LaughingDove Goes Travelling - SE Asia and Australia

I hope you see all three of them. Otherwise,it will be a case of "Sigh. Gone."

 

A baguette isn't a very interesting sort of bread, but it is perfectly good. And it's a good sort of bread to have as a sandwich - as is ferry common in Vietnam - or with eggs for breakfast. At least it's not sweet. Making bread sweet seems quite common in Asia.

I've not eaten any of those as far as I know, although some of the meat being sold at the zoo could have been anything as far as I can tell.

 

I've actually seen Pangolin in three zoos on this trip! Lok Kawi, Night Safari and Saigon (And I haven't been to all that many zoos in Asia)

I didn't really have any difficulties crossing roads in Malaysia though, although I think places like Thailand and Indonesia would be more like Vietnam on that front.

They were probably Brown Rats then. I didn't really think about it since the common brown rats generally seem to be House Rats in Asia.

 

Where is the ferret badger in the zoo? I seem to be the only recent visitor not to see it!

My favourite part of the zoo is the soaring Langur Cage, an ediface of bars and brick that would be seen as a real treasure of the zoo world were it more well known. The crocodile area was also excellent on my visit.

 

That big ornate one (it is indeed by the hippos) held an unlabelled pangolin when I was there (pretty sure pentadactyla from some research) - not that I noticed until the second or third inspection of the cage! The original cage was near the jackals, as I recall (it was the second little standalone cage along that side - the first was the Condao Giant Squirrels).

That's at least a bit of an upgrade for the ferret badger, though.

 

They only had one Red-shanked when I was there in 2012 so someone's clearly been Douc-collecting in the last few years. I still need to see Black-shanked some day.

 

I was going to ask if you saw them at the EPRC but after just reading a comment in the gallery I now see they were off-show when you visited.

 

Sadly so!

 

At Saigon zoo for my visit, the ferret badger was in that ornate cage by the hippos and the pangolin (labelled as javanica) was in the same enclosure as the giant squirrel.

 

At Last, back into the Jungle!



After breakfast I got a Grab to go to the bus station to get the bus to Cat Tien National Park. Getting a Grab to the bus station is really just laziness since a bus station is obviously a very easy place to get to by bus, but it's cheap and easy so for less than £2...

Getting a taxi directly to the national park apparently would literally cost millions. That's literally in the correct sense because it's about 2 million, or £67, which is far too much obviously to spend unnecessarily. Alternatively, from Mien Dong Bus Station, the bus costs 78K to Cat Tien National Park, which is understood by locals as Nam Cat Tien. Getting the bus was much simpler than it first seemed when I came up to a ginormous bus hub with hundreds of buses because I asked at the information counter for 'Nam Cat Tien' and was directed to the ticket counter and then directed to the bus.

The information I had read online said there were three buses a day, the first at 9:30. I was going for this bus, but left extra early to be sure because you never know with these things. 9:30 was correct though, and it's good I left early because traffic through HCMC was pretty bad. That's were Grab comes in way cheaper than taxis (or Uber) because Grab is based only on distance, not time, and the price is given exact up front. I got to the station about 50 minutes early though and was on the bus with plenty of time.

I had understood from the internet that it was a junk little minibus to Cat Tien but it was not, instead it was a proper comfy coach with air con and curtains and luggage storage below and WiFi on board. You can generally tell how up market bus service is in Asia by how highly ornamented the curtains are. Free bottles of water and antibacterial wipes were given to each passenger which I thought was unusual.

At one point on the drive we had a close run-in with a container lorry. This didn't seem any worse than all the other constant close run-ins to me but it was obviously a bigger deal because all the locals gasped. The bus driver and lorry driver then had an extended shouting match while we both stopped in the middle of the road before we continued on. I don't think anyone was actually hit though.

It was a very full bus indeed, although it started from the station quite empty and picked people up on the way. In fact, many people had to sit on plastic stools in the aisle. The extent of the bus journey that was urban really surprised me, HCMC sprawls a long way into the countryside. And even once out, it was very built up along the roads with less agricultural land than I would have expected. I don't think I saw any birds at all on the journey.

The ride took a little over four hours, and the bus conductor asked what hotel myself and the other two tourists were staying at and dropped us off right there. Easy. The national park is on the other side of a river from the town in a very similar way to Taman Negara. There is lots of accomodation and touristy things in the other side of the river, but I'm spending a bit more for the far superior experience of staying across the river inside the national park itself.

I got a little canoe thing across and was immidiately greeted by a tree filled with Velvet-fronted Nuthatches above the boat! Yay, birds! A good start! I'm spending 6 nights at Cat Tien, of which I've decided to stay 1 night (the 24th) at Crocodile Lake which is a separate site in the national park and the rest of the time at the park headquarters. At the park HQ I'm staying at accommodation that is far nicer than I probably need - I've got a double room with air con and an en suite bathroom and even some little chairs. Not that I'll be spending much time in the room though, although having a kettle will be handy for making crack-of-dawn tea. Other people have said there is cheaper accommodation in a less nice room, but for reasons I'm not 100% sure of this wasn't possible for me. I'm not sure if it's full or they don't rent that out anymore. Anyway, the room I'm at is 350K per night -10% for low season and my total accommodation for six nights including crocodile lake and the 'Crocodile Lake fee' was 1.9 million which could be much worse.

Once I got into my room, the first thing I did was go for lunch. There are two restaurants inside the park itself so it's all very convenient and I'm really looking forward to just being a rainforest for a while. I'm expecting lots of rain and lots of leeches though! It was raining for much of the bus ride and a brief thunderstorm while I had lunch and I had already been warned about the leeches by multiple people and tried to be sold 'leech medicine' before I set foot in the park. You can really tell it's the rainy season based on, well, the rain, as well as the leeches, and very full rivers. At one point I came up to a ford which I simply could not cross.

Bird-wise however, I'm finding it quite birdy in general. The level of birdiness isn't reflected very well by the 'new species' list because most of the birds are the same as in Malaysia, but there's Bulbuls and kingfishers and drongos and such quite conspicuously I wouldn't say it was much less birdy than, say, Taman Negara, and there's a very active and obvious pair of nesting Black-and-red Broadbills around the HQ. I also saw a pair of Banded Broadbills which was only my second ever time seeing the species and thus was a far better view with my first pictures. The forest does seem quieter though, and I think the numbers of birds are far lower.

As I was walking along birding, a park ranger stopped and asked if I was looking for birds. I said I was, and he said he was also looking for birds so he walked along with me for a couple of hours pointing out various birds. I was half expecting him to decide that he had given me a tour and to charge me for it, but obviously I'm to cynical as he genuinely just wanted to show me birds and after a couple of hours said he had to go somewhere else and left. He also told me various reasons why different wildlife was threatened which was pretty much a list of what locals believe each species does when eaten. For example Lesser Coucals apparently, it's believed know what plants are medicinal and provide these for their chicks. So people look for lesser coucal nests and when they find chicks they break their limbs and leave them there because the parents will bring medicinal plants to the chicks. Then, a few days later, people take the chicks which they broke the limbs of and pickle them in rice wine which then takes up the medical benefits. These sorts of beliefs are so ubiquitous and the growing middle class of Vietnamese is fueling this huge demand for wildlife.

The mammal front was much more difficult. In the day, I got an extremely fleeting glimpse of a Long-tailed Macaques and an equally fleeting glimpse of a striped squirrel although I believe two species occur here so I have no idea which. The mammals at Cat Tien are notoriously difficult to find because of the immense poaching pressure on the park for bush meat. Obviously the endemic primates here are the top priority, though they are notoriously tough to find and notoriously fleeting when you do see them.

At night, I did some spotlighting of course for several hours before and after dinner with pygmy slow loris being the top target. Sunset (and sunrise, though I'll probably complain about that tomorrow) are very early in Vietnam and it was pitch black by 6:30. At dusk two very impressive Great Eared Nightjars hunting right near me was the first highlight and before too, too long I found an Indian Giant Flying Squirrel. And the other before-dinner mammal sighting was a Common Palm Civet, seen quite well although I was clearly very wary. Unfortunately, when I was about 20 minutes from the restaurant it started absolutely bucketing it down and I got totally soaked. Oh well.

Once I had eaten, removed quite a few leaches, and waited for the rain to die down to just a drizzle, I continued on with the spotlighting. I got soaked a couple more times although the rain seems to be really have for brief periods and then reduce to light drizzle or stop completely. But there's not really anywhere to shelter when it does rain so you just have to walk through it. I spent a lot of hours looking for slow loris in forest that looked very promising and lorisy (far too many hours given my intention to get up at 5AM tomorrow) but there was, unfortunately, no sign of lorises tonight. I've got more nights though and feel like I've got some chance. Pygmy Slow Loris, Black-shanked Douc, Yellow-cheeked Gibbon, and Annamese Silvered Langurs are the top mammal targets. The top birds are mostly ground birds which are notoriously difficult in general. But it's a nice forest, a great place to relax back in proper rainforest, and with six nights I hope I've given myself enough of a chance.

Seeing forest under such poaching pressure is sad though. There's so much unique wildlife in Vietnam and, more than anywhere else I've been, it's so precariously on the edge. Hopefully I do see some of it on this trip, although an extended 'last chance to see' tour of Vietnam is probably in order.

(There are a few lifers to add, but I'm too tired to go through it now. Some IDs need checking too)

 

I know! I shall have to go and sleep in a muddy hole for a week to make up.

I'll probably still end up spending less on average than I did in Malaysia though! Vietnam is very cheap.

 

A friend of mine who used to live in HCMC once said the following about traffic: you look, you loose. I did find this a rather frightening concept but it does work surprisingly well once you are over the ,oh i am so going to die now' hump ;-)

 

In Search of the Monkey with the Funny Face


Although a 5AM alarm is usually unpleasant, soon after I woke up I could hear gibbons calling from outside which got me up more quickly to go and investigate. It didn't take too long before I located the gibbons and there were two wild gibbons in the trees above some enclosures where captive gibbons - presumably rescued of similar - are kept. The wild gibbons in the trees were calling to the captive gibbons and it was a reasonably good and prolonged view of them. Gibbons calling in the rainforest, especially early in a cool misty morning, is always quite haunting, but I think these Buff-cheeked Gibbons sound more haunting than most with their call, it's really impressive. Gibbons are really awesome. Although they were attracted closer to the HQ by the captive gibbons, these ones are wild. The captive gibbons just make them easier to see.


I got a good 15 minutes of watching time until about 6 when when they moved off. I then went out onto the trails to see if I could find some early morning birds, although it was extremely quiet bird wise with very few birds seen. The trails are all extremely muddy, like actual slushy rivers of mud (although there are paved trails too, it's just that to see ground birds I think I'm better off on the muddy ones) and also filled with leeches once you get off the paved trails. Although that's to be expected for the time of year. I was rather unsuccessful with birds, although the one individual bird I saw was a rather good Heart-spotted Woodpecker. Mammals were not bad though, with Red-cheeked, Pallas', and Cambodian Striped Squirrels all seen with identifiable views as well as a Slender-tailed Tree-shrew as I came up to the restaurant for breakfast. Not bad at all for mammals, I'd call it pretty good for anywhere, especially Vietnam. Weirdly quiet for birds though, I probably saw half a dozen individual birds in about three hours starting just before dawn when I ought to see lots.


After breakfast I headed back down the road I went down yesterday, but this time I wanted to go beyond the ford that I stopped at. Getting wet was the only option (or hire an expensive vehicle for the day, but I wasn't about to do that). One thing that really strikes me about the forest here is the amount of bamboo. Yesterday I was thinking that the stands of massive bamboo was an indicator of highlight disturbed bits if forest but I'm not sure. I think it may be naturally a significant component of this vegatation type. Although birding was slow, I soon found a stunning Blue-bearded Bee-eater (a lifer) which showed very well. The humidity is making photography difficult though because every time I put the lens cap on, the camera mists up. I'm not sure why it's doing that here, normally it doesn't do that as much. Everything is extremely wet, including my lens cleaning tissues, and I mean absolutely everything is wet, but it doesn't feel any more humid than other places. It's wonderfully cool though, much nicer than the city.


When I got to the ford, referred to on the map as rapids, I did briefly question whether it was necessary to cross. It was neccessary. I attempted to cross with boots on, but this proved problematic so it was boots and socks off and trousers rolled up. This was a good moved, because the water was almost knee height in the middle and very fast flowing. One slip, and you'd be in the drink! (And probably bashed across rocks on the way) it's not slippery though and the bottom is paved. It's to fast flowing for anything to accumulate on the bottom.


A small bird wave and a few Slender-tailed Treeshrews right on the other side was my reward for crossing the rapids. The Treeshrews seem extremely common in the stands of bamboo, especially now that I've worked out the call. A particularly attractive little Treeshrew. A real bugger to photograph though.


It was good fun walking along the path looking for birds and mammals. I had bought a local sort of ice 'tea' from the restaurant before heading off which was obscenely sweet with a very strong honey flavour. In fact, if it was more viscous I'd have thought it actually was honey.


Only after an hour after the rapids, I heard a tree crash in a clearly primate way. I thought it was gone and then into view emerged a douc! More doucs soon followed, at least four of them with a youngish one! They sat in quite an exposed spot allowing for easy viewing and thankfully my lens decided not to mist up this time and I even got some pictures that seem not half bad. They sat there calling for a few minutes, and then from a tree a bit further along, something called back. Ten metres further down the path in another fairly exposed spot was as another group of doucs! They called back and fourth to each other and and I got a good ten-fifteen minute view before one suddenly looked down at me, was startled and they all crashed away deep into the forest. They continued calling from the distance though. Such amazing primates, Black-shanked Doucs are just so impressive. They've got those weird shaped faced x with the blue and the distinctive douc lips, and those big long white tails. They're really big too! They look much bigger up in the trees than captive ones.


They stopped called after a while and had clearly gone. I'm really pleased that my first douc sighting was a lovely prolonged one, bit just a crash in the trees. The birding was good generally and there were lots of cool rainforesty things. There were some nice plants like Begonias and Anubias - I wish I could grow Anubias like that, although it probably does so well because it's above water growing in marsh here - and also a massive black scorpion on one of the trails leading off. This scorpion was huge, bigger than the palm of my hand, and very typical scary scorpion like.


I did quite a bit of the way towards crocodile lake and back, about 6kms each way, and although it got hot in the middle of the day - as it tends to do - birds did slowly keep appearing. There were tremendous numbers (and diversity) of butterflies on the road too which is nice. The road was rather muddy though, and my shoes and trousers soon became plastered with mud. Oh well. It got really hot from about 11, and I could really feel the water rising up from the ground and plants around me, a real sense that the forest was a rising column of steam into the clear blue sky that obviously wouldn't stay that way for long. Although being here is the middle of the wet season has its inconveniences, all this water around does give the forest some interesting character. The leeches are an annoying part of the character though and they're not just terrestrial leeches either with some that are similar to tiger leeches in Borneo but not quite as colourful. It's taken a lot of being bitten on this trip, but I'm not totally unconcerned by leeches . I find then less concerning than mosquitos, which is probably correct given that mosquitos are deadly and leeches certainly aren't, but leeches seem(ed) repulsive in a way mosquitos aren't. I'm over that now thought, you just slide them off with a finger when you notice them and flick them away.


I headed back in the early afternoon for a midday rest and then lunch. The only way I can maintain waking up at dawn and spotlighting until late is with a rest in the day. Of course this meant shoes and socks off to cross the rapids again which feels all explorerey.


I also got my transport to Crocodile Lake sorted for tomorrow and I'll be going to the lake tomorrow morning and coming back the evening of the next day, spending one night there (I don't believe I'll have any connection there, so no blog tomorrow). Transport up to the trailhead for the lake costs 250k each way so half a million for drop of and pick up the next day, which feels extremely expensive for Vietnam although in real terms, it £17, and well worth it if that's the price.


After a late lunch/also dinner I headed out towards the grassland area. I had been down this path yesterday, but only got into the bamboo forest and not to the grasslands proper because they're a fair way away if you're on foot. I only got to the grasslands with about 20, minutes before sunset and I'll have to be back in the day one of these other days since it's supposed to be a very good spot for green peafowl - I've still not seen any Gamebirds or Pittas, but I've got the two Crocodile lake days and 2D3N afterwards back at the HQ still. I did hear an unmistakable Green Peafowl call several times just at dusk though, which was cool. So, the grasslands are a large area of tall grass with forest behind and as well as having good birds in the day are also supposed to be good for spotlighting with the possibility of gaur. They run night drives too into the grasslands, but I don't think they're particularly good and are also very expensive unless there are more people to split the cost.


The birding going up to the grasslands was very good with highlights like Asian Woollyneck Stork, Racket-tailed Treepie, Pale-headed Woodpecker, etc. This is despite the fact that it was raining pretty much constantly, although mostly not heavy. I walked along the grasslands in what was left of the day and of course spotlighted zoo as well as all the way back which was a good couple of hours.


Spotlighting the grasslands was quite productive with sambar, several gaur (quite far though - mostly big black shapes with eyeshine), as well as what is technically called a cute widdle bunny wabbit lying low in the long grass (Burmese Hare). I'm quite pleased the gaur was not too close to be honest, because unlike the night drives in a big truck, I was on foot. I don't think gaur would attack me on a path with them in the grasslands and their forest escape being away from me, but I think it's important to have a healthy fear of big and potentially dangerous mammals. There are elephants in the park too, but not anywhere near the parts where I'll be. I do worry about elephants at night. That and domestic dogs. I will admit that the gaur put me a bit on edge until I left the grasslands. I knew logically that they wouldn't come up to the path, I'd hear them moving if they did, and their path to retreat would be away from me and into the forest. But they're very big, powerful animals, and if one decided it didn't like me, there's nothing whatsoever I could do. Unarmed humans on foot don't win flights against gaur. There was no actual risk though.


Apart from some muntjacs, the rest of the walk back was uneventful. Lots of bats and frogs and fireflies though. I went briefly to spotlight the rainforest bit too to try for loris, although I only went as far as the rapids. I will cross them at least one night, but when I do that will be the sole focus of that night. So no pygmy loris yet, but I'm only slightly behind my average number of nights required to find a slow loris. At Bukit Fraser it was my third night, it was my second night each at Taman Negara and Sepilok, and my first night at Danum.


In other news, a massive and extremely loud tokay gecko has taken up residence in the rafters of my room.


Yesterday:


New birds:


Crested Treeswift

Rufescent Prinia

Grey-eyed Bulbul

Great Eared-nightjar


Mammals:

Indian Giant Flying Squirrel

Common Palm Civet


Today:

New birds:

Heart-spotted Woodpecker

Blue-beared Bee-eater

Chestnut-tailed Starling

Great Iora

Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher

Puff-throated Babbler

Rufous Treepie

Green-billed Malkoha

Vernal Hanging-parrot

Asian Woolly-necked Stork

Red-vented Barbet

Common Woodshrike

Pale-headed Woodpecker

Sooty-headed Bulbul


Mammals:

Buff-cheeked Gibbon

Slender-tailed Treeshrew

Cambodian Striped Squirrel

Red-cheeked Squirrel

Black-shanked Douc

Burmese Hare

 

The Leech Whisperer: Tuesdays at 7 on Animal Planet.

I could hear the gibbons again first thing at dawn, although I didn't actually see them this morning. There were a couple of birds about though, and it's nice and cool first thing, coupled with the sound of gibbons.



After breakfast, I headed to Crocodile Lake which involves a 12km car ride to the trail head and then a 5km 'hike'. I left my main pack at the HQ, just taking supplies for a one-night stay, because I'll be spending another three nights at the HQ when I return. I'm hesitant to call it a hike because, well, the path is paved, although it is just a path through the forest. I was driven to the trail head in a very rickety pickup, although given the condition of the road, it's unsurprising that it's rickety. The road was horrendously muddy and extremely rutted and there was a lot of bouncing around. I really thought we'd get stuck in the mud, but obviously the driver knows how to navigate this particular mud. It's the sort of track that would have been quite difficult to walk on without tripping or sinking and I'd certainly have become plastered in sticky mud had I walked.



The 5km trail to the crocodile lake was a pleasant walk. Apparently in the past they have insisted on guides for the crocodile lake trail, although this is now optional which is good because there's absolutely no need for a guide. Since it's paved, a blind person wouldn't be able to get lost.



The walk up to the lake was really good for primates which weren't shy or skittish at all, at least no more than you'd expect for any wild animal. They do, however stop what they're doing and watch you intensely as you would past though. Presumably the ones along the path are better protected than most by virtue of being so close to the ranger station. The primates included several groups of doucs, and, most excitingly, a group of Annamese Silvered Langurs. The Silvered Langurs in particular showed very well as the group crossed the path in a really open spot just above me, and then stopped in a tree on the other side to watch me from really close. In particular there was a little baby langur that sat out in the open and stared at me, posing excellently for pictures. This is a species that is often quite difficult to see and can be hit and miss so I'm pleased that I got this excellent view. There were some birds along the walk too, mostly in occasional bird waves, although not as many birds as I'd have hoped for. In particular I was keeping my eyes open for ground birds, especially pittas and pheasants, but failed completely on those fronts. Despite being paved, I still got fairly well leeched and with all those leeches around I'd have hoped to find a pitta, which I believe are called leech birds in Malay.



Although 5km isn't far, it's enough to feel like it's in the middle of the wilderness, especially at a birding pace which is 3-4x slower than normal based on the time markers. Just before coming up to the lake is a raised bridge above the water at the edge of the lake which is mostly flooded bamboo forest and then emerges a raised building which is the ranger station and viewing platform and also has a limited number of visitor rooms, and there is food cooked by the ranger available, as well as filtered drinking water. A perfectly nice place to stay for a little bit, although most people only visit on day trips.



In terms of the lake itself, it's absolutely stunning, a really pretty view. It's a huge lake, you can't see all the way to the end and it's fringed by extensive reeds and then rainforest. I think the reed beds would normally be even more extensive but the water level is quite high currently. The little patch of papaya trees and vegetable plants is rather inundated with the sad little papaya trees that barely have the tops sticking out of the water. The reeds along the edge of the lake have got loads of waterbirds (although hardly any weavers, which I had expected to be quite abundant). This included various bitterns, storks, etc, and my first ever wild swamphen outside Australia, which is surprising given how much I've been in range for them. And a tree by the watch tower was attracting lots of different flowerpeckers and a bird that looked flowerpeckerish that was all brown with a bright red rump and bright red beak that I'm not sure the ID of.



As you may have guessed from the name, Crocodile Lake is also famous for its population of crocodiles. These are the endangered Siamese Crocodiles that were reintroduced to the lake and there are reasonable numbers. Although not absolutely everywhere, a scan of the visible part of the lake generally would produce one easily and every now and again one would come up close and haul up into the reeds or snap at a fish, or a cute widdle baby would show up. There were rainforesty birds to be seen flying over the lake too of course including hornbills and green pigeons and such.



I spent the afternoon enjoying the view of the lake and looking for birds in the reed beds. The view of the lake fringed with reeds and then backing on to forested hills really is stunning. It also rained particularly torrentially this afternoon so it was good to be undercover in the viewing decks (or it may have just seemed like a lot more because of the sound in the tin roof). I did have a brief look up the trail again for groundbirds before dinner. I was, surprisingly successful, as I flushed a peacock-pheasant! I am, occasionally, capable of finding ground birds after all! A very brief view, but identifiable. I was even more successful at finding leeches. Actually, I would say they were successful at finding me. There were absolutely loads of then now that it had rained and they were very persistent. Several especially enterprising leeches had managed to o find their way into my pants. That's the British word 'pants' not the American one. They obviously crawled all the way up my trouser leg, and were along the bottom lining of my pants. Not expecting to find leeches there, I didn't deal with the properly and ended up scratching them off which is not recommended. Because of these adventurous leeches, I ended up bleeding in a way that is not normally typical of males. For spotlighting, leech socks were going on.



Dinner was had communally with the rangers as well as the other visitors: a middle class Vietnamese family. During that time, I was slowly shedding leeches as ones that I hadn't found decided they had had their fill. I was far more nonchalant about the leeches than the rangers, who were really freaked out by them and wouldn't touch them. This suggests that it's not normally as leechy as this. I may be incredibly inefficient at using chopsticks, but I do know how to handle a leech. I asked about where the rangers thought I might find animals at night or slow lorises and was told that I was not allowed to go out at night because it was dangerous. So I quickly said yes of course, abandoned that line of questioning, and went out anyway. I don't think there's actually much risk, apart from maybe meeting a gaur randomly. You certainly couldn't get lost. I didn't think I was likely to be found out either, because the rangers and other visitors were drinking copious amounts of locally brewed rice spirits which appeared to basically be disinfectant. They stored it in jerry cans too which didn't help the appareance of disinfectant. The fact that they had already had a quarter of a jerry can when I left was promising for me not being noticed.



About two minutes in to the spotlighting and a Small Indian Civet crossed the path. A good start. Then nothing for several hours. Nothing. Not even eyeshine or an owl calling, barely even any bats. Just a couple of spiders. I was also a bit uncomfortable since I was rather sticky with blood and although I had a change of most clothes, this did not extend to trousers so I have to wear the bloody things (pun intended) again tomorrow. Just one day of wear and the trousers stink. Not of sweat, but of rusty nails from all the iron in the blood. I worked the trail really hard, but didn't find anything at all really. No slow loris and I'm halfway through my nights at Cat Tien now. I'm still hopeful though, that I'll find one on the road past the rapids back at the HQ. The trail was too closed in to see particularly well at the canopy. I did find my third target primate today though, the Annamese Silvered Langur, and the first if my ground bird targets. I generally do better with mammals that birds it seems.



My shower tonight would have been a novel setting for a horror film. I untucked my shirt and four blood-filled leeches fell out onto the floor and more came out from various other areas. I had blood spots under my arm pits, on my neck, and all over my chest, back, and lower body. I don't know how on earth the leeches got to some of those spots. The thing is once leeches are all fat and chubby and filled with blood, they're sort of cute looking. Rather than the evil looking monsters that they look like when they're skinny and waving around. I also feeling like I've nurtured the leeches by this point since they're full of my own blood. So I gathered all the fat chubby leeches and set them free. Aww. I'm like the leech whisperer or something. I think I should get a TV show on Animal Planet.



(this is yesterday’s post of course, posted the next day due to not having any connection at Crocodile Lake)



New birds:

Great Hornbill

Oriental White-eye

Cinnamon Bittern

Black Bittern

Yellow-vented Green-pigeon

Indochinese Swamphen

Chestnut-winged Cuckoo

Chestnut-headed Bee-eater

Germain’s Peacock Pheasant



Mammals:

Annamese Silvered Langur

Small Indian Civet