Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part six: 2019

DAY SEVEN - the one with all the bus travel


There's not much to this post because it was a solid day of bus travel, all the way from Kota Tinggi at the bottom of Peninsular Malaysia up to Taiping near the top of the country.

I started out the day in the dark catching a bus at 6am from Kota Tinggi to the Larkin Bus Terminal in Johor Bahru. There are buses direct to Kuala Lumpur from Kota Tinggi but the first one isn't until 8.45am and I was pretty sure there would be earlier ones from Larkin. Sure enough, I arrived there just after 7am and got a seat on a Kuala Lumpur bus at 7.30am - they seem to go every fifteen minutes.

It was four and a half hours to Kuala Lumpur, arriving at the TBS station at around noon. Crested Mynah was added to the trip list as I was coming into the city, although I've had to since remove it. The Crested Mynah is native to southern China and Indochina, and has been introduced outside its native range including to Malaysia. I already have it on my Malaysian list, from 2006 when I saw it in Kuala Lumpur, but just now I checked on its status and it has apparently died out in this city. In Peninsular Malaysia it is now only found on Penang Island. It also seems to have died out in Singapore, where I likewise first saw it in 2006. So it was probably a White-vented Mynah that I saw from the bus instead.

I had lunch at the TBS station then caught a bus at 1.30pm to Kamunting, which is the long-distance station for Taiping. Most of the way between Kota Tinggi and Kuala Lumpur was oil palm plantations - a really depressing bus ride - but between Kuala Lumpur and Taiping there were still long tracts of forest covering the hills.

The bus arrived at Kamunting at 6.40pm, then it was about 45 minutes on yet another bus to Taiping itself, arriving there in the dark at 7.30pm after 13.5 hours on the buses. It started lashing down with rain right after I got on that last bus but fortunately it had stopped by the time I got to the bus station in Taiping.

I stayed at the Hotel Malaya, a block away from the bus station and perhaps the cheapest hotel in town at 55 Ringgits for a room. Malaysia has become a bit more expensive lately due to the government bringing in a tourist tax a couple of years ago, which adds ten Ringgits per night to hotel rooms. This is applied somewhat inconsistently so it's not always clear if you are paying it or not. I'll come back to this a bit later in the thread.


Animals seen today:

BIRDS:
Javan Mynah Acridotheres javanicus
House Crow Corvus splendens
Spotted Dove Streptopelia chinensis
Painted Stork Mycteria leucocephala
Feral Pigeon Columba livia
White-vented Mynah Acridotheres grandis
Tree Sparrow Passer montanus
Little Egret Egretta garzetta

MAMMALS:
Crab-eating Macaque Macaca fascicularis

 

No, all three of them are Dusky Langurs.

I guess next time you're in Singapore you could go look for them there. I wonder if @Zooish has seen the Singapore ones?

 

Darn, I wish I'd thought of that line!

 

DAY EIGHT - the one with the Marbled Cat


My first days in Asia on this trip were spent in Singapore, in order to visit a zoo collection for some rare animals kept there (Philippine Eagles and blue macaws) and to look for a particular wild mammal (Sunda Pangolin). My reasons for coming to Taiping were basically the same: rare zoo animal and then wild animal. Firstly I was going to visit the Taiping Zoo to see - and hopefully photograph - the Marbled Cat kept there; and secondly I was going to Maxwell Hill to try and see Agile Gibbons.

Peninsular Malaysia has hill stations dotted all over the place, set up by the British to escape the heat of the lowlands. Given that they had to go around all the time wearing woollen uniforms from head to toe, you can understand their desire for highland resorts to recuperate from all the stresses of the job. Keeping the British Empire's upper lip stiff wouldn't have been an easy task in the tropics. There are three main hill stations on the peninsula. Normally I go to Bukit Fraser (aka Fraser's Hill) which is near to Kuala Lumpur, because it is easy to get to and well set up for birders. The Cameron Highlands I have only been to once and I did not like it as the forest has been largely destroyed for farms and plantations, and it is heavily marketed at the backpacker crowd rather than birders. I had never been to Maxwell Hill (aka Bukit Larut) before but it is supposed to be great for birds and, more importantly, while looking into it before this trip I discovered that there are Agile Gibbons there. I knew that this species was found in a band across northern Malaysia (and in Sumatra) but I hadn't realised they were at Maxwell Hill. Otherwise I would have visited there years ago!

On my trip-plan I had given myself several days for Maxwell Hill. This first day in Taiping, though, was primarily for the zoo. Any time spent on the hill in the afternoon would just be bonus time before I headed up there "for real" on the following days.

I had drawn a map from Google Maps to enable me to get to the zoo. I didn't know in advance exactly where in town I'd be staying but I knew it would be by the bus station somewhere, so I drew it from there. The map was useless. I came up to a large parkland which from the map would appear to be the Lake Gardens (at the north end of which the zoo is situated) but apparently it was not. I don't know where I ended up because I just looked at Google Maps again while writing this to try and figure it out but I can't. I did see a surprising variety of birds along the walk, including Long-tailed Parakeets, Dollarbirds and Lineated Barbets.

Eventually I asked a guy in the street how far the zoo was from here. He said five kilometres and gave me directions. I set off walking but a few minutes later he came zooming up on his motorbike and gave me a lift because "it was too far to walk". This was fortunate, as it turned out, because I would have got lost again following the directions he'd given me! The first couple of turns would have been okay, but the turn at "the temple" wouldn't have happened because the temple was actually hidden from the street by hawkers stalls and it wasn't on a turn anyway, and then there were a whole mess of turns which he hadn't even mentioned.

He dropped me at the main road which lead through the Lake Gardens to the zoo. There were more Lineated Barbets in the trees here, and a surprise Black-thighed Falconet, as well as groups of Crab-eating Macaques and Dusky Langurs.






Above: Dusky Langur and Black-crowned Night Heron, both photographed wild in the grounds of Taiping Zoo


I had been to the Taiping Zoo for the first time in 2017. My reason for revisiting on this trip was that in February this year a Marbled Cat was placed upon display. As most people on here should know, Marbled Cats are not exactly common in captivity. There are none left in Western zoos and only a few animals scattered about zoos in Asia. Not many Zoochatters have seen one and until recently there were no photos in the Zoochat galleries other than some museum specimens which excellently illustrate the fine art of taxidermy.

The cat at Taiping Zoo proved to be a very easy animal to observe (he was hand-raised and hence very comfortable around the visitors) but unfortunately was very difficult to photograph as the enclosure is glass-fronted and the cat likes to spend 99% of his time lying on the fronting shelf right up at the glass. Trying to take photos by standing back I had to deal with all the reflections on the glass, but I also couldn't place the camera right up to the glass to eliminate the reflections because then the lens was only a few millimetres from the cat's fur. He was also attracting a lot of attention from the other visitors to the zoo, so I had to bide my time waiting for gaps in the people to take photos. Only a few of the many many photographs I took turned out okay.

I made a species list for the zoo, and on that thread there is a link to an actual review from the visit I made in 2017: Taiping Zoo species list, September 2019 [Taiping Zoo]






I wish I'd known how close Maxwell Hill is to Taiping last time I was here - it is literally right next to the town. It only takes fifteen minutes to walk from the zoo entrance to the entry point of Maxwell Hill! There is only one road up the hill, starting at an elevation of 49 metres asl and topping out at 1250 metres asl. No private vehicles are allowed on this road, with all visitor access being on either the park jeeps which do the run every couple of hours and cost ten Ringgits, or by foot which is free.

I had walked over here after visiting the zoo, arriving at the gate at 12.45pm. The next jeep run wasn't until 2.30pm, so I just walked up for a bit. I would be coming back here tomorrow morning for a proper visit, but for now I'd just see what I would see. I didn't expect much, because it was the middle of the day when all the birds tend to rest out of the heat, but maybe I'd strike it lucky with a gibbon. I saw a couple of macaques near the start, and then nothing for over an hour.

I went about 3.5km up the road. There were only a few birds during the walk because it was so hot, but they included two species of malkohas (Chestnut-breasted and Red-billed). Lots of Dusky Langurs; no Agile Gibbons. I saw a Malaysian Upland Squirrel up here as well - this is a recently-split species formerly included in the common Slender Squirrel of the lowlands but which genetically is more closely-related to the montane squirrels of Borneo.

The road was pretty busy with walkers - much busier than I had been expecting. I stopped for a while at a point where an old guy had set up a tea station. He comes here every day and just hangs out, giving free tea and watermelon to people. There were walkers passing constantly. [Here I had written "It must get really busy on the weekends!" but then I just went back and looked at my notebook and today was actually a Sunday, which explains it]. On the way back down I waited out a heavy rain storm in one of the shelters dotted along the route.

I didn't know how to get back to the hotel from here but I knew it was on the other side of the Lake Gardens so I just kept walking in that direction taking any likely-looking streets until I found it. Just along the road from Maxwell Hill by a cemetary was a tree full of birds. I thought they must be mynahs until I looked at them through my binoculars and found that it was actually dozens of Asian Fairy-Bluebirds! Probably the most surprising sight of the day.


Animals seen today:

BIRDS:
Feral Pigeon Columba livia
Asian House Swift Apus nipalensis
Germain's Swiftlet Collocalia germani
White-throated Kingfisher Halcyon smyrnensis
Yellow-vented Bulbul Pycnonotus goiavier
Lineated Barbet Megalaima lineata
Long-tailed Parakeet Psittacula longicauda
Pink-necked Green Pigeon Treron vernans
Black-naped Oriole Oriolus chinensis
Dollarbird Eurystomus orientalis
Asian Glossy Starling Aplonis panayensis
Common Mynah Acridotheres tristis
Zebra Dove Geopelia striata
Nutmeg Finch (Scaly-breasted Munia) Lonchura punctulata
Intermediate Egret Egretta intermedia
Pacific Swallow Hirundo tahitica
Purple Heron Ardea purpurea
Little Egret Egretta garzetta
Black-thighed Falconet Microhierax fringillarius
Black-crowned Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax
Painted Stork Mycteria leucocephala
Oriental Magpie-Robin Copsychus saularis
Striated Heron Butorides striatus
Tree Sparrow Passer montanus
Asian Paradise Flycatcher Terpsiphone paradisi
Scarlet Minivet Pericrocotus flammeus
White-bellied Yuhina Erpornis zantholeuca
Brown Shrike Lanius cristatus
Chestnut-breasted Malkoha Phaenicophaeus curvirostris
Dark-necked Tailorbird Orthotomus atrogularis
Red-billed Malkoha Phoenicophaeus javanicus
Asian Fairy Bluebird Irena puella

MAMMALS:
Plantain Squirrel Callosciurus notatus
Crab-eating Macaque Macaca fascicularis
Dusky Langur Trachypithecus obscurus
Malaysian Upland Squirrel Sundasciurus tahan

REPTILES:
Asian Water Monitor Varanus salvator
Green Crested Lizard Bronchocela cristatella

 

DAY NINE - the one with the Agile Gibbons


When I visit Bukit Fraser I stay there for several days at a stretch, ideally up to week if possible, enabling birding by day and spotlighting by night. For Maxwell Hill I was intending to do the same, with four or five days there before heading back to Kuala Lumpur to catch my flight to Thailand. I didn't know how long it would take to find the Agile Gibbons I was seeking, and also I knew there were some fantastic night critters there including Banded Linsang and Marbled Cat.

However, unlike Bukit Fraser, the accommodation on Maxwell Hill is extremely limited and there is only a single road instead of a whole network of roads and trails through the forests. It was a little difficult finding accurate information on accommodation options - most of the colonial buildings up there have been abandoned and the majority of websites aren't very specific or are contradictory. From someone's blog I found out about a Bed & Breakfast sort of place called The Nest which was relatively cheap and situated near the top of the hill, making it an ideal base for a multiple-night stay. Unfortunately, upon contacting the owner I found that it was closed for renovations until February 2020. I knew that there were government-run bungalows up there too, but not how much they were because I could only find old information. I figured I'd turn up and see what happened - worst comes to worst, I'd just stay in a cheap hotel in town and go up and down the mountain each day. I wouldn't be able to do any spotlighting (no entry is allowed at night if you aren't staying up there) but at least I'd be able to look for birds. Staying in town is what I ended up doing because the government bungalows were rented out only to groups, not to individuals, and were priced between 300 and 600 Ringgits per night.

I took a taxi to Maxwell Hill in the morning rather than walking. It was only twelve Ringgits. Anywhere in town seems to be twelve Ringgits because it's such a little town. The first jeep departure up the hill is at 8.30am, and the last one back down at 4.30pm. I tried to get a ticket for the 4.30pm jeep down but they said they don't sell tickets for those because they can't rely on the jeep being there (i.e. due to afternoon rain, which is most of the time, the last jeep going up at 2.30pm probably won't do the trip and so there will be no jeep to come down at 4.30pm). Makes you wonder why they even have a 4.30pm descent on the schedule if they don't sell tickets for it.

There is only a single road up the mountain. The jeeps terminate at Top Station at an elevation of 1036 metres asl after a 13km ride containing 108 turns - the road basically zigzags all the way to the top. The road continues on higher than Top Station, to the summit at 1250 metres, but this can be reached only on foot. I think all the accommodations are higher than Top Station - certainly The Nest is. There don't appear to be any trails off the road. Maxwell Hill is really not a patch on Bukit Fraser. At Bukit Fraser there is a range of accommodation right at the heart of a network of paved roads and forest trails; you can go out birding at first light and well into the night. If you get tired, just walk back to your accommodation; and if you get hungry just walk to one of the restaurants. At Maxwell Hill the earliest you could get to Top Station would be 9am (the jeep ride takes half an hour) and the only way to look for birds is walking up or down a steep zigzaggy road, and there aren't really any options for quitting the day for whatever reason because you're stuck on the side of a mountain. By midday I was already thinking that if I managed to see the gibbons today, then I was going to bail on Maxwell Hill and spend the remaining Malaysian days at Bukit Fraser.

I didn't have too much idea on the altitude range of the Agile Gibbons, so at first I walked (slowly) uphill from Top Station. There was very little to see on this morning. It was about an hour before I saw a bird-wave and most of the birds were too nippy to ID. I found a couple of reed snakes on the road which I photographed but haven't got round to IDing properly yet, and also a couple of leeches (the first of the trip - they found me while I was photographing one of the snakes). Lots of mosquitoes too - I had only seen about three mosquitoes on the trip up to this point. I could hear gibbons calling but they were far below on the mountain. A thick blanket of fog rolled in making any further attempts at birding impossible.







I went back down to Top Station, had first lunch, then walked downhill. I came across another bird wave which was good. I walked about 2km downhill, going slowly because I kept stopping for birds. I heard gibbons a couple of times which kept leading me down, although I was aware I couldn't go too far because I had to be back at Top Station for the 3pm jeep and I didn't know how long it would take me to walk back uphill.

After forty minutes I saw trees shaking far ahead in a gap through the canopy. I waited, thinking it would just be Dusky Langurs (of which I saw none at all today, despite them being common yesterday). A black shape jumped between the trees - I thought I saw a tail so figured it was a langur, but I kept waiting. The Agile Gibbon comes in two colour forms, black and brown, so I didn't want to jump to the wrong conclusion. Then a brown gibbon swung into view. It was much too far away for photos but through the binoculars the view was fine. Only a portion of the tree was visible so the sighting was quite brief, but it was good enough. At a guess the sighting would have been at about 900 metres asl.

I headed back uphill - much steeper than I had thought it was when coming down! Ten minutes after seeing the gibbons the rain started. Then that stopped and the fog rolled in again. It only took thirty minutes to walk back up to Top Station. I'd thought I'd gone a lot further down than that. I had two hours to wait for the jeep still. The fog was so thick up there that anything beyond about twenty metres was just a shadow, but I spent the two hours trying to bird in a matrix of fog and rain which was not at all successful. Only three birds were seen - Little Spiderhunter, Dark-sided Flycatcher, and Grey Wagtail. The latter two were new for my year list at least.

I had seen Agile Gibbon and I was definitely well over all the fog and the steepness of the road, so I had already made up my mind to leave for Bukit Fraser the next day. I didn't really think much of Maxwell Hill to be honest. I might go back if I could stay at The Nest and go out spotlighting, but otherwise not so much. At least I can say that I came, I saw (gibbons), and I conquered!

For anyone else planning on going there for the gibbons, I think the best chance at seeing them would be to take the jeep to the top and then walk all the way down to the bottom. The chance of seeing them from the jeep itself would probably be minimal. Walking up would work too, but it is really steep and really hot at the lower elevations.

Once back at the hotel I walked over to the train station (about 15 minutes away) and bought a ticket to Kuala Lumpur for tomorrow morning at 6.12am. I passed a pet shop on the way. Sugar Gliders were 220 Ringgits. Most birds were around 50 to 70 Ringgits, but pipits were only 3 Ringgits!



Animals seen today:

BIRDS:
Asian House Swift Apus nipalensis
Feral Pigeon Columba livia
Asian Glossy Starling Aplonis panayensis
White-bellied Sea Eagle Haliaeetus leucogaster
Germain's Swiftlet Collocalia germani
Yellow-vented Bulbul Pycnonotus goiavier
Plain Flowerpecker Dicaeum concolor
Mountain Fulvetta Alcippe peracensis
Asian Paradise Flycatcher Terpsiphone paradisi
Grey-headed Canary-Flycatcher Culicicapa ceylonensis
White-throated Fantail Rhipidura albicollis
Streaked Spiderhunter Arachnothera magna
Glossy (White-bellied) Swiftlet Collocalia esculenta
Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica
Black-crested Bulbul Pycnonotus flaviventris
Tiger Shrike Lanius tigrinus
Everett's White-eye Zosterops everetti
Eastern Crowned Warbler Phylloscopus coronatus
Mountain Tailorbird Phyllergates cucullatus
Golden Babbler Stachyridopsis chrysaea
Orange-breasted Trogon Harpactes oreskios
Black and Yellow Broadbill Eurylaimus ochromalus
Yellow-rumped Flycatcher Ficedula zanthopygia
Hairy-backed Bulbul Tricholestes criniger
Little Spiderhunter Arachnothera longirostra
Dark-sided Flycatcher Muscicapa sibirica
Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea
Slaty-backed Forktail Enicurus schistaceus
Pink-necked Green Pigeon Treron vernans
Tree Sparrow Passer montanus
Common Mynah Acridotheres tristis
Zebra Dove Geopelia striata

MAMMALS:
Crab-eating Macaque Macaca fascicularis
Agile Gibbon Hylobates agilis

REPTILES:
Two reed snakes which I haven't got round to IDing yet...

 

Yes, I thought you might like that one.

 

DAY TEN - the one with the change of plan


An early start this morning, with a train at 6.12am from Taiping. I had decided to skip out on Maxwell Hill and go to Bukit Fraser for the last couple of days in Malaysia. For this I had to take a train to Kuala Lumpur and then another train backtracking to the town of Kuala Kubu Bahru, and then finally a taxi for the last 50km to Bukit Fraser.

The train to Kuala Lumpur took 3.5hrs. On the way it stopped for a while at a station called Tanjung Malim. I was sitting there wondering why that name seemed so familiar but it wasn't until I got to KL Sentral and went to buy the ticket to KKB that I belatedly realised that Tanjung Malim is the station one over from KKB on the KM Komuter line. I could have saved myself four or five hours by getting off there!

Apparently they have changed the train schedules sometime recently. Instead of having trains from KL Sentral to KKB throughout the day, as used to be the case, now there are huge gaps - 6.30am for the first train, then 12.19pm, then 4.48pm, and finally 5.59pm. The next train I could catch wasn't until 12.19pm, almost three hours away. I had breakfast, then coffee, then first lunch, and finally I was on my way again.

The taxi from KKB to Bukit Fraser costs 100 Ringgits (it keeps going up!). However it is a distance of about 50km so that only works out at two Ringgits per kilometre (or really one Ringgit per kilometre for the driver because he has to make the trip back to KKB as well). It takes 45 minutes from KKB just to the entry road for Bukit Fraser, and then another 15 minutes to the village. The rain came in right as I reached the village.

The cheapest place to stay there is the Puncak Inn, which was now 110 Ringgits for their cheapest room, plus the ten Ringgit tourist tax. Like the taxi, it just keeps going up. Clearly it would have been cheaper for me to stay in Taiping and go up and down the Maxwell Hill road each day, but the logistics of Bukit Fraser are much simpler and, of course, I could go spotlighting here.

There was only three hours left of daylight so I went round the Telekom Loop. I love Bukit Fraser. There are birds everywhere and even if there aren't a lot of different species you're always seeing flocks of laughing thrushes, mixed feeding-groups of babblers and flycatchers, there are malkohas bouncing through the branches, and woodpeckers hammering away at trees.


Chestnut-capped Laughing Thrush

I saw what I think must have been a Lesser Gymnure on the road at dusk but didn't get a proper look at it (too far ahead and too brief) so couldn't be completely sure it wasn't something else small and mousey.

In the event I didn't even go out spotlighting on this first night because the weather turned from just a rainy day into a proper hide-under-your-bed Gal-Gadot-swinging-through-the-sky thunder-and-lightning storm. The amount of fallen debris littering the Telekom Loop road the next morning suggested I had been sensible not to be out in it.


Animals seen today:

BIRDS:
Zebra Dove Geopelia striata
Glossy (White-bellied) Swiftlet Collocalia esculenta
Black-crested Bulbul Pycnonotus flaviventris
Long-tailed Sibia Heterophasia picaoides
Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea
Streaked Spiderhunter Arachnothera magna
Oriental Magpie-Robin Copsychus saularis
Black and Crimson Oriole Oriolus cruentus
Black-browed Barbet Megalaima oorti
Chestnut-capped Laughing Thrush Garrulax mitratus
Black-bellied Malkoha Phaenicophaeus diardi
Fire-tufted Barbet Psilopogon pyrolophus
Grey-chinned Minivet Pericrocotus solaris
White-throated Fantail Rhipidura albicollis
Mountain Fulvetta Alcippe peracensis
Golden Babbler Stachyridopsis chrysaea
Black-throated Sunbird Aethopyga saturata
Rufous-browed Flycatcher Ficedula solitaris
Lesser Racquet-tailed Drongo Dicrurus remifer
Red-headed Trogon Harpactes erythrocephalus

MAMMALS:
Grey-bellied Squirrel Callosciurus caniceps
Himalayan Striped Squirrel Tamiops macclellandi
Red-bellied (Pallas') Squirrel Callosciurus erythraeus
Common Tree Shrew Tupaia glis
Malaysian Upland Squirrel Sundasciurus tahan

 

DAY ELEVEN - the one with the flying squirrels


After the free breakfast buffet which the Puncak Inn provides, I was back off around the Telekom Loop for the first half of the day. There were fallen tree limbs everywhere from the storm the previous night. The Loop isn't maintained very well, despite there being numerous homes along its length. At one point on the road the downhill side of it is just gone, barriered off with cones and tape but apparently with nothing being done to repair it or to stop it collapsing any further. In the evening when I came back for spotlighting I met the guy who lives in the half-destroyed house (people who have been around the Telekom Loop will know which house I mean), and he said that the problem is the water pipes which run alongside the roads, underground, which aren't fixed when they start leaking. The surrounding soil slowly gets washed away, and eventually the hillside gives way. The whole centre portion of this house disappeared down the hillside one night. He still lives in the "good" end of it.

The morning was quiet at first but it picked up later. I saw some White-thighed Langurs, and heard some Siamang calling but never saw them (the first time at Bukit Fraser when I haven't seen Siamang, but I also wasn't looking for them so perhaps not surprising).


White-thighed Langur


In the afternoon I went in the other direction - I'm not sure which way is east and which is west, so "on the opposite side of the village to the Telekom Loop" - and wandered around some of the roads there. I probably could have spent more time doing the trails but I prefer the roads. On the roads you can see further, the birds are attracted to them due to the "edge effect" (i.e. there are more insects), and the flocks tend to move along the roadsides so you can follow them whereas on the trails they are invariably crossing the trail and disappearing into the trees.

There were a few additional bird species seen this afternoon, including one of my favourites, the Blue Nuthatch. I've never got a photo of these, but if you Google them you'll see why I like them. Easily the best-looking nuthatch in the world. Also of interest was a flock of Sultan Tits, one of which had all the yellow replaced with white. I saw what was presumably the same flock both on the Telekom Loop in the morning and then over here in the afternoon, even though the distance between the two places is quite far. I've never seen a black and white Sultan Tit before, so it must have been the same flock.

Something else seen this afternoon was a bird tour group. Whenever I see a group like this it makes me happy that I bird alone. They were getting driven about the place in a van, and whenever it stopped they all get out and set up their tripods along the roadside, point their cameras up at the trees, and then just stand there while the guide plays bird calls until something turns up. How does a person bird like that? It must be such a hollow feeling. If someone said to me that I'd see a hundred birds if with such a group and I knew that I'd only see thirty by myself ... I'd still go out by myself! I simply like looking for birds.

I took a break in the latter part of the afternoon to wait out another rain-storm, which fortunately had petered out by evening.

It was already dark when I headed out to the Telekom Loop for my spotlighting session. I'd had my dinner, waited for the rain to die down to manageable levels, and now I was ready to start seeing animals. I saw no animals. Son of a budgie!

I'm not actually sure how long I persevered - an hour, two hours, a millenia. But, finally, I got some eye-shine in a tree-top, and it wasn't a tarantula this time. A Spotted Giant Flying Squirrel. They really do look weird when they are perched on a branch in the top of a tree, with their tail pressed up over their back. Then I saw a second one, and then a third! I'm pretty sure it was three individual animals and not just one teleporting about.

I was on a bend on the road, sort of manouevering about trying to get better looks at the squirrels, occasionally flashing the torch-beam into surrounding areas just in case something else was around. On one of these random sweeps, I picked up a pair of eyes on the ground around the bend. I had a red filter on the torch so all the eye-shine was appearing red. I thought it strange that one of the squirrels had come down onto the ground, but it turned out to be a Leopard Cat. It was interested in something on the road, intently staring at whatever it was, occasionally glancing my way, but I guess whatever it was wasn't prey because eventually the cat turned and walked off in the other direction.

I saw nothing else on the Loop despite another circuit. I'd been particularly looking out for Slow Lorises without any luck. Apparently my loris curse is back on. I did see another Spotted Giant Flying Squirrel on the walk back to the hotel. It rained very heavily again just after I got back, and continued through the rest of the night.


Animals seen today:

BIRDS:
Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea
Oriental Magpie-Robin Copsychus saularis
Pacific Swallow Hirundo tahitica
Mountain Fulvetta Alcippe peracensis
Golden Babbler Stachyridopsis chrysaea
White-throated Fantail Rhipidura albicollis
Black-throated Sunbird Aethopyga saturata
Grey-throated Babbler Stachyris nigriceps
Glossy (White-bellied) Swiftlet Collocalia esculenta
Slender-billed Crow Corvus enca
Sultan Tit Melanochlora sultanea
Streaked Spiderhunter Arachnothera magna
Mountain Bulbul Hypsipetes macclellandii
Oriental Honey Buzzard Pernis ptilorhynchus
Rufescent Prinia Prinia rufescens
Little Cuckoo-Dove Macropygia ruficeps
Little Pied Flycatcher Ficedula westermanni
Lesser Racquet-tailed Drongo Dicrurus remifer
Greater Yellownape Woodpecker Picus flavinucha
Long-tailed Sibia Heterophasia picaoides
Silver-eared Mesia Leiothrix argentauris
Chestnut-capped Laughing Thrush Garrulax mitratus
Chestnut-crowned Warbler Seicercus castaniceps
Black and Crimson Oriole Oriolus cruentus
Blue-winged Minla Siva cyanouroptera
Little Spiderhunter Arachnothera longirostra
Brown Shrike Lanius cristatus
Large Niltava Niltava grandis
Fire-tufted Barbet Psilopogon pyrolophus
Grey-chinned Minivet Pericrocotus solaris
Blue Nuthatch Sitta azurea
Ochraceous Bulbul Alophoixus ochraceus
Blue-tailed Bee-eater Merops philippinus
Mountain Imperial Pigeon Ducula badia

MAMMALS:
Grey-bellied Squirrel Callosciurus caniceps
Himalayan Striped Squirrel Tamiops macclellandi
Red-bellied (Pallas') Squirrel Callosciurus erythraeus
Common Tree Shrew Tupaia glis
White-thighed Langur Presbytis siamensis
Crab-eating Macaque Macaca fascicularis
Spotted Giant Flying Squirrel Petaurista elegans
Leopard Cat Prionailurus bengalensis

 

DAY TWELVE - the one with nothing much happening


I was only staying at Bukit Fraser for two nights and I had arranged with the taxi driver to pick me up this morning at 9.30am to take me back to KKB. Or so I thought. He never arrived. At 9.45am I asked at the hotel reception if they could call him, just to make sure he was on his way. He wasn't on his way. Despite him having assured me he would be there at this time and even having written it on the little calendar he had on his dashboard, he "thought I didn't need him now" and so didn't bother coming up. I wasn't particularly impressed.

He said he would come up now, although by the time he got there it was going to be at least 11am and my intended train was at 11.16 so that wasn't much help. In the end he didn't even come himself, he sent another driver "because he was busy". That driver didn't get there until almost midday. At least I didn't have to wait long for the 1pm train when I finally got to KKB.

In a remarkable ships-passing-in-the-night moment, I later found out that @MRJ arrived at Bukit Fraser on this very afternoon.

Looking at Google Maps before the trip I had seen that there were quite a few hotels and hostels scattered around in the vicinity of KL Sentral, so when my train got in to Kuala Lumpur I found myself at one of those, called City Central Hotel. I couldn't be bothered looking around further for a cheaper one.

I only had the remainder of this afternoon and then the whole of the following day in KL, and then I was flying off to Thailand. I wanted to visit the KL Bird Park but that would be tomorrow because it was already almost 4pm. For today I thought I might have the time to go to a little zoo I'd only recently found out about, called Farm In The City, which has a range of small exotic animals including a dikdik. I'd looked up some directions before the trip, namely to take a train to Serdang station and then a taxi from there. Sounded simple, and on the maps it didn't look far at all so the taxi shouldn't cost much. Hmm. When I got to Serdang the taxi drivers said it would be 30 Ringgits "because it is very far and there is lots of hills". I knew that wasn't true but they wouldn't budge. That'd be 60 Ringgits return, plus whatever the entry fee might be. I decided I didn't want to see a dikdik that badly, and got back on the train. The daily torrential downpour started just after that, so it's probably just as well.

Back in the central city I thought I might try and find out some details on the tourist tax. Prices for hotels seemed to be more expensive than what I'd usually encounter but only the Puncak Inn had actually said that there was a ten Ringgit tax (and even gave a separate receipt slip for that ten Ringgits). I walked round some of the hotels in the vicinity. From what I gathered some hotels always add on the tax, but with a lot of hotels they only charge it when rooms are booked online - if you walk in off the street they will not charge it, or will give you a "discount" (i.e. just take off the tax). And then there are apparently places which don't charge it at all. It seems like a really random sort of tax and I have no idea how the government enforces it.

This was the first day of the trip where I had seen no mammals. So after eating dinner I did what any sensible mammalwatcher would do, and went for a walk through the alleyways behind the restaurants looking for rats. It wasn't long before I found an alley in which, apparently, all the local restaurants dumped their rubbish bags. I walked along the semi-lit part of the alley to the unlit part, where the darkness was only relieved by distant streetlights reflecting off the puddles. I wondered if it was a trick of the light which made it seem as if the ground was moving, but no, it was rats. Dozens and dozens of huge rats swarming everywhere. There may have been more than one species there, but all the ones I could see well enough were Brown Rats, much too large and chunky to be Asian House Rats. Mammalwatching sure is fun.


Animals seen today:

BIRDS:
Long-tailed Sibia Heterophasia picaoides
Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea
Oriental Magpie-Robin Copsychus saularis
Common Mynah Acridotheres tristis
Spotted Dove Streptopelia chinensis
House Crow Corvus splendens
Feral Pigeon Columba livia
White-vented Mynah Acridotheres grandis
Nutmeg Finch (Scaly-breasted Munia) Lonchura punctulata
Tree Sparrow Passer montanus

MAMMALS:
Brown Rat Rattus norvegicus

 

DAY THIRTEEN - the one with the bird park


This is another one of those daily posts where I don't have a whole lot to say. The only thing I did was go to the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park. The bird park is very close to KL Sentral, and hence close to where my hotel was. It should have been an easy walk but trying to navigate the maze of overpasses on the other side of KL Sentral was much too confusing and in the end I forked out for a taxi (which was only 16 Ringgits). I did manage to walk back afterwards though.

I had got to the bird park before opening time, so whiled away the half-hour by looking for birds in the trees around about. One of the birds turned out to be something special for me. A Purple-backed Starling, an uncommon migrant through Malaysia which I had never seen before. The field guide says "often associates with Asian Glossy [Starlings]" which is exactly what this individual was doing.

The entry for the bird park is a whopping 63 Ringgits, almost as much (when converted to whatever your own currency is) as the far superior Jurong Bird Park in Singapore. I was there for three hours so I guess I got my money's worth, but it is very over-priced. When I left Malaysia the next day I had 21 Ringgits left in my wallet. I think I made the right decision in choosing the bird park over the Farm In The City (the day before). If I'd gone to the latter I wouldn't have had enough cash for the bird park today.

I have put a thread about the bird park here: KL Bird Park species list, October 2019 [Kuala Lumpur Bird Park]


Animals seen today:

BIRDS:
House Crow Corvus splendens
Tree Sparrow Passer montanus
Asian Glossy Starling Aplonis panayensis
Purple-backed (Daurian) Starling Agropsar (Sturnus) sturninus
Zebra Dove Geopelia striata
Yellow-vented Bulbul Pycnonotus goiavier
Javan Mynah Acidotheres javanicus
Oriental Magpie-Robin Copsychus saularis
Black-naped Oriole Oriolus chinensis
Spotted Dove Streptopelia chinensis

MAMMALS:
Crab-eating Macaque Macaca fascicularis
Plantain Squirrel Callosciurus notatus

 

DAY FOURTEEN - the one with no mammals!


A couple of years ago (right after my last trip ended, annoyingly) I had found out about a couple of temples in the north of Thailand which are visited by habituated Assamese Macaques and Indochinese Grey Langurs respectively. The first one I came across in a book called Primates in Fragments, which contained a chapter on the fortunes of temple-visiting macaques in Thailand, while the second was from a report on the Mammalwatching website. Because these were both species I had never seen in the wild and which seemed in these situations to be as good as guaranteed, I had been waiting since then to be able to add them into a trip somehow. This one was as good a trip as any. I'll be honest, I did feel a bit stupid going to Thailand solely to dash between two temples to see habituated monkeys and nothing else, but oh well.

At 1.30pm I had a two hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, arriving at 2.50pm Bangkok-time, followed by a 5.30pm flight to Chiang Rai which is in the far northwest of Thailand. The flight coming into Bangkok had to go through the as-expected rainstorm so it was a little bumpy. It had rained every day in Singapore and Malaysia, in varying quantities, but from this point on there was only the occasional day where I saw rain.

At Bangkok airport there was a Dairy Queen in the departure lounge where my gate was for the Chiang Rai flight. In my 2013/14 trip-thread I mentioned having seen a Dairy Queen in Shanghai - until today, the first and last time I ever saw one - and someone had made a comment that I should try a Blizzard if I should ever see a Dairy Queen again. So I did that and it was good (it was an Oreo Blizzard if that matters).

The only birds seen in Bangkok were fly-by mynahs which were probably Commons but I couldn't say for sure.

I landed in Chiang Rai at 7pm. It was already well after dark but I got my first Thai bird of the trip with House Swifts roosting under the entrance to the airport.

There's quite a new bus service between the airport and the town centre which costs just 20 Baht (about NZ$1) - previously there had been only taxis for ten times that amount. While sitting in the bus waiting for it to leave, a German guy from off my plane comes walking along staring intently at his phone's Google instructions. Me, I just walked out of the airport, asked somebody where the bus left from, and then walked in that direction until I found it. This German guy gets to the stop, literally standing right next to the bus, and keeps staring at his phone trying to figure out where to go next. Eventually the driver got off the bus and told him he was standing beside it. Then on the whole bus ride into town he is still keeping track of where he is on his phone map. The bus only goes to one place - you can't exactly get off at the wrong stop!

I ended up walking alongside him after we got off at the bus station. He was booked into a place called Bed Friends which happened to be on the backpacker street Jed Yod Soi which is a couple of blocks over from the bus station, and is the street I was heading for anyway, so we walked there together. The price of a room at Bed Friends was 380 Baht but the girl on reception gave me a discount to 330 Baht for reasons, and so that's where I stayed.

Bed Friends is a very nice place indeed - they call it a "poshtel" - it's more like a hotel than a hostel and is certainly one of the nicest I've stayed at. I'd give it five stars (out of five). I definitely recommend it if in Chiang Rai.

Not surprisingly, given that the day was mostly spent in airports and on planes, this was the first day of the trip where no mammals at all were seen. I was hoping that would not be the case the following day.


Animals seen today:

BIRDS:
[Malaysia]
Tree Sparrow Passer montanus
House Crow Corvus splendens
Feral Pigeon Columba livia
Spotted Dove Streptopelia chinensis
White-vented Mynah Acridotheres grandis
Pacific Swallow Hirundo tahitica
Common Mynah Acridotheres tristis

[Thailand]
Asian House Swift Apus nipalensis

MAMMALS:
None

 

So, I learned a new word today...

I googled "smombie". I don't have a smart-phone so I had never heard of that before.

 

DAY FIFTEEN - the one with the monkey temple


Assamese Macaques have been my nemesis monkey for a number of years. They live in several of the countries I've been to, and yet they keep eluding me. Even in Assam, the very place they are named after, I couldn't find any. So when I learned of a temple north of Chiang Rai which is visited daily by groups of Assamese Macaques I knew I'd have to go there. Of course I'd much rather see them in the forest being wild, but if I had to go to a tourist temple covered in attack-monkeys then I would grimace and bear it.

The very far north of Thailand isn't the most convenient part of the country to reach directly. The only reason backpackers generally go that far past the provincial capital of Chiang Mai is to cross into Laos (or in earlier days into Burma). I went through a couple of ideas for getting up here. One option would be to fly into Bangkok and then take either a train or bus to the city of Chiang Mai, and then the following day another bus further north to Chiang Rai. This would take too much time on a limited trip (travel time between Bangkok and Chiang Mai is between ten and fifteen hours, and then to Chiang Rai another three-plus hours). Second option would be to fly all the way to Chiang Mai (with a connecting flight through Bangkok), and then the next day take a bus to Chiang Rai. This seemed like the best option time-wise and I was going to book that flight - but when I was on the Air Asia website I realised that they also fly direct from Bangkok to Chiang Rai itself. Even more time saved.

I had arrived in Chiang Rai in the dark the night before, so it wasn't until today that I could get a proper look at it. The town was not what I was expecting. I thought it would be a small provincial town but it is extremely Westernised, like a miniature Bangkok. There are massage parlours about every second or third shop. Round the corner from the hostel there was even a cat cafe where people hang out with cats while drinking coffee.

I can't remember the name of the German guy from the bus yesterday so I'll just call him Jurgen. He had inserted himself into my plan to visit the monkey temple which was okay by me. The temple is called Wat Tham Pla ("temple of the fish cave") and to get there I had to take a bus 1.5 hours north, almost to Mae Sai, and then walk about 2.5km to the temple. I figured there would be dogs along that 2.5km so having a German to push between me and the teeth would be an advantage. It turned out that Jurgen had only ever been on package tours and this was his first time as a solo backpacker. He was actually quite excited about this "adventure" he was having today with me - he'd never travelled on a rattlebucket local bus before and kept exclaiming that this wasn't something he would normally do. Of course that meant I couldn't just ditch him either, although he did note that if we got separated he had his phone and could call for a taxi back to Chiang Rai.

The walk to the temple passed without me needing Jurgen's body for a shield, with all the many dogs being perfectly well behaved. Surprisingly the macaques were also quite polite when we arrived. I had been a little worried that I wouldn't even see any but there were a lot of them. Possibly because it was only around 8am still, they had no interest in this lone couple of tourists. Instead they spent their time running about the roofs of the pagodas and antagonising the monks who seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of their time chasing monkeys with sticks to stop them stealing the offerings at the temples.



Before the trip I had been in two minds as to whether I would visit Wat Tham Pla. I wanted to see Assamese Macaques but at the same time I wanted to see them "in the wild" rather than "visiting a temple for food". In fact I took it off my trip plan a couple of times. In the end I decided I would visit and I'm glad I did. The macaques aren't really coming there to be fed directly, but more because that is where they can find food (if that's a distinction which makes sense), and they live in the limestone mountains up behind the temples.



I'd been a bit unsure, too, how easily I'd be able to distinguish Assamese Macaques from Rhesus Macaques in the wild. In books they always look quite similar to me (or at least similar enough that I could imagine I'd have trouble telling them apart in the flesh) and I haven't paid enough attention to them in zoos, but in reality they are not really anything like Rhesus Macaques. I'd always been inspecting every Rhesus I saw in Vietnam and other countries, just in case, but now I think it would have been immediately obvious if any had been Assamese Macaques.



I'm not sure if the temple really is much visited by tourists. Tripadvisor and other such sites would lead you to believe that it is a regular tourist destination but having been there I think that is unlikely. You have to go a bit out of your way to get there - it's not directly on any tourist route so it has to be a deliberate decision to make your way there, and I tend to find that even most backpackers don't want to do things that take any individual effort on their part. Obviously there are exceptions but most of them just want to hang out with other backpackers and go where the others go. It makes being an antisocial animal-watcher much easier because even places which are actually simple to get to are generally not well-visited by other tourists.



On the way back to Chiang Rai the bus passed a restaurant called "Cabbages and Condoms". I just ... how does a name like that come into being?

The next monkey temple I would be visiting was outside Loei, some distance to the east. There were direct buses between Chiang Rai and Loei, but only a few a day, so I'd been thinking about breaking the trip by heading first to the town of Phitsanulok (about 6.5 hours away, supposedly with hourly buses according to Google) and then the following day to Loei (another six hours). However when we got back to Chiang Rai it was after noon already, so I decided to stay where I was. I caught a bus over to Terminal 2 to get a bus ticket to Loei for the next day. The earliest bus was at 11am, not scheduled to get to Loei until 10pm. That was going to be fun...


Animals seen today:

BIRDS:
Tree Sparrow Passer montanus
Common Mynah Acridotheres tristis
Spotted Dove Streptopelia chinensis
White-vented Mynah Acridotheres grandis
Red-whiskered Bulbul Pycnonotus jocosus
Nutmeg Finch (Scaly-breasted Munia) Lonchura punctulata
Sooty-headed Bulbul Pycnonotus aurigaster
Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica
Ashy Woodswallow Artamus fuscus
House Sparrow Passer domesticus
Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis

MAMMALS:
Assamese Macaque Macaca assamensis