Doucs And Dong: Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part four (2015)

Day Four: Cat Tien National Park (Crocodile Lake)

Because the rain last night had put a stop to my spot-lighting, I thought I would get up early and go out before dawn to try to spy some nocturnal beasties before they retired for the day. So I got up at 4am, but just as I was walking out the door the rain suddenly came thundering down again, and it didn't let up until after 6am. So instead I just sat in the watch-tower until after breakfast. While watching the bitterns and jacanas flying around I spotted a Yellow Bittern (the only one I saw here), as well as a small group of Lesser Whistling Ducks. Some small black and white thing was buzzing around the far side of the lake - I had an idea of what it might be but it took a while before it landed in the right place, in the sun, for me to be able to see it properly. It was a male White Pigmy Goose, I guess the flying being a display for his female because they were the only two I could see.

After breakfast I went off down the trail (there's only one here). Not far from the ranger post, as I was creeping along really slow and quiet, there was suddenly a huge roar from off to the side and a thrashing of bushes. I just about leapt out of my skin, with all my primeval instincts shouting "giant predator, run like hell!". I'm not sure what it was; it didn't sound like a Sambar so I'm fairly certain it was probably a Gaur. It was close but I sure as heck wasn't going into the undergrowth to find out! Gaur can be mean, and if it was one it didn't sound happy about me surprising it.

Elsewhere on the trail I saw Black-shanked Doucs three times today, first a lone male and then two separate troops, but all of them were very shy, disappearing as soon as they realised I had seen them. Another monkey troop turned out to be Northern Pig-tailed Macaques. I was also happy to spot two Cambodian Striped Squirrels. There are only four species of Tamiops - I had seen Himalayan Striped Squirrels several times before in Malaysia, and the Maritime and Swinhoe's Striped Squirrels in China in 2013, so the Cambodian Striped Squirrel was the final one. I didn't manage to get any photos of course.

Despite spending a long morning being oh so quiet and sneaky on the trail, I completely failed to find any peacock-pheasants or pittas. I think I may have heard both calling but I'm not good with bird calls so I wouldn't quote me on that one! I did see a Scaly-breasted Partridge scruffing around in the leaf litter, and briefly a female Siamese Fireback Pheasant; I think there had been a male as well, as I got a glimpse of some bright red through the leaves, but if so he disappeared before I actually saw him.

Later in the day, back at the watch-tower, three Green Peafowl were out in the same place as yesterday but for about an hour from 4pm to 5pm. If I understood the ranger correctly the peafowl come right past the buildings at dawn, but that didn't happen while I was there. Also in the afternoon I spied a little bird running around in the vegetable patch below the watch-tower, which turned out to be an Indochinese Bushlark picking caterpillars off the plants.

The only animal seen during this night's spot-lighting efforts was a Common Palm Civet, which was probably the same one as on the previous night.


Birds seen today:
Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica
White-throated Kingfisher Halcyon smyrnensis
Black Bittern Dupetor flavicollis
Lesser Coucal Centropus bengalensis
Asian Golden Weaver Ploceus hypoxanthus
Oriental Darter Anhinga melanogaster
39) Golden-fronted Leafbird Chloropsis aurifrons
40) Golden-bellied Gerygone Gerygone sulphurea
Bronze-winged Jacana Metopidius indicus
White-breasted Waterhen Amaurornis phoenicurus
Cinnamon Bittern Ixobrychus cinnamomeus
41) Common Iora Aegithina tiphia
42) Yellow Bittern Ixobrychus sinensis
43) Lesser Whistling Duck Dendrocygna javanica
Purple Heron Ardea purpurea
44) White Pigmy Goose Nettapus coromandelianus
Oriental Pied Hornbill Anthracoceros albirostris
White-rumped Shama Copsychus malabaricus
Blue-winged Leafbird Chloropsis cochinchinensis
45) Ruby-cheeked Sunbird Chalcoparia singalensis
Great Iora Aegithina lafresnayei
46) Siamese Fireback Pheasant Lophura diardi
47) Scaly-breasted Partridge Arborophila chloropus
48) Plain Prinia Prinia inornata
Green Peafowl Pavo muticus
49) Indochinese Bushlark Mirafra erythrocephala
Purple Swamphen Porphyrio porphyrio
50) Streak-eared Bulbul Pycnonotus blanfordi


Mammals seen today:
Black-shanked Douc Pygathrix nigripes
6) Cambodian Striped Squirrel Tamiops rodolphii
Pallas' (Red-bellied) Squirrel Callosciurus erythraeus
7) Northern Pig-tailed Macaque Macaca leonina
Common Palm Civet Paradoxurus hermaphroditus

 

I was in range for Saola a few days hence but in the time-frame I had there was literally no chance of going to try and find one, if they even still exist in the places I was at.

 

I think there may be an element of over-dramatisation for you. It was basically just some huge animal really close but which I never saw. It wasn't a Wild Pig or a Sambar because I know what both of them sound like (although Sambar can sound jolly scary). I doubt there's any Tigers within a hundred miles of there, and it didn't sound anything like a Leopard. It could have been a bear but I don't really know how loud and scary a bear sounds. So my bet is still on Gaur, especially because I know there are herds of them in the immediate area and they spend the day in the forest (coming out into the grasslands at night to graze).

 

whoops, sorry. There's one below (although I think this will probably be your morning instead? Just read it while eating your breakfast).

This is the last one I actually have written out, so don't expect them every day from now on....

 

Day Five: Cat Tien National Park

This morning I counted three Siamese Crocodiles in the water in front of the watch-tower. After breakfast I left the lake to return to the HQ where I would be staying for two more nights. My jeep-ride to the lake had only been one-way (because I had just shared someone else's day-trip jeep), so I was simply going to walk back to the HQ. It was 14km so not far and I didn't have much to carry, having left at reception anything that I hadn't needed for the two nights stay at the lake. On the trail back to the main road I heard Buff-cheeked Gibbons calling and saw a troop of Black-shanked Doucs really well (and got a couple of horribly-blurry photos of a baby douc). I also spied out a sneaky Lesser Mouse Deer creeping through the undergrowth. Bird-wise was a bit better than the other days, with my very first Drongo Cuckoos (finally!) as well as the near-endemic Grey-faced Tit-babblers and a cool Pale-headed Woodpecker. Still no pittas or peacock-pheasants. A couple of times I came across pairs of dung beetles on the road, collecting the little balls of poo in which they lay their eggs. I've never seen dung beetles in real life before, believe it or not, so I had to stop to watch them for a bit. I felt like Gerald Durrell. The road itself back to HQ didn't show up much at all unfortunately, other than a few very common birds.

Back at HQ I checked in to one of the 200,000 Dong rooms which are all contained within the Pheasant building (all the bungalows and buildings have "national park" names - the original bungalow I stayed in was called Lagerstroemia, which is a type of tree, and other rooms had names like Elephant or Hornbill). The room was a basic concrete room, nothing flash, but it had a bed and a fan so it suited me fine. The toilets were seperate to the room, which apparently for some people is a big deal, and that is why they don't offer them to tourists unless you specify you want the cheapest rooms.

After lunch I walked along the road heading south from HQ, the one which runs firstly through groves of giant bamboo and scrappy forest, and then to the grasslands. In the bamboo I saw some monkeys disappearing, and really was fortunate to get a brief look at a young one showing it was a macaque with a long tail, which here translates solely to Crab-eating Macaque (aka Long-tailed Macaque). All other macaques in Vietnam have either a short tail or no tail at all. Crab-eaters are well-nigh ubiquitous in southeast Asia, often turning into little hooligans around anywhere that tourists are, so when even they actively avoid people you know you're in a country where wildlife-watching is hard work!!

There are apparently two watch-towers in the grasslands, used by birders for spotting Green Peafowl. I walked for a fair distance - and it was jolly freaking hot out there on the road! - and never found the first one which is supposed to be set back from the road but still visible, but I did find the second one. It sits right next to the road, has a good number of the steps missing and half the floor of the viewing deck has rotted away leaving gaping holes.

I saw Green Peafowl twice in cut-over sections while walking, some sort of quail or buttonquail crossing the road (not close enough to see which species), a good-sized flock of Moustached Parakeets, lots of Indian Rollers and Dollarbirds, Black-hooded Orioles, and two lifers - Red Collared Doves and Chestnut-capped Babblers. In one of the cut-over sections (where the head-high grass is harvested, leaving big squares of short grass) there was a herd of Sambar.

Earlier at reception I had enquired about their night drives and been told there was one going out tonight with four people, so I had signed on for that (it cost me 170,000 Dong, the full price being roughly divided amongst the number of participants). I like spot-lighting alone but on foot you are restricted to walking distances, so I also like to try out night drives where they are available because the distances covered can be greater and often more species are seen. Both ways have their merits, and often night drives really suck in the way they are operated, but I still give them a try. The one at Cat Tien goes along the same south road I walked today through the grasslands (in fact I had walked the entire distance the truck travelled) and most of the animals seen were Sambar. But just past the second watch-tower we lit up a herd of about ten Gaur. I have seen these before in India but they were in long grass which made them seem smaller - or at least made me remember them as smaller - whereas these ones were on short grass. They are Gigantic!! It was a very nice species to see on my birthday. Oh, had I mentioned today was my birthday? Well, it was. Apart for those two species, the only other animal seen was a Burmese Hare, which I saw only because I was using my own torch at the same time.

After the truck had returned to the HQ I walked up the northbound road through the forest for a few hours looking for Pigmy Slow Loris without success, although I did see another Lesser Mouse Deer (these are obviously very common at Cat Tien!).

The only rain for today came in at about 11pm.


Birds seen today:
Cinnamon Bittern Ixobrychus cinnamomeus
Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica
Bronze-winged Jacana Metopidius indicus
Asian Golden Weaver Ploceus hypoxanthus
Golden-fronted Leafbird Chloropsis aurifrons
Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker Dicaeum cruentatum
Lesser Whistling Duck Dendrocygna javanica
White-throated Kingfisher Halcyon smyrnensis
Lesser Coucal Centropus bengalensis
White-breasted Waterhen Amaurornis phoenicurus
Purple Swamphen Porphyrio porphyrio
Black Bittern Dupetor flavicollis
White Pigmy Goose Nettapus coromandelianus
Streak-eared Bulbul Pycnonotus blanfordi
Green-billed Malkoha Phaenicophaeus tristis
51) Drongo Cuckoo Surniculus lugubris
Blue-winged Leafbird Chloropsis cochinchinensis
52) Pale-headed Woodpecker Gecinclus grantia
53) Ochraceous Bulbul Alophoixus ohraceus
54) Grey-faced Tit-babbler Macronous kelleyi
Streaked spiderhunter Arachnothera magna
Great Iora Aegithina lafresnayei
White-rumped Shama Copsychus malabaricus
Oriental Pied Hornbill Anthracoceros albirostris
Greater Racquet-tailed Drongo Dicrurus paradiseus
Dollarbird Eurystomus orientalis
Racket-tailed Treepie Crypsirina temia
Stripe-throated Bulbul Pycnonotus finlaysoni
Black-headed Bulbul Pycnonotus atriceps
Common Iora Aegithina tiphia
55) Dark-necked Tailorbird Orthotomus atrogularis
Black Drongo Dicrurus macrocercus
Chestnut-headed Bee-eater Merops leschenaulti
Purple Heron Ardea purpurea
56) Indian Roller Coracias benghalensis
57) Red-wattled Lapwing Vanellus indicus
Spot-necked Dove Streptopelia chinensis
58) Sooty-headed Bulbul Pycnonotus aurigaster
59) Black-hooded Oriole Oriolus xanthornus
60) Yellow-bellied Prinia Prinia flaviventris
61) Moustached Parakeet Psittacula alexandri
Green Peafowl Pavo muticus
62) Red collared Dove Streptopelia tranquebarica
63) Chestnut-capped Babbler Timalia pileata


Mammals seen today:
Black-shanked Douc Pygathrix nigripes
Pallas' (Red-bellied) Squirrel Callosciurus erythraeus
Lesser Mouse Deer Tragulus kanchil
8) Crab-eating Macaque Macaca fascicularis
9) Sambar Cervus unicolor
10) Gaur Bos gaurus
11) Burmese Hare Lepus peguensis

 

thanks. I forgot to add the photo I was going to. It's a bad crop, but for anyone who likes Green Peafowl and wanted to know what they look like when not photographed properly, this was one of the ones I saw on Day Five.

Heh, the grass makes it look like the peafowl is only the size of a starling!

 

Day Six: Cat Tien National Park

Today was my last full day at Cat Tien. The next morning I would be heading back to Saigon for the next stage of the trip. My main goal for the day was to find some Buff-cheeked Gibbons. At Crocodile Lake I had been told that the Heavens Rapids track was a good place, so I was going to head out there nice and early. I didn't get out quite as early as I hoped; in fact I didn't leave my room until about 5.45am, just after light. As it happened, that worked to my advantage. As I came out I heard gibbons calling, and they sounded really close. I knew there were some captive ones at the HQ for rehabilitation, in cages behind the Hornbill cottage, but I had a scan of the surrounding trees just in case - and right there was a family trio of Buff-cheeked Gibbons hollering away at the captive ones, challenging them through song! As easy as that. Certainly better than paying 1.7 million Dong for the "Gibbon Walk" as a lot of tourists do. Somehow I still couldn't get any good photos, even though they were right out in the open at the top of their tree. All the photos had a haze to them and not one was acceptable. I have attached a couple of crops of the female and young after the post though.

The gibbons were the last primate species I saw at Cat Tien. Apart for those I also saw Black-shanked Douc, Annamese Silvered Langur, Crab-eating Macaque and Northern Pig-tailed Macaque. The ones I missed were the Pigmy Slow Loris, Stump-tailed Macaque and Rhesus Macaque (of which I have seen the last two elsewhere, but I apparently still retain my Slow Loris curse even after finding Bornean Slow Loris on my last trip).

With gibbon-spotting taken care of I went for breakfast. There are two restaurants at the HQ, one right next to the reception building and the second down by the Pheasant and Lagerstroemia rooms where I had been staying. I had read in various places that the second one was the better of the two, with better food and better service. However I found quite the opposite, so while I had eaten at the second restaurant for lunch on my first day, for every other meal I dined at the first restaurant. This was fortunate, because on this morning while waiting for my food to be served I noticed what I at first thought was probably a babbler or something similar in the bamboo outside. I put my binoculars on it and was delighted to see that it was in fact a Northern Slender-tailed Tree Shrew. It was surprisingly small and looked exactly like the painting in the Charles Francis mammal guide (which I had up to that point thought was a pretty rubbish picture!). The tree shrew moved along a fallen bamboo stem in a jerky sort of fashion, flicking its tail up and down, then scooted up a vertical stem and disappeared.

After breakfast I spent the entire morning creeping around jungle trails, seeing literally nothing except a Tickell's Blue Flycatcher and a bunch of leeches (yet still not many leeches, probably no more than twenty or so all up). The Uncle Dong trail came out at the end of the paved road, 3km north of the HQ, so I walked up the unpaved bit for a couple more kilometres (this is the road which leads towards the Crocodile Lake trail) and then back to the start of the Heavens Rapids track. In all of that I saw only a Green-billed Malkoha and a lone Northern Pig-tailed Macaque. On the Heavens Rapids track I saw a Heart-spotted Woodpecker and not a lot else.

The horseflies were driving me nuts today. They are solitary but they follow you along so after a while you have five or ten of them buzzing around you. They are pretty clever, sometimes taking a ride on your hat when they get tired of flying. Their bite is painful, which seems a bit counterproductive because as soon as they bite they get swiped at, unlike mosquitoes which bite painlessly and can then just sit there drinking blood until they are full. However the horseflies are as tough as old boots. Sometimes when you swat them, they just fly away as if barely even inconvenienced by the assault; other times the swat will knock them to the ground, only for them to rouse themselves and take to the air again. I'm pretty sure they hold grudges too. Also I picked up a sneaky leech which somehow got up inside my trouser leg and attached itself to my calf. When I finally noticed, the entire back of the trouser leg from the knee down was bright red with blood. Today wasn't going well bird-wise, so I stopped off for a bit back at the HQ where I washed the trousers to get the blood out while it was still fresh, then had a little siesta.

In the afternoon I thought I would check out the fruiting fig tree down the road to see if the fruit pigeons were there (the ones which I had thought were Pompadour Pigeons but then changed my mind on). They were not, so their identity remained unresolved for me. But while I was busy not seeing any pigeons I glanced up the road, and about 150 metres further along I saw a mongoose which had just come around the bend and appeared to be about to disappear into the grass at the side. My immediate thought was Crab-eating Mongoose, and I was pretty gutted because I thought it was about to vanish before I'd even got a look at it. But it didn't vanish. Instead it just started trotting along the side of the road in my direction. I already had my binoculars trained upon it of course, and by then knew it wasn't a Crab-eating Mongoose because the colour was all wrong and the coat wasn't shaggy enough. Instead it was a Small Asian Mongoose. It was periodically poking its nose into the grass, presumably smelling for prey, but getting closer and closer to me. Every so often it would stop and stare at me , but because I wasn't moving it would then just start walking again. This was one animal I could have got some brilliant photos of, right out in the open in the sunlight, but I knew that the only reason I was seeing it so well was because it didn't seem to realise what I was, and if tried to lower the binoculars and make a move for my camera it would bolt. So I just watched it. When it was within ten metres of me it stopped and stared intently at me, no doubt wondering what this strange human-shaped tree was doing on the road, then it simply turned sideways and slid into the long grass and disappeared.

A bit later, just north of HQ, a small bird landed on a powerline. Binoculars on it, thinking it was going to be a bulbul - it proved to be a Collared Falconet, a falcon the size of a sparrow, which was dismembering a dragonfly, ripping off the legs and wings and then swallowing the body. I went back onto the trails to try one final time for pittas but no joy. I saw a troop of Black-shanked Doucs though, which meant I saw doucs on every day I was at the park. Some spot-lighting after dark uncovered only a Lesser Mouse Deer which I reckon was the same one as on the previous night. A big thunder storm rolled in at around 8.30pm, putting a stop to any further searches for lorises.

So that was Cat Tien done. I saw 65 species of birds there, of which 7 were lifers, and 14 species of mammals of which 5 were lifers. I spent about NZ$230 in five days, including the transport to and from Saigon, which works out at about NZ$46 per day, mostly because the accommodation is more expensive than what you could find in a city. I saved money on the accommodation for the last two nights (with the 200,000 room instead of the original 480,000 room), the jeep to Crocodile Lake (150,000 split, instead of the full 500,000) and the bus back to Saigon (120,000 instead of 300,000 or so) - totalling over a million Dong or about NZ$70. However food was more expensive than I would have liked, roughly twice what the same meals would have cost at, say, the Saigon bus station (which is higher again than at normal restaurants). The meals at Crocodile Lake were very good value for money though.


Next stop: Mang Den in central Vietnam.


Birds seen today:
Greater Racquet-tailed Drongo Dicrurus paradiseus
White-rumped Shama Copsychus malabaricus
64) Tickell's Blue Flycatcher Cyornis tickelliae
Green-billed Malkoha Phaenicophaeus tristis
65) Heart-spotted Woodpecker Hemicircus canente
Dark-necked Tailorbird Orthotomus atrogularis
Great Iora Aegithina lafresnayei
Grey-faced Tit-babbler Macronous kelleyi
Black-headed Bulbul Pycnonotus atriceps
66) Bronzed Drongo Dicrurus aeneus
67) Collared Falconet Microhierax caerulescens


Mammals seen today:
12) Buff-cheeked Gibbon Nomascus gabriellae
13) Northern Slender-tailed Tree Shrew Dendrogale murina
Northern Pig-tailed Macaque Macaca leonina
14) Small Asian Mongoose Herpestes javanicus
Pallas' (Red-bellied) Squirrel Callosciurus erythraeus
Black-shanked Douc Pygathrix nigripes
Lesser Mouse Deer Tragulus kanchil


Below are some bad crops of bad photos, showing the juvenile gibbon, the mother gibbon with the juvenile wrapped around her belly, and the Collared Falconet.

 

Day Seven: on the buses

My next stop after Cat Tien would be Mang Den in central Vietnam, sort of halfway between Saigon and Danang but on the inland side of Vietnam rather than the coastal side, so few tourists go anywhere near there. First I had to return to Saigon to catch a bus. I mentioned in an earlier post that there is a local bus between Cat Tien and Saigon, and this bears repeating. Most information you find online says that to get to Cat Tien from Saigon you need to take one of the Dalat-bound tourist buses to the town of Tan Phu (pronounced roughly like "ton foo") and then get a motorbike-taxi from there to Cat Tien. This takes about four hours all up, and costs somewhere in the region of 300,000 Dong (about NZ$21). However the local bus goes straight to the park itself from the Mien Dong station in Saigon, also takes about four hours and costs a third of the price (I bought the ticket for that bus at the reception at Cat Tien so it cost me 120,000, but I watched what the locals were paying as they got on elsewhere and the local rate appeared to be about 80,000). If you are catching the bus in Saigon it would be easy to find because it has the words "BX Nam Cat Tien - Mien Dong" emblazoned across the top of the windshield. The bus seems to run about every hour, so for budget travellers it is a simple way to get to the park. I just read on Tripadvisor one person complaining that the park had "ripped him off" by selling him the ticket for this bus because it turned out to be a local bus and it kept stopping to pick people up and drop people off. I think that handily displays the difference between those who want to experience the country they are travelling in and those who only want to look at it without actually being a part of it (you know, the ones who should just stay at home and buy a book with pretty photos to look at).

Once at the Mien Dong station I checked around for the departure times for buses to Kon Tum which is the town I needed to reach first, en route to Mang Den. The buses for that route, I discovered, run in the morning and the late afternoon, but not during the day. The next one was not until 5pm and would cost 280,000 Dong (N$20). In my original plan for the trip I was going to fly into Saigon on the Saturday afternoon, use Sunday to visit the Saigon Zoo, and then go to Cat Tien on the Monday. Then I thought, I have to come back to Saigon after Cat Tien to catch the bus for Mang Den, so if I use the return day for the zoo I will save myself a day. However it was already 1pm and I had to be back at the bus station by 4.30pm which gave me 3.5 hours, but with traffic that would likely be reduced to only an hour or two at the zoo, plus it was too hot so I decided to just give it a miss. I didn't really want to come back soaked in sweat and then have to sleep on the bus like that. They probably have a Marbled Cat at the zoo, but never mind.

While I was sitting around waiting for 5pm, an English-speaking chap from one of the ticket counters came to talk to me to practice his English. He also tried to teach me some basic Vietnamese but unfortunately even basic was beyond my capabilities. Vietnamese is a tonal language, like Chinese or Thai, and I simply cannot get my accent around the differences (New Zealanders have vowel sounds which sound strange to foreigners). In tonal languages one word will have multiple meanings depending on how you pronounce or stress the vowels. He used the word ma as an example, which apparently means "mother", "rice plant", "grave", "horse", and "but" depending on how you say it. Not confusing at all. I would try to say a simple word and after four or five attempts he would say "Yes! Perfect!" then I would say it again and he'd say "No!" in despair. Every attempt sounded right to me! I did master xin chao (hello) which is no use because everybody knows "hello" anyway (even Vietnamese answer their phones with "hello?") and I sort of got com suan (rice), tam biet (goodbye) and cam on (thankyou) but only barely. Generally if I tried using any of those words I would have to then explain what they meant so the person I said them to would know what I had said, which sort of defeated the purpose of using them. In most countries with tonal languages where I have tried using local words, whoever I am using them on will just stand there looking at me blankly.

The sleeper bus to Kon Tum was not what I had expected. I have been on many overnight buses in southeast Asia but this one wasn't just a bus used at night, it was a bus apparently designed specifically for night use. Instead of seats it had flat beds, with a lower set and an upper set, like a dorm room on a bus. I have never seen this outside Vietnam. When boarding the bus everyone has to take off their footwear and put them in plastic bags. Most Vietnamese just wear jandals so there was much hilarity from all when my giant's boots needed a bag each. I hadn't been looking forward to taking an overnight bus in Vietnam based on all the bad stories I had heard about the horrific traffic in the country, but actually Vietnamese roads are pretty relaxing compared to other countries in the region. Almost all the vehicles on the roads are scooters - millions of them! - and there are so few trucks and cars, relatively speaking, that there seems little danger of hitting anything big enough to cause damage to a bus. I think it is often the case that stories about roads come from newbies to Asia who don't know what bad traffic is. India was the same for me - just normal Asian traffic.

Unfortunately for me, the bed I had been assigned on the bus was on the upper level, right at the back corner. The brim of my cap was literally brushing the ceiling, the bed itself was about half a foot too short for me and several inches too narrow, and both the air-con vent and music speaker were right next to my head. Imagine an airplane seat flattened out, but right up under the roof and with a line of people all lying next to you like a row of sardines in a can, and that's what it was like. I wedged myself into an uncomfortable position to stay in one place and fit into the space, with one leg on top of my bag in case of thievery. I have been on some nasty overnight bus rides but this was one of the worst. Possibly in one of the lower beds it would have been alright, but not where I was! The next day I discovered I had developed some weird rash all over my face, as if I had been out in the sun too long, and my skin felt like I had been savaging it with sandpaper. I'm pretty sure that was from being right under the air-con all night.

The bus had left Saigon at 5pm and arrived in Kon Tum at 6am the next morning, and that shall be continued in the next post.....


Birds seen today:
Spot-necked Dove Streptopelia chinensis
Tree Sparrow Passer montanus
68) Feral Pigeon Columba livia

 

Day Eight: Mang Den

The bus arrived in Kon Tum at about 6am, dropping a number of passengers off on the outskirts of the city. The driver indicated I should wait and he would take me to the city's actual bus station because they were passing by there anyway, but then once the bus was underway he started making the universal "give me more money" gestures and pulled out a 100,000 Dong note to show how much. Naturally I refused to do this. There was one English speaker on board, and when I asked her to find out what the deal was with this, she asked the driver and then said "he was just joking", which he definitely wasn't!

Anyway, I got off the bus at the station, the bus left, a taxi driver asked if I wanted a taxi, I said no I'm just catching a bus, and went to pick up my pack. Where's my pack? In some totally inexplicable event, I had somehow forgotten to get my pack out of the luggage hold of the bus, simply jumping off with my shoulder bag holding my irreplaceables (camera, binoculars, etc). Luckily there was a taxi driver standing there then! We chased down the bus, retrieved my pack, went back to the station, and it cost me 50,000 Dong (which is about NZ$3.50).

I had read in a recent trip report that the buses to Mang Den (yellow buses and silver mini-buses) don't leave from the main bus station in Kon Tum but from the roundabout 500 metres south. However there was a silver mini-bus at the station which meant that while I was waiting I could get some breakfast and check the bus times from Kon Tum to Danang for later (basically throughout the day, from very early morning). I think the taxi driver was also saying he could take me straight to Mang Den for 500,000 if that's your thing, instead of the 40,000 mini-bus.

The mini-bus left at 7am, spent half an hour driving round town picking up people and cargo, and I got to Mang Den at about 9am. Most of the way the hills were bright green but naked of forest. In many flat areas there were rice paddies utterly bereft of birds. As the road turned up into the hills some forest started appearing but it was all very patchy.

Mang Den is a curious little village set in a strip of pine forest. It is apparently a failed attempt at establishing a hill resort, the many abandoned concrete shells of buildings half-buried in overgrowth testament to that. At one end is a cluster of hotels and karaoke bars, there are a few more hotels strung intermittently along two parallel roads for the next two kilometres, and then there's a big roundabout and "market" (where all the shops and banks are) at the other end. I was thoroughly confused by it all when I first arrived because it was all so fractured, and the signs in the "market" seemed to indicate that that was Kon Plong (which is another town entirely). The bus dropped me at the Hotel Hoa Sim which worked out quite well because there was a girl there named Nhung (pronounced nyum, as in "nyum nyum nyum") who spoke a bit of English. I visited most of the other hotels looking for other English-speakers and it really seemed like she was the only person in Mang Den who spoke any - and she was only going to be there for one more week because she was only working there while on break from University where she was studying "environment" (she didn't know the right English word, so I'm guessing "ecology") - so perfect timing!

The rooms at the Hoa Sim were 250,000 each (about NZ$17) which seemed standard where-ever I went. The first room had no working light in the bathroom, so I moved to another one. That one had a fan that ocellated but didn't actually fan, so I moved to a third room. In that room the tv didn't work, so they gave me a discount to 200,000. Result.

Birders are probably the only tourists to visit Mang Den. I think most birders still go to Dalat more than Mang Den though, both being hill-country sites with many of the same species between them. I didn't have time for both Dalat and Mang Den, and Mang Den was supposed to be where I could find Grey-shanked Doucs so that is why I was here. The village is surrounded by patches of secondary growth forest (beyond the pine forest) but the main bird site is the Mang Canh forest 15km away on the 676 road to Dak Tang.

Most of the first day was spent trying to round up a motorbike driver to take me out to the forest for the next few days. This proved surprisingly difficult (not helped by there being no-one besides Nhung who spoke English). Eventually I found a guy who would take me there for 200,000. Initially he wanted 500,000 return which was ridiculous (i.e. taking me there in the morning and picking me up in the afternoon), so I said I would just walk back. I had the info from Google Earth that the Mang Canh forest was about 17km from town (it turned out to be 15km) but several people said there was forest only 5km up the road, of which I was dubious. The guy who I finally got as a driver seemed to know what was what though. In fact he said that the Mang Canh forest might be mostly cleared now so I might need to go further. I would see the next morning whether this was the case! More disturbingly he also said that the doucs weren't found here any more, which was not good news at all. I had a photocopy of a picture of a Grey-shanked Douc to show people what I was looking for, and the first thing everyone noted when looking at it was the long white tail, proving they were talking about the right species. My driver said the only monkey left in the area was one with a short tail (probably Pig-tailed Macaque, as I saw a baby one in a little cage outside one of the hotels). He said that to find doucs now I would need to go 60 or 70km which wasn't really a good option for me. I hoped that the doucs hadn't been hunted out here, but I wasn't too hopeful. This is why I don't like short trips. On longer trips I can just stay longer somewhere to keep on looking, or I can go off for a week on a wild douc chase, but when the whole trip is only three weeks long that can't be done.


Birds seen today:
69) Large-billed Crow Corvus macrorhynchos

 

it's Vietnam. So, yes, one bird. Tomorrow (in thread-time) there are a lot more birds because I was out in the forest. But in the cities, towns, countryside, there is virtually nothing.

I rarely saw Feral Pigeons. I can count the numbers of times I saw mynahs on one hand with almost all the fingers left unused (mynahs still haven't appeared in the thread list). Sometimes Large-billed Crows and Spot-necked Doves. Tree Sparrows were most common but even they were patchy.

 

Day Nine: Mang Den

First thing in the morning I was at the 15km marker stone where the Mang Canh forest begins. It looks like really good forest but it only stretches for three or four kilometres before stopping in bare earth, and all the way along the road there are tracks of various sizes - human, motorbike and truck - which if you follow them in lead quickly to cut-over patches, some already with huts and crops. With the logging, the mining, and the dam construction nearby, the road was continually busy; every few minutes there would be a truck or motorbike roaring past. It seems like the driver was right - it doesn't look like Mang Den is the place to look for doucs any more. In fact in four or five years it won't even be a place to look for birds either. There are a few big signboards here and there along the roads, with one line of English in front of all the Vietnamese text - "Kon Tum Forest Protection and Development Fund". I think the only "protection" is there to keep it ready for "development". From a distance the hills look thick with forest but once inside, or from different viewpoints, you can see that it is really all patchwork, divided up by roads and farms and clearings. I was still hopeful for doucs but the only mammals I saw were a Pallas' Squirrel and three Maritime Striped Squirrels. Since getting back I have been told (by James Eaton of Birdtour Asia) that there is still a troop of doucs in that forest, but everybody while I was there was adamant there were none left. The last one anyone there had seen, apparently, was a year ago when one came down into a garden near the forest and was promptly killed and eaten.

I did see quite a lot of birds in total numbers, although the number of species wasn't high. I added 22 species to the trip list, of which six were lifers. The very first birds I saw in the forest were three Yellow-billed Nuthatches in a bird-wave. There were numerous bird-waves throughout the morning, the dominant species in them being Mountain Fulvettas and White-bellied Yuhina, usually with one or two White-browed Piculets in attendance. Piculets are neat little birds - they are a type of woodpecker, but only the size of a finch, and yet they still act like woodpeckers, tapping away at twigs. Other slightly more random birds amongst the bird-waves included Golden Babblers, Silver-eared Mesias, White-tailed Leaf Warblers, Black-throated Sunbirds, Rufous-faced Warblers and once a small flock of Grey-crowned Tits. Pale-capped Pigeons were really common, especially earlier in the morning when they were often seen flying overhead. Not a sign of any laughing thrushes unfortunately (Chestnut-eared, Golden-winged or Black-hooded), nor Grey-crowned Crocias. I'll just blame the time of year.

The walk back to town was really a pretty easy stroll. There were a few steeper bits as the road wound over the hills, but nothing bad. It was fairly hot though, so it would have been nicer in the winter (it is all through farmland so no shade). All the dogs I passed were far too casual to be threatening, most of them simply lifting their heads to see what I was doing and then going back to sleep. I should mention buses too. When I was in the forest a bus passed me at 7am coming from Mang Den and then going back the opposite way at 8am, so this could be a cheaper way of getting there. However the one which passed me at 1pm never came back again while I was out there, and the next day I didn't see any at all (between 6am and 9am when I was out there).

I saw a few extra birds on the walk back to town. At a fruiting tree there was a lot of activity from minivets (always too far away for me to know which species, so none of them made it onto any of the Vietnam day-lists), Black Bulbuls, Red-whiskered Bulbuls, and there were a couple of Large Cuckoo-shrikes there as well. Even better was when a Black Giant Squirrel bounded across the road like a huge black weasel - they look strange when on the ground! - and once in the trees disappeared quick-smart.

There was rain in the late afternoon, when I was already back at the hotel.

When I had got back to the hotel Nhung was quite excited because another English-speaker had come to stay (she thought her English was too poor for me). This chap's name was Phi and his English was indeed most excellent. He was from Danang, and was travelling as the translator for an Indian engineer who was in Vietnam as a consultant for hydroelectric schemes. The Indian's name was Arrogant Git or something along those lines. He was literally the most rude and unpleasant person I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. After five minutes I was sick of his idiocy, and after seeing the way he was treating the staff I was fairly having to restrain myself from just kicking his butt out the door. Phi had the most long-suffering expression, basically having to sit there and put up with this guy because it was his job. The Indian told me that it wasn't my fault if the Vietnamese can't understand me, it is their fault for being too stupid and lazy. Also that "they" are happy cleaning and serving because that is all they are good for - this was directed at Nhung who, as noted earlier, was only working there during her University break where she was doing a four-year degree in ecology. If he wanted something he would wave Nhung over and then just jab his finger over his shoulder at the other side of the room. She would look confused, as one would, and he would point again. She would look over there, then back at him, and then ask what he wanted her to get. So he would just point again! Then Phi would ask in his patient -slash-exasperated tone "what is it you would like her to fetch?" and he would reply in his "my god you are stupid" tone of voice "I want her to bring me..." whatever the thing was. I just wanted to smack the smug right off his face. Thankfully he was only there for that night then they were going to the site of the dam for the next week. I really did pity Phi having to be dealing with him constantly. He reminded me of a balloon, bloated with hot air and the only logical thing your mind can come up with to get rid of him is repeated puncturing with something sharp.


Birds seen today:
70) Yellow-billed Nuthatch Sitta solangiae
71) White-bellied Yuhina Erpornis zantholeuca
72) Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike Hemipus picatus
73) Pale-capped Pigeon Columba punicea
74) Grey-headed Canary-flycatcher Culicicapa ceylonensis
75) Mountain Fulvetta Alcippe peracensis
76) White-tailed Leaf Warbler Phylloscopus davisoni
77) Hill Prinia Prinia atrogularis
78) White-browed Piculet Sasia ochracea
79) Black-throated Sunbird Aethopyga saturata
Dark-necked Tailorbird Orthotomus atrogularis
80) Maroon Oriole Oriolus traillii
81) Golden-throated Barbet Megalaima franklinii
82) Silver-eared Mesia Leiothrix argentauris
Green-billed Malkoha Phaenicophaeus tristis
83) Rufous-faced Warbler Abroscopus albogularis
84) Grey-crowned Tit Aegithalos annamensis
85) Golden Babbler Stachridopsis chrysaea
86) Ashy Drongo Dicrurus leucophaeus
87) Mountain Hawk-eagle Spizaetus nipalensis
88) Black Bulbul Hypsipetes leucocephalus
89) Large Cuckoo-shrike Coracina macei
90) Red-whiskered Bulbul Pycnonotus jocosus
Oriental Magpie-Robin Copsychus saularis
91) Long-tailed Shrike Lanius schach
Large-billed Crow Corvus macrorhynchos


Mammals seen today:
15) Maritime Striped Squirrel Tamiops maritimus
Pallas' (Red-bellied) Squirrel Callosciurus erythraeus
16) Black Giant Squirrel Ratufa bicolor

 

Day Ten: Mang Den

Yesterday I had found that I had seen quite a lot of birds in the first part of the morning, much fewer in the middle of the day (at this time of year it was quite hot midday, even though I was up in the hills), and the walk back to town was wasted time, so today I just went out to the forest for the morning and got the driver to wait there for me (so 300,000 Dong for today's trip). If there was a chance for doucs I would have stayed out there all day again, but it seemed that there was no chance at all for that, so I figured I would do a bit of birding today, and then the next day carry on northwards. I wasn't really into it to be honest, after being told there were no doucs here any more.

The morning was much quieter than yesterday. First bird in the forest were two Red-headed Trogons right off the bat. I had seen some of these yesterday but only as flashes of red as they flew away; these ones both perched in full view long enough to actually see them. The trogons seemed to be very common here, I saw or heard a number of them over the two days. However I saw nothing else for the whole next hour. Nothing at all! There were only a couple of bird-waves seen later during the morning, unlike the near-constant ones yesterday. A couple of birds not seen yesterday were a Pale Blue Flycatcher and a number of Mountain Bulbuls. One of the bird-waves contained a Yellow-cheeked Tit amongst the fulvettas and yuhinas.

In a cleared area there was a group of Black-collared Starlings calling from a bare tree, and something big - probably a Silver Pheasant - dashed off the road before I even got a chance to see it. While trying to relocate it, I got to see the best bird of the day - nay, of the trip! - when a big flock of at least twenty Grey-headed Parrotbills appeared. They are huge! I would have expected them to be the size of all the little bubby parrotbills I had seen in China but these things I thought were going to be bulbuls or something until I got a proper look at them. They look almost like cartoons come to life, with their oversized bright orange beaks, kind of like if you crossed a puffin with a sparrow. Fantastic birds.

Back at the hotel Phi was in the lobby, waiting for the idiot Indian to get ready to leave an hour ago. He had a chat to my driver, and then told me that the driver knew a place where I "might" be able to see doucs because the road wasn't so busy (because, as it turned out, it wasn't fit for traffic) and he could take me there tomorrow morning, but it was two hours distant and would cost 400,000 for the day. I had been going to give up on Grey-shanked Doucs and leave the next day, but any chance is a good chance so I would definitely take it! Amongst other things I found out with Phi there to translate was that douc meat sells for 250,000 Dong per kilo which is very cheap, and what their Vietnamese name is. Douc comes from the French when they controlled South Vietnam and was derived from a native name. I have always pronounced it to rhyme with either book or spook, depending on whatever comes out of my mouth first. At Cat Tien the guides I talked to pronounced it "dick" (which gives the title of this thread an unintended bawdiness!) and elsewhere in Vietnam I had also heard it the two ways I pronounce it. Phi himself pronounced it "doosh" - but then he said that he thought it was an English word and was trying to pronounce it the way he thought it would be. So all the different pronunciations I had heard in Vietnam were basically because the person either thought it was English and was approximating how they thought it would be said, or they thought it was Vietnamese and was saying it as spelled (hence "dick"). The actual Vietnamese name, I found out, is vooc, which is pronounced "vock" - this is the word the French took and corrupted into douc. The lesson of all of this is, pronounce it however you want because it isn't a real word anyway.

Because tomorrow's douc search was going to cost me 400,000 (about NZ$28) I wouldn't have quite enough Dong in my pocket to cover the hotel bill when I left so I took a walk up the road to the "market" where there was a Vietinbank ATM. I had been told this was the only ATM in town. Unfortunately it declined my card which left me in a bit of a sticky situation. I was thinking I was going to have to take the bus all the way back to Kon Tum (45km, or two hours away) just to find a bank which accepted Visa. Back at the hotel I asked Nhung and found out that there was also an Agribank ATM here. That was good news because I have used their ATMs before in other countries and I know they take Visa. The limit for most ATMs in Vietnam is two million Dong which sounds like a lot but is really only about NZ$140. My bank charges a NZ$6 overseas transaction fee every time I use an ATM when travelling, so to get out large sums of money somewhere with stupid currency like Vietnam or Indonesia quickly racks up the fees.

Once again, the only rain of the day came through in the late afternoon.


Birds seen today:
Long-tailed Shrike Lanius schach
Pale-capped Pigeon Columba punicea
Large-billed Crow Corvus macrorhynchos
92) Red-headed Trogon Harpactes erythrocephalus
Black-throated Sunbird Aethopyga saturata
93) Mountain Bulbul Hypsipetes mcclellandii
94) Pale Blue Flycatcher Cyornis unicolor
Mountain Fulvetta Alcippe peracensis
Large Cuckoo-shrike Coracina macei
Golden Babbler Stachridopsis chrysaea
White-bellied Yuhina Erpornis zantholeuca
White-browed Piculet Sasia ochracea
White-tailed Leaf Warbler Phylloscopus davisoni
95) Yellow-cheeked Tit Parus spilonotus
96) Black-collared Starling Sturnus nigricollis
97) Black-winged Cuckoo-shrike Coracina melaschistos
98) Grey-headed Parrotbill Paradoxornis gularis

 

a couple of photos, Black-collared Starlings and a female Black-throated Sunbird.