176) Pied falconet, Microhierax melanoleucos
177) Red-headed trogon, Harpactes erythrocephalus
178) Crested goshawk, Accipiter trivirgatus
179) Collared owlet, Glaucidium brodiei
180) White-tailed robin, Myiomela leucura
181) Racket-tailed treepie, Crypsirina temia
182) Buff-bellied pipit, Anthus rubescens

After spending a bit of time there we made our way back to the substation and decided we wanted to head a bit deeper into the forest. Online and on google maps most people mention doing the loop trail that goes to a ‘1000-year-old tree,’ but apparently that isn’t a very birdy trail at all. What we did instead was walk beyond the bungalow area of the substation towards the 1000-year-old tree trail, but where the 1000-year-old tree trail goes right we continued straight into the forest. For the first kilometer or so the path doesn’t feel very birdy at all, and we didn’t get that many additions. As soon as you start seeing limestone rock formations and the forest gets darker and darker, however, there were plenty of birds that were just hard to see. On the way to the end of the trail (it doesn’t actually stop, but at some point you cross a small stone bridge and after that the path is no longer paved or maintained and signs say that you need a guide in order to continue) we didn’t see a lot but we did hear three cool species we weren’t likely going to get elsewhere on the trip (limestone wren-babbler, limestone leaf warbler and a group of Cissa/Urocissa magpies)

183) Pin-striped tit-babbler, Macronus gularis
184) White-bellied erpornis, Erpornis zantholeuca
185) Rufous-throated fulvetta, Alcippe rufogularis

11) Berdmore's ground squirrel, Menetes berdmorei

The way back, though, was a completely different story! I don’t know if it was because we paid more attention or purely because of better luck running into them, but truly everything was going amazingly and we managed to tick off a lot of highlights. One of the birds in particular, a green magpie drinking from a shallow stream beside the path, was absolutely breathtaking and completely unexpected. Seeing three of the endangered and very odd-looking white-winged magpies flying over our heads was absolutely amazing as well!

186) Common hill myna, Gracula religiosa
187) Common green magpie, Cissa chinensis
188) Blue whistling thrush, Myophonus caeruleus
189) Crow-billed drongo, Dicrurus annectens
190) White-winged magpie, Urocissa whiteheadi
191) Greater yellownape, Chrysophlegma flavinucha

We arrived back at the Bong substation at around 3 PM and the heat was getting increasingly bad so we decided we’d return to the HQ area and wait there until the heat was over. On the way back we did see two more species, one of which (the wagtail) I’ve always wanted to see!

192) Thick-billed green pigeon, Treron curvirostra
193) Forest wagtail, Dendronanthus indicus

That evening right after dinner, we had gotten an offer from the people volunteering at Save Vietnam’s Wildlife to join them while they fed the animals! Their main focuses are pangolins and Owston’s palm civets, but they also keep a few other small carnivores. At the time of our visit they had Chinese pangolin (1), Sunda pangolins (6), Owston’s palm civets, masked palm civet, binturong and leopard cats. A very unexpected sighting was a large wild Scolopendra centipede stealing a piece of fish from one of their leopard cats!

All in all, I think this must have been one of the best animal-related days this year, and probably in my life! Pittas, trogons and green magpies were definitely the three bird species I was hoping to see the most, but I would never have imagined seeing all three of them on the very first full day of birding! Combine that with a great visit to a wonderful little park that had two species of pangolin side-by-side… I don’t know if I’m going to top that good of a day soon!

 

[FunkyGibbon]

There are some rooms for tourists by the entrance as well. I actually had to walk the 18km back from the middle of the park to the entrance because the staff there were adamant there was literally no way for them to contact the man with the bike who had dropped me off the day before.

 

[Vision]

There are some rooms for tourists by the entrance as well. I actually had to walk the 18km back from the middle of the park to the entrance because the staff there were adamant there was literally no way for them to contact the man with the bike who had dropped me off the day before.

Oh wow, that sucks! There was absolutely no mobile service anywhere near the center of the park though, so they might have been telling the truth if there wasn't a landline phone present? Weird that there was nobody there that was willing to drive you back, though!

 

[Chlidonias]

I didn't know about the pitta hide at Bong. I'm not a fan of sitting in hides and waiting for baited birds, but Bar-bellied Pitta is a nice bird - I never did get to see that one in Vietnam.

I used a bicycle to get to Bong from the entrance. They can be hired at the HQ.

 

[Vision]

I didn't know about the pitta hide at Bong. I'm not a fan of sitting in hides and waiting for baited birds, but Bar-bellied Pitta is a nice bird - I never did get to see that one in Vietnam.

I used a bicycle to get to Bong from the entrance. They can be hired at the HQ.

Biking does seem like a nice option as well! With the motorbike (which my friend knew how to drive - I'm fairly scared of them myself and would probably have opted for something else if he hadn't) we found it very difficult and uncomfortable to stop whenever we saw something interesting next to the road. The birds we saw usually noticed us stopping immediately as well, and flew away. I can imagine spending an entire day birding after already doing 18km of cycling can be exhausting, though!

The pitta hide was directly on the left of the main road where you can turn right to the restaurant area - there's not really a path going towards it, but there's an opening in the bushes and it's quite easy to find after that as it isn't far from the main road. I have my reservations about using playback and food bait to bring in birds as well, but at the same time I think that when used sparingly neither should really be a big problem - and bar-bellied pitta is definitely a nice bird! We did get a 'clean' but observation of another bar-bellied pitta in Cat Tien towards the end of the journey, though that one went a lot quicker!

 

[Vision]

DAY 3: Cuc Phuong National Park
​

The next morning we were off to the center of the park again, to hopefully come across a few new species. We had already seen most of the highlights we really wanted to see here at this point so we could do things a bit more slowly and thoroughly now, but there were still a few highlights (malkoha, silver pheasant, limestone wren-babbler) we were missing so we made sure to still leave quite early in the morning. On the way to Bong substation we got better views of a Javan mongoose and two more birds for the year.

194) Swinhoe's white-eye, Zosterops simplex
195) Common emerald dove, Chalcophaps indica

After arriving at Bong substation we went to the trail behind the 1000-year-old tree trail immediately, to see it earlier in the day than we did before. For the most part the common birds were fairly similar, but generally it did feel more birdy than the day before and we saw quite a few more of the smaller birds. We saw the yellownape again (which is good because my friend had missed it the day before) in the same place, and heard two more groups of magpies that we couldn’t find. A male silver pheasant was probably the highlight of the day, which I saw after crossing the bridge that I mentioned in my last post and quickly looking around the bushes there; the stunning white colour in the middle of a dark forest really gives it an almost mythical appearance. Seeing my first wild malkoha was fantastic as well, but unfortunately the views of it were quite poor.

196) Green-billed malkoha, Phaenicophaeus tristis
197) Streaked spiderhunter, Arachnothera magna
198) Silver pheasant, Lophura nycthemera
199) Rufous-capped babbler, Stachyridopsis ruficeps
200) Hainan blue flycatcher, Cyornis hainanus
201) Hill blue flycatcher, Cyornis banyumas
202) Limestone wren-babbler, Napothera crispifrons
203) Grey-throated babbler, Stachyris nigriceps
204) Kloss' leaf warbler, Phylloscopus ogilviegranti

It was a very hot and sunny day again (at one point it was 39˚C!), which apparently is quite unique in Cuc Phuong, so when the birds were starting to be less and less active and it was just getting too hot to walk around birding, we decided to go back to the entrance area to cool down. We had seen basically everything we had hoped to see in Cuc Phuong and more, so we definitely couldn’t complain! This was our last day in Cuc Phuong itself, as the day after we were going to leave to Van Long and take the night train to Hue. A bit of walking around the entrance area got me two new birds.

205) Black bulbul, Hypsipetes leucocephalus
206) Yellow-vented green pigeon, Treron seimundi

That evening, a few of the volunteers and I went on a night walk from the entrance area into the park, to hopefully see some cool animals. There aren’t many nocturnal birds and mammals near the entrance (and if there were, we were definitely making too much noise and light to see them), but we definitely saw a lot of cool herps and inverts! The best species of the night was easily a banded krait that showed itself really well, which also ended up being the only (living) snake of the trip.

 

[FunkyGibbon]

Oh wow, that sucks! There was absolutely no mobile service anywhere near the center of the park though, so they might have been telling the truth if there wasn't a landline phone present? Weird that there was nobody there that was willing to drive you back, though!

It was only annoying because I had brought my full pack to the substation so I really wasn't travelling light. Actually it's kind of a nice walk and I got some birds as well, although birding with a heavy pack when you are trying to eat up 18km is a bit tricky. The highlight of the day was an adjutant stork, although I never worked out if it was lesser or greater.

 

[Vision]

DAY 4: Cuc Phuong, Van Long and the night train to Hue
​

The last day in Cuc Phuong, and in Northern Vietnam in general! I woke up fairly early again so I could walk around the entrance area for one last round in an attempt to see some more species, because I knew there were still a few in the area I was missing. I visited the Turtle Conservation Centre today, which was a fairly small but nice place with many endangered turtle species. After this, we went on another walk around the place and found an owlet! The owlet was a very nice surprise, it was being chased away by an ashy drongo right as we were walking underneath it. Mountain hawk-eagle was also definitely a species I really wanted to see here, (apparently they breed in the hills around the entrance are) so it was good to see that as one of the last birds in Cuc Phuong! I also saw a flyover harrier, but not well enough to determine what species. Heard only was an Indian cuckoo calling from a nearby tree, but unfortunately we couldn’t find it.

207) Yellow-bellied prinia, Prinia flaviventris
208) Chinese pond heron, Ardeola bacchus
209) Spotted dove, Spilopelia chinensis
210) Asian barred owlet, Glaucidium cuculoides
211) Mountain hawk-eagle, Nisaetus nipalensis

After that, we went to Van Long. I could go on long enough about how absolutely breathtakingly beautiful of a place it is, but the only advice I can really give is to just go there as no pictures really do it justice. The only way to visit it is on very scenic small rowing boats/rafts, and there’s something truly amazing about slowly rowing through reed beds with a backdrop of weird limestone karst mountains. The birds here are obviously very different to the birds in Cuc Phuong, with a lot more of the birds you’d expect in reed beds (old world warblers, stonechats, coucals…) and water birds (herons, storks, rails, kingfishers). At one point there’s a ‘junction’ where you can go either to the left or to the right; most boats go to the right apparently, but if you want to go left they’ll do that as well, which is apparently where you have better odds of seeing the Delacour’s langurs. We didn’t see any langurs on the way to where the boat turned around, but halfway on our way back we did hear them calling and we eventually spotted a group of 8 animals on the mountaintops quite far away. These were my second wild langurs (after Javan langurs in Bali in 2016), and even though we only saw them for a few minutes and only from very far away they’re easily one of the best mammals I’ve ever seen - definitely the rarest. It’s weird, because they’re very obviously langurs but when you see them jumping around on the rocks their colours and weirdly thick fur makes them almost look ruffed lemur-like! After you leave the boat, make sure to look at the wetlands from above on the path next to the park - because this path is a lot higher than the water level you can see above the reed and look into some of the ponds that you can’t see from the boats, which is where we saw a few pheasant-tailed jacanas - another bird I had always really wanted to see!

212) Eastern cattle egret, Bubulcus coromandus
213) Intermediate egret, Ardea intermedia
214) Black drongo, Dicrurus macrocercus
215) Asian openbill, Anastomus oscitans
216) Siberian stonechat, Saxicola maurus
217) Zitting cisticola, Cisticola juncidis
218) Golden-headed cisticola, Cisticola exilis
219) White-throated kingfisher, Halcyon smyrnensis
220) Greater coucal, Centropus sinensis
221) Shikra, Accipiter badius
222) Striated grassbird, Megalurus palustris
223) White-breasted waterhen, Amaurornis phoenicurus
224) Grey-headed lapwing, Vanellus cinereus
225) Burmese shrike, Lanius collurioides
226) Yellow bittern, Ixobrychus sinensis
227) Cotton pygmy goose, Nettapus coromandelianus
228) Plain prinia, Prinia inornata
229) Pheasant-tailed jacana, Hydrophasianus chirurgus

12) Delacour's langur, Trachypithecus delacouri

After Van Long we took a taxi to Ninh Binh, where we took the night train to Hue. Night trains are truly fantastic! On this trip we took one night train and one night bus, and even though they’re slightly more expensive I cannot recommend night trains enough if you’re on a tight schedule and want to see a lot of a country. Both of them sound good in theory, because you combine both the duration and cost of sleeping and transportation into one, but whereas on a night bus it’s very hard to get any sleep at all, night trains are very comfortable. There are usually three options for night trains; normal seats, beds in 6-person rooms, and beds in 4-person rooms. We had beds in a 6-person room to spare cost, and even though we had the two top bunks the amount of climbing we had to do was very reasonable so I don’t think paying extra for a 4-person room is ever really necessary.

230) Common myna, Acridotheres tristis
231) Cook's swift, Apus cooki

 

[Vision]

DAY 5: Hue and Bach Ma National Park
​

Another great thing about night trains as opposed to night buses is that you can actually walk around and stretch your legs! In Europe I’m used to riding around in trains and looking out of the window and seeing good amounts of birds, so I made sure to wake up early in the train so I could do the same here. Generally Vietnam isn’t really a very birdy country at all outside of the national parks, but it seemed that the plains directly North of Hue really had some good birds, so I was able to add quite a few species.

232) Cinnamon bittern, Ixobrychus cinnamomeus
233) Long-tailed shrike, Lanius schach
234) Pin-tailed snipe, Gallinago stenura
235) Germain's swiftlet, Aerodramus germani
236) Blue-tailed bee-eater, Merops philippinus
237) Great myna, Acridotheres grandis
238) Black-collared starling, Gracupica nigricollis
239) Red-whiskered bulbul, Pycnonotus jocosus

After arriving in Bach Ma we took a Grab from the train station to the bus station, and then the local bus to Cau Hai which kept us waiting for a while, but overall we didn’t lose too much time. After arriving there we took two motorbike taxis (which is quite an adventure of itself with a huge backpack strapped to your back!) to the entrance of the national park, and by noon we were at the entrance of the national park.

Similarly to Cuc Phuong, Bach Ma is also split up between two places where you can sleep, one near the entrance and one in the middle of the park near the summit. We only had a limited amount of time here, so we decided to go to the top of the park as birding is generally better there. The only way to get from one to the other is by expensive cars there, but it’s a fixed price per car ride up/down the mountain so if you can find people to share the ride with it’s fairly affordable. A lot of confusing conversations and phone calls later and we had booked a room in one of the ‘villas’ near the summit. We found another group of people that was also going to the top so we didn’t have to pay the full price for transport, which was great. A fantail was hopping around in some trees next to the entrance building, and while driving up we saw a large eagle-like bird of prey that was probably a black eagle.

238) White-throated fantail, Rhipidura albicollis

Once we were at the top of the mountain in our room (a very basic empty room that they had put 3 beds in - definitely too expensive for what you get, but I suppose the location makes it worth it) we were a bit exhausted of the travelling and slightly annoyed at how badly organized things were and how much everything here cost (the food in the restaurant was very expensive as well), so we spent the rest of the day birding.

I have to say, this was some of the best birding I’ve ever done! The weather was fantastic, there was no rain or mist (which is apparently fairly unusual for Bach Ma) and it wasn’t too hot either. In contrast to Cuc Phuong, there were almost no mosquitoes, which was also a very nice surprise. Most of the birding in Bach Ma is done from roads instead of paths and trails, which is great because it’s much easier to properly find things you catch a glimpse of or hear. We started off by walking down via the main road, and were able to see quite a few good species relatively quickly. A silver-breasted broadbill was a very nice highlight species for me, as were my first laughingthrushes and leafbirds. Another nice bird was great views of a female silver pheasant crossing the road, which is a different subspecies here than in Cuc Phuong.

239) Indochinese yuhina, Yuhina torqueola
240) Grey-chinned minivet, Pericrocotus solaris
241) Blue-winged leafbird, Chloropsis cochinchinensis
242) Wedge-tailed green pigeon, Treron sphenurus
243) Common cuckoo, Cuculus canoris
244) Grey-cheeked warbler, Phylloscopus poliogenys
245) Lesser necklaced laughingthrush, Garrulax monileger
246) Rufous-fronted babbler, Stachyridopsis rufifrons
247) Golden-throated barbet, Psilopogon franklinii
248) Silver-breasted broadbill, Serilophus lunatus
249) Ferruginous flycatcher, Muscicapa ferruginea
250) Golden babbler, Stachyridopsis chrysaea

What is interesting about Bach Ma (and the rest of Vietnam from here on out, actually) is that here, much more than in Cuc Phuong, the birds form mixed species foraging flocks. While not completely new to me (European birds, definitely tits and warblers etc form them as well, mainly in autumn) it was quite surprising to experience it on this scale; you wouldn’t see any birds for 20 minutes, and then suddenly there would be multiple species of passerine all around you. After spending a while on the main road we turned right to the Rhododendron trail and followed that into the Five lakes trail, which ended near the villas again after a steep climb up. The streams and waterfalls make for very good forktail habitat, and I was very happy to add those to the list as that was definitely another species I really wanted to see. They’re huge! I expected them to be a bit smaller than a white wagtail, so when I saw a bird that seemed almost twice as large I was very surprised.

251) Ratchet-tailed treepie, Temnurus temnurus
252) Scarlet minivet, Pericrocotus speciosus
253) Green imperial pigeon, Ducula aenea
254) White-browed scimitar-babbler, Pomatorhinus schisticeps
255) Tickell's blue flycatcher, Cyornis tickelliae
256) Slaty-backed forktail, Enicurus schistaceus
257) White-crowned forktail, Enicurus leschenaulti
258) Orange-bellied leafbird, Chloropsis hardwickii

13) Asian red-cheeked ground squirrel, Dremomys rufigenis

After dinner we did a quick walk in the direction of the summit, before it got too dark to bird. It seemed that the majority of birds had already given up on the day, and we were about to head back as well when suddenly we heard the characteristic call of long-tailed broadbills from a tree right above us! Two birds gave wonderful views, and were definitely also contenders for the best bird of the trip… Easily one of the most impressive and most ridiculous-looking passerines in the world!

After the broadbills disappeared we made our way back to the villa to get our torches ready for the first real spotlighting session of the trip! Neither of us had ever really spotlighted alone before and we didn’t really see a whole lot, but sure enough after about 25 minutes of walking in the direction of the summit we were looking at a ferret-badger! We originally saw it about 30-40 metres in front of us but it wasn’t shy at all and kept following the edge of the road in our direction, until it came within 5 metres and finally turned away from the path and into the forest. Wow!

259) Long-tailed broadbill, Psarisomus dalhousiae

14) Burmese ferret-badger, Melogale personata

 

[Chlidonias]

Once we were at the top of the mountain in our room (a very basic empty room that they had put 3 beds in - definitely too expensive for what you get, but I suppose the location makes it worth it) we were a bit exhausted of the travelling and slightly annoyed at how badly organized things were and how much everything here cost (the food in the restaurant was very expensive as well), so we spent the rest of the day birding.

Which villas were you at - Phuong Lan, the topmost ones by the Chicken Restaurant? How much are they asking now? In 2015 a room there cost me 550,000 Dong. When I went back the next year the same place was priced at 1,050,000 Dong on the reception price-sheet (at the HQ) but at the the villa itself they told me it was 650,000 Dong (but they remembered me from the previous year).

 

[Vision]

Which villas were you at - Phuong Lan, the topmost ones by the Chicken Restaurant? How much are they asking now? In 2015 a room there cost me 550,000 Dong. When I went back the next year the same place was priced at 1,050,000 Dong on the reception price-sheet (at the HQ) but at the the villa itself they told me it was 650,000 Dong (but they remembered me from the previous year).

We stayed at Kim Giao, the 'bottom-most' villa of the upper half of the nature reserve, behind the main reception and restaurant. We weren't very close to the chicken restaurant, we did walk there to figure out if that had any cheaper/better food but it seemed to be closed.

I don't remember the prices exactly unfortunately, but we did write down some vague things in an app to keep track of who paid how much, and from that I can see that it has to have been less than 1,000,000 VND for one room for one night (for two people, though there was enough place for six) - so it was probably the 650,000 VND, which does seem to ring a bell. It's way too much for what it is, and it definitely doesn't get better when you realize that the food and the car drive up there are also ridiculously expensive - but the birding is great!

 

[Vision]

DAY 6: Bach Ma and Da Nang
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This would already be our last day at Bach Ma, so we decided to wake up early. The original plan was to walk up to the summit (as we hadn’t done that the day before), but as soon as we reached the main road we heard 2 Annamite gibbons calling from lower down the mountain, so that plan changed quickly! Two bends in the road later and I had accidentally stepped on a branch that cracked and surprised a group of at least 3 red-shanked doucs right beside us! Not the primate we were looking for, but definitely at least as amazing of a species. We weren’t expecting to see them here at all, as normally they’re supposed to be easier towards the bottom of the mountain and we were close to the top. Unfortunately they jumped away immediately though, so we didn’t get fantastic views, but it looked to be at least one male and (probably) two females. Wow.

A few minutes later we were surprised by a group of 4 silver pheasants crossing the road, among which at least one male. The males of the Annamite subspecies of silver pheasant are visually distinct: they’re a lot darker than silver pheasants elsewhere. We continued walking down the mountain until we didn’t hear the gibbons anymore (which was near the Rhododendron trail) and returned to the villa area to have breakfast. On the way back we also finally saw a flock of sultan tits. Those are also a lot bigger than you’d expect! They don’t look or act a lot like other tits do, either. Great birds!

260) Olive-backed pipit, Anthus hodgsoni
261) Mountain fulvetta, Alcippe peracensis
262) Black-throated bushtit, Aegithalos concinnus
263) Black-throated laughingthrush, Pterorhinus chinensis
264) Sultan tit, Melanochlora sultanea

15) Red-shanked douc, Pygathrix nemaeus

After breakfast, we continued the road towards the summit of the mountain. On the way there we saw quite a few more birds, quite many laughingthrushes of both species (black-throated and lesser necklaced). The highlights of the trip up there were a black giant squirrel that crossed over the path via some overhanging branches, a black eagle that soared right above us and landed in a tree very closeby without realizing we were there (and flying off immediately once it did realize we were there), and a silver-eared mesia! On the way back down we saw another long-tailed broadbill as well, which was great.

265) Black eagle, Ictinaetus malaiensis
266) Silver-eared mesia, Leiothrix argentauris
267) Blyth's shrike-babbler, Pteruthius aeralatus

16) Black giant squirrel, Ratufa bicolor

To get back down to the entrance of the park you need to call someone, who sends up someone else to come and get you. When we originally asked the driver was going to be there in ten minutes, but that soon turned into half an hour and eventually we had been sitting there for two hours! Slightly frustrating, but we didn’t really have anywhere we needed to be on that day so spending them in a room with fans in a fantastic national park isn’t all bad, I suppose. We did end up getting a discount, though, and the driver took us outside of the park and directly to the main road where he waved a local bus to the side (it’s crazy how everyone in Vietnam just seems to know when the local buses are going to be where!) so that made up for it. By the evening we had arrived in a nice hostel in Danang, where we had some time to explore the city. Generally it’s quite a nice, modern, and clean city, which is great! A lot less traffic everywhere than in Hanoi, Ninh Binh and Ho Chi Minh. The entire city is very kitsch though, with tons of colourful lights everywhere, resulting in some of the most horrible looking boats and buildings you could imagine. Overall quite a fun city though!

268) Streak-eared bulbul, Pycnonotus conradi

 

[Vision]

DAY 7: Da Nang, Son Tra Peninsula and the night bus to Da Lat
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The great thing about Danang is that it has a peninsula right next to the city that has a decently sized population of red-shanked doucs. It’s quite hard to really find specifics of what places on the fairly large peninsula give you the best chances to see them (most information is on websites of people that offer tours to see the monkeys, so of course they wouldn’t want people to know that it’s perfectly possible to go there yourself), so we decided to just go there and see for ourselves. We had already seen them the day before in Bach Ma, but as those weren’t completely satisfying views we definitely wanted to try again and hopefully get pictures this time.

I had read online somewhere that monkey pass (which is the road that goes through the entire peninsula) was the best place to see the doucs and other monkeys, so we told the Grab driver to drop us in the middle of that road somewhere. He dropped us off right next to a group of macaques near where monkey pass intersects 'Hoàng Sa' (monkey pass was too steep for his car) which was fine as well. The macaques were mainly all rhesus, but there was at least one individual that had the white moustache that crab-eating macaques have, and had a longer tail. I haven’t been able to find any other resources about the peninsula having crab-eating macaques, though, so this might have been an introduced/escaped animal? Either way we did see many crab-eating macaques in Cat Tien so it doesn’t matter much for the lists. Son Tra wasn’t very birdy (which might have had something to do with the heat) but we did get some amazing views of male crimson sunbirds, which was great. We didn’t end up seeing any doucs here, but we did see trees moving in the distance and hear their weird alien-like calls. After a bit more searching we eventually gave up, mainly because of the heat which meant that birding was very slow.

269) Japanese sparrowhawk, Accipiter gularis
270) House swift, Apus nipalensis

17) Rhesus macaque, Macaca mulatta
18) Crab-eating macaque, Macaca fascicularis

After visiting Son Tra, we briefly went to a nearby beach we had seen on our way there to try for some terns, reef herons or other shorebirds, but all we saw were some little egrets and some bee-eaters that were too far to identify. That evening, after a bit of planning the rest of the trip in the hostel, we took the night bus to Da Lat.

Night buses in Asia are quite variable per country, but overall they come down to the same thing: there’s three rows of ‘beds’, one on each side of the bus and one in the middle, and both rows of beds have two beds on top of each other. The beds are absolutely tiny, and leave no space for any movement at all. There is a storage place at the bottom of the bus (as with normal buses), but I don’t think it’s especially safe to leave a bag with your camera, binoculars, passport etc in there so I took that with me on the bus. You also have to take off your shoes (which I definitely understand), so essentially you already have no space at all, and you have to share that with your shoes, a personal bag and preferably a water bottle and some snacks… All while being driven around by a driver who, like the majority of people in Vietnam, has probably never heard of traffic rules in his life. Not the most fun experience! Luckily I’ve never had much of a sleeping schedule, though, so I wasn’t that affected the next day, but if you need your sleep I definitely wouldn’t advise the night bus!

 

[Chlidonias]

He dropped us off right next to a group of macaques near where monkey pass intersects 'Hoàng Sa' (monkey pass was too steep for his car) which was fine as well. The macaques were mainly all rhesus, but there was at least one individual that had the white moustache that crab-eating macaques have, and had a longer tail. I haven’t been able to find any other resources about the peninsula having crab-eating macaques, though, so this might have been an introduced/escaped animal? Either way we did see many crab-eating macaques in Cat Tien so it doesn’t matter much for the lists.

I've been to Son Tra twice - and never saw a single macaque. I didn't understand it because they are supposed to be everywhere on the peninsula. The first time I went I had tourists asking me where the monkeys were (because I had binoculars). Anyway, there are two species there commonly - as far as I have read, because as I said I never saw any at all - which are Rhesus and Assamese (so check your photos if you have any, because the two species are quite similar if you weren't paying particular attention). Crab-eating and Pig-tailed are there too, as released pets.

Night buses in Asia are quite variable per country, but overall they come down to the same thing: there’s three rows of ‘beds’, one on each side of the bus and one in the middle, and both rows of beds have two beds on top of each other. The beds are absolutely tiny, and leave no space for any movement at all. There is a storage place at the bottom of the bus (as with normal buses), but I don’t think it’s especially safe to leave a bag with your camera, binoculars, passport etc in there so I took that with me on the bus. You also have to take off your shoes (which I definitely understand), so essentially you already have no space at all, and you have to share that with your shoes, a personal bag and preferably a water bottle and some snacks… All while being driven around by a driver who, like the majority of people in Vietnam, has probably never heard of traffic rules in his life. Not the most fun experience! Luckily I’ve never had much of a sleeping schedule, though, so I wasn’t that affected the next day, but if you need your sleep I definitely wouldn’t advise the night bus!

The only night buses I've seen with beds are in Vietnam, and they are truly horrible vehicles. Anywhere else in Asia I've only seen standard buses which simply travel by night. How tall are you? I couldn't fit in the available space without contortions - @ThylacineAlive would need to be folded in half to fit if he were to ever go to Vietnam...

 

[Vision]

I've been to Son Tra twice - and never saw a single macaque. I didn't understand it because they are supposed to be everywhere on the peninsula. The first time I went I had tourists asking me where the monkeys were (because I had binoculars). Anyway, there are two species there commonly - as far as I have read, because as I said I never saw any at all - which are Rhesus and Assamese (so check your photos if you have any, because the two species are quite similar if you weren't paying particular attention). Crab-eating and Pig-tailed are there too, as released pets.

We saw a group of macaques fairly easily, but we only saw the one group (and heard/smelled another), and when doubling back later we saw 2 more individuals. They were just in the middle of the road, but they did pass by fairly quickly so I can imagine missing them if you don't stumble into a group randomly. I did know about Assamese being there so I double-checked, but all of them except for the single Crab-eating were Rhesus. It was the first time I saw Rhesus, though, and I got some good pics, so I'm happy with just them!

The only night buses I've seen with beds are in Vietnam, and they are truly horrible vehicles. Anywhere else in Asia I've only seen standard buses which simply travel by night. How tall are you? I couldn't fit in the available space without contortions - @ThylacineAlive would need to be folded in half to fit if he were to ever go to Vietnam...

I'm just over 1m70, so luckily not that tall at all, but the sleeper buses are definitely still incredibly uncomfortable! I don't know how tall people would even fit in those buses.
The friend I was travelling with definitely had buses with beds in other countries too (definitely Cambodia), and I've definitely been in at least one of them in China long ago. Good that regular buses are now the norm in Asia, though, because as you say the sleeper buses truly are horrible vehicles! I wish I had counted the beds now, because it really seems like you'd be able to transport people a lot more efficiently and comfortably in regular buses.

 

[Chlidonias]

I wish I had counted the beds now, because it really seems like you'd be able to transport people a lot more efficiently and comfortably in regular buses.

I think each row would be about four beds long, so 24 beds; then there's four or five along the back, so that's another eight or ten beds. So conservatively 32 beds. Definitely a lot fewer passegers than if the bus was full of seats.