LaughingDove Goes Travelling - SE Asia and Australia

Bukit Fraser Day Four: The Best Terrible Decision of My Life


It was unusually quiet this morning at sunrise without the characteristic morning siamang screams this morning and much less bird song. The ground and leaves and everything were all very wet so I think it rained throughout the night although it was dry when I got up.

It was quite quiet on the bird-front although I got a nice view of a Slaty-backed Forktail at a stream, the same place as I had seen it yesterday as well as a nice view of the same group of three Malayan Laughingthrushes around the same place as yesterday. There was one especially nice bird that morning which was a very showy stunning male White-tailed Robin hoping up and down from the road into the nearby trees and back again.

After breakfast, I decided to do the Telekom Loop. There were lots of very fresh markings of wild boar which must have been made last night and I’ll go and have a look around there tonight and see if I can find them. Boar taxonomy is a bit messy, but I think there’s at least one valid split between the ones here and the ones in Europe. It was fairly quiet on the Telekom Loop but I did come across a few bird waves with lots of nice views of the species that I’ve been seeing over the last few days as well as a few new additions. Particularly nice was a group of Golden Babblers which are an absolutely stunning bird as well as an impressive flyover by a Rufous Bellied Eagle. Loads of leeches around today though. I even found one on my field guide as I was taking it out of my bag, no idea how it got there. There were some more tarantula and trapdoor spider burrows around here too which is really cool.

The storm from yesterday seems to have done a bit of damage in a few places with a large chunk of the road having collapsed at one spot around the Telekom Loop with a chunk of the side of the road and some pipes lying broken and mangled with temporary bollards leaving a strip just narrow enough for a car to squeeze past. It really was an unusually heavy storm yesterday then.

The Telekom Loop is the ideal length for half a day’s birding. As I was getting to the bottom of the loop is started to rain, but just an ordinary afternoon shower so I quickened my pace and got back to the town to wait out the rain in my room while I sorted my bag a bit, arranged the taxi for tomorrow etc.

I got the taxi for 10:30 which I think gives me a good balance between morning birding and having enough time to get the bus. The man at reception thinks that won't be enough time to get to Jerantut but if that looks like it will be the case when I'm at the bus station then I'll just go to KL. I've got at least 7 nights at Taman Negara anyway, possibly 8.

In the afternoon I just did a bit of walking around the nearby roads and trails. I went up to the supposed partridge spot but there were no partridges and no sign of disturbance by ground birds since it last rained either. While I was there though, the forest suddenly filled with really dense fog like I was in a cloud. I thought it was my glasses at first steaming up but it wasn’t because nothing changed when I took them off. Then it started to rain, but it was raining from within the cloud that I was in so as well as rain falling, lots of water was condensing directly on me and things around me and of course visibility was extremely low making for quite an eerie atmosphere.

There was a bit of a drizzle throughout the afternoon and into the evening but I was determined to go out spotlighting for my last night here so I went out despite the drizzle, leaving a bit earlier just after dinner at about 7:15. My torch claims to be waterproof anyway. I decided to go around the Telekom Loop but just as I was leaving town, the rain got a bit heavier. No problem, I thought, thunderstorms normally happen in the day, convectional rainfall patterns and all that. Not too far after leaving town, on the road leading to the loop, I saw a small sounder of wild boar that grunted and went off into the forest as I approached so at least it wouldn’t be a complete wash out of a night.

As I was approaching the loop, there was a crack of thunder and lightning, and this is when I though: this is stupid now. I shouldn’t be out spotlighting in this. I should go back. The rain started to become heavy too, not torrential like yesterday, but what would in Europe pass as extremely heavy but is normal in the tropics. I really should have gone back. I was getting soaked, although I had wrapped up everything thoroughly, and visibility was dropping fast. I’m stubborn though, and this was my last night and I was ready for spotlighting. So I decided to continue on.

The next mammal, a particularly cool one, came in the form of what I though was an odd looking bat ‘flying’ across the path. It then landed on the ground and started to scurry up the bank and into a bush when I realised it was a flying squirrel. So I ran up to the bush to have a closer look and it was the cutest thing. It had a pale underside and browny top with a strikingly massive eye relative to the size of the squirrel staring it me. I looked at it for about 10-15 seconds and as I was contemplating whether to try and get the camera out, it ran off into the thick bushes. I wrote down as many potential ID points as I could and it turns out to have been a Red-cheeked Flying Squirrel. Possibly the same species as I mentioned getting a brief unidentifiable glimpse of a small squirrel on the first night.

Then, quite literally 5 metres down the road, I saw some eyeshine in a fairly exposed tree fern type plant quite low down and near the road. Must be a Red Giant Flying Squirrel, I thought. Nope. Not a squirrel. An actual, real, live SLOW LORIS! Just sitting there, staring at me. It was at most two metres away just sitting still in the leaves. Despite the, at this point quite heavy, rain I got my camera out. I know it’s bad for the camera and I really shouldn’t, but this is a real live Sunda Slow Loris not moving and posing perfectly right in front of me. My camera seems fine now anyway. Once I had got some pictures I wrapped my camera back up o minimize rain exposure and watched the loris for a while with my torch turned on low beam and pointing not directly at it so I wouldn’t blind it. It sat for a while then moved slowly up the branch and was obscured, but still visible, slightly away. I was, of course, getting soaked, and actually slightly cold because it is high altitude here and a little bit chilly at nights so I didn’t spend too long watching it and I headed back. I was absolutely euphoric. There’s a very particular sort of excitement when you see an animal that you really really wanted and you had mostly given up thinking that you had missed it. This was it.

At some point, I had put my hood down and as I was walking back I realised and put it back up. Of course, I covered my head and face in a hood-full of rain water. But I didn’t care in the slightest.

This is what I refer to as the titular best terrible decision ever. The terrible decision to try and go spotlighting in a thunder and lighting storm. But a super-adorable slow loris, a super-adorable flying squirrel, and not to forget the wild boar at the start of the evening, mean it was the best terrible decision I could have made.

Thank you, Bukit Fraser, for a great last night of spotlighting. That is why I love wildlife watching.


Birds:
Large Woodshrike
Rufous-fronted Babbler
Striped Tit-babbler
Black-crested Bulbul
White-tailed Robin
Grey-throated Babbler
White-browed Shrike-babbler
Golden Babbler
Rufous-bellied Eagle

Mammals:
Asiatic Wild Boar
Red-cheeked Flying Squirrel
Sunda Slow Loris


Not so many new bird species because obviously I’ve got all the common ones on the list but quite a babblery day today. Still great to see the common species though, big flocks of Chestnut-capped Laughingthrushes never gets old.

 

I'm now at Raub bus station waiting for a bus that leaves at 1PM (1 hour 10 minutes time) to go to Kuala Lipis. Strangely, there is no bus to Benta from Raub at all today so I have to change at Kuala Lipis but I've been told that there is a bus that leaves Kuala Lipis to go to Jerantut at 5:20PM which I can get.

For anyone reading this who wants to visit Bukit Fraser on a budget, going by Raub will be about RM22 cheaper each way from KL because the standard taxi Raub to Bukit Fraser is RM80 compared to RM100 from KKB and the bus to Raub is about 2RM cheaper as well. A 40+ ringgit saving on a trip to Bukit Fraser is certainly not to be scoffed at

 

What were your overall thoughts on Bukit Fraser? Did it exceed your expectations, meet your expectations, or was below your expectations?

 

UPDATE


Just a quick update, this isn’t a proper blog post. I wasn’t sure whether to post about this or not, but I think it’s better that I do because it’s a fairly important thing. To cut to the chase, last night at Jerantut I had my wallet nicked. I don’t know exactly what happened, but between paying for food from my wallet and sitting at a table, the wallet was gone and it was not anywhere around and none of the people/staff around knew anything or had seen anything. The circumstances are not really the point anyway. So last night, once I was sure that my wallet had definitely been taken, I did all of the annoying and time consuming things like making a police report, calling the insurance, contacting banks, etc.

I didn’t lose very much cash because it was just my day-to-day cash (which it looks like the insurance will replace anyway) and I should have enough cash to last me while at Taman Negara but more problematic are the lost bank cards so I will have to get money from Western Union to last the rest of the trip until I get new ones.

Yesterday was a travel day from Bukit Fraser to Jerantut after morning birding at Bukit Fraser and I am now at Kuala Tahan (Taman Negara). I will write a blog post for yesterday, but obviously last night I was busy sorting things and today I’m going to go into Taman Negara.

I wasn’t sure whether I should write this at all, but it would just be annoying to continue with this blog and pretend it didn’t happen and it’s a part of the adventure I guess although it’s not very easy to think about it like that yet. Everything will be fine though, it’s just an inconvenience.

 

Glad to hear that you are okay. It sounds like you handled the situation really well. Hopefully the rest of your journey will go smoothly from here.

 

Unlucky LD, it's bad enough losing your wallet and cards in your own country so it must be a real pain on holiday. Oh well, keep your chin up and carry on enjoying your trip.

 

Bukit Fraser Departure Day and Journey to Jerantut


In the morning I woke up to find a leech in my bathroom crawling towards me. I’m not sure how that got there, whether it had come up the drain or latched onto my bag or something. But I went out for one last morning of sunrise birding at Bukit Fraser around the Telekom Loop which was good because I was able to add a few interesting birds and also saw a group of wild boars eating out of an upturned bin near on of the fancy cottages although they were extremely skittish about having a camera pointed at them. I said goodbye to all the super-cool common Bukit Fraser birds like the Minlas and Laughingthrushes and Fantails and Spiderhunters and got the taxi down to Raub with a nice view on the drive down. There were a number of fallen trees across the road which had been cut and moved to the side which weren’t there when I did the walk down on the second day so they must be from the storm the other day.

At the Raub bus station I had to wait a little while back in the heat of the lowlands for a bus to Kuala Lipis at 1:20 and then at Kuala Lipis I had another wait of just over 3 hours for the bus to Jerantut leaving at 5:15. I managed to find some food though at the one place that wasn’t closed for Ramadan. This is the first time I’ve had any real problem at all finding food because of Ramadan and it wasn’t a problem ultimately. The bus station at Kuala Lipis had loads of Asian Glossy Starlings nesting in the rafters and there was a Crimson Sunbird around too.

The bus to Jerantut went through some interesting forest habitat and I saw a wild langur from the bus. There was also a cage full of hanging parrots outside a house near the side of the road which is a reminder of one of the biggest threats to the birdlife in the region; the caged bird trade. Upon arrival at Jerantut just outside the bus station was an Oriental Pied Hornbill sitting on top of a lamp post conspicuously and calling loudly, which was nice to see.

I got to Jerantut fairly late and stayed at the Greenleaf Hostel which is fine and cheap. Obviously this is also when the incident with the wallet happened, as mentioned in the post above. Visiting the police station wasn’t exactly my plan for Jerantut but you could call it ‘interesting’. The police were actually very friendly. But before that I got some food from a supermarket for when I’m hoping to spend a couple of nights in a hide in the forest at Taman Negara.

New birds:

Speckled Piculet

Long-tailed Broadbill

White-tailed Flycatcher

Crimson Sunbird

Oriental Pied Hornbill

 

Taman Negara Arrival Day

I had intended to get the normal public bus from Jerantut to Kuala Tahan. I decided not to do the boat at first because it doesn't actually leave from Jerantut but from a jetty that is a fair distance away, and it is much more expensive and I would have to do a boat to the tapir hide anway. I can always take the boat back if I regret not doing it, but the bus is not bad anyway.


So as I was leaving the accommodation in the morning, the person there asked if I was going to take the bus to Kuala Tahan and if I wanted to go with his private minibus directly for the same price as the bus at RM7. It turned out, that day he was conning a family into paying a ridiculous amount for a day trip and thought he could get a few extra ringgit on the side if I and another tourist staying there went with him. So that was good and I had a nice comfortable ride getting there earlier than the bus for the same price. The family being ripped off however got a 'self-guided' tour on the boardwalks and were told to make their own way back to Jerantut on the public bus at 5PM so their RM240 for a one way bus transfer and a meal was certainly quite pricey. There are quite a few tour operators around actually trying to rip people off. Much of the drive is through palm oil plantations and we passed a long line of trucks carrying oil palm fruit.


At Kuala Tahan I'm staying at a very good value RM15 dorm that overlooks the river which the national park is on the other side of. There is a resort on the other side in the park itself but it's ridiculously expensive and the boats across according to a boat driver run from 7-11 and only cost 1 ringgit each way.


Once I got into the national park, I went to the HQ to buy my permit and also ask about the tapir hide (Kumbang hide). The boat is RM120 each way, so quite expensive unless I can find some people to share the cost with and I have tentatively booked in for two nights at the hide on the 4th and 5th night. That would give me two nights and 3 or 4 nights on either side. Though I have only tentatively booked those dates and will change them if I find anyone else who wants to split the boat cost or another group/tour going that way anyway which I can join with. The hide is a hide in the middle of the forest quite far away with a salt lick where I hope to see wild tapir. There's supposed to be running water but no electricity and I will have to bring my own food. Anyway, that's for another day. As an aside, as I was getting the park permit, I found that I had completely subconsciously memorised my passport number. That's irrelevant though.


Today I had a walk around the forest and had one especially exciting sighting which was quite soon after I left the HQ. I was in the Tahan Hide looking down and out onto the path came a female peacock pheasant. Then a bit later, out came a stunning male and the pair foraged around a bit before the male started to display. I watched them for a while until a person started to head down the path and they quickly ran off into the vegetation. What a great sighting to start off with!


It's very hot and humid in Taman Negara and even the bottom of the lens of my camera (between the lens and body) steamed up which I haven't had before. There's lots of leeches too and despite being on the boardwalks I got too leeches in me in the morning and I removed them and kept walking and the inside of my shoe and my sock got soaked with blood. I'm wearing my leech socks the whole time now, even on paths.


The birding is quite difficult at Taman Negara because most of the birds are too far away or high up to see properly but there's a lot of diversity here. It's very pretty too with the ancient forest and the rivers. I did the treetop walk which wasn't that great and you had to pay for it and the swamp loop trail which was quite good.


I went back across for a late lunch and then went back into the national park for the evening birding and stayed across until after dark for spotlighting, after being assured by the boat driver that I could get boats until 11 and wouldn't be stuck on the other side from the accommodation.


During the evening birding, I also happened to bump into the same birder I met at Bukit Fraser who suggested the partridge site. He apparently had managed to see them with the help of some seed. We birded a bit at found two species of trogon no less. An interesting coincidence as this was his last day at Taman Negara. He was impressed at my pictures of the displaying male peacock pheasant from earlier as he had only seen a female around that spot so I think that was very lucky indeed.


As dusk approached, I came across a group of wild boars and before I went spotlighting properly I treated myself to an overpriced magnum ice cream from the small shop at the headquarters which certainly was not worth as much as the fried rice I had for lunch. My food costs today were much higher than they should have been, due largely to the magnum and a freshly blended lychee juice, which was really good. I feel a bit guilty spending money now that I haven't got a bank card do get more, but I've got just enough ringgit for my daily spend to be a little over RM100 and I'm aiming for an average of 60 which should last me until I can get money at a Western Union in KL thanks to my parents. I'd be a bit stuffed otherwise.


The swamp loop was absolutely covered in spiders including some big impressive ones and lots of massive moths, so you get a face full of moths attracted to the torch as you go. The only mammals other than bats seen though was another group of wild boar which ended up being quite common and there were a few around.


At about 8:30, I went up to the campground area near the resort to have a look for owls and frogmouths because the birder I met earlier said t might be a good place. He was there too and tried calling in some owls and frogmouths with sound recordings but no luck. There wasn’t even anything calling. Afterwards I went around to the swamp loop to try and find some other mammals but it was packed with lines of people on guided night walks shining their torches around randomly and oohing and aahing at the insects. I tried to go around, but there were too many people and you can’t really squeeze past on a boardwalk so I decided that was enough for the day. I’ll have to find an alternative spotlighting route for next time.


Birds:

Scaly-breasted Bulbul

Ferruginous Babbler

Malayan Peacock Pheasant

Maroon-breasted Philentoma

Yellow-bellied Bulbul

Brown Fulvetta

Hairy-backed Bulbul

Diard’s Trogon

Straw-headed Bulbul

Red-naped Trogon

Abbott’s Babbler

Large Green Pigeon



Mammal:

Plantain Squirrel

+Herps still to be identified

Monitor Lizard sp. (not water monitor)

Skink sp.

Toad sp.

Treefrog sp.

 

I've only just found this thread (and spent a happy hour or so reading it) - where did you stay in Bukit Fraser and which guide books are you using?



Hix

 

The funny thing is that I haven't actually paid anything here yet. When I arrived there was no one here, but a person from the coffee shop place below checked me in, wrote my name in the book, and gave me a dorm key, gave me some bedding, and said she would tell the owner I had arrived. I've not heard anything since. She said it was a 15 ringgit dorm so they may be ignoring the tourism tax or she may not realise it's relevant. I've seen literally no staff members at all apart from one cleaning person so it may turn out to be a free dorm at this rate.

Yep, that looks good. I do actually have pictures of all these herps but it will be a while until I can upload them or identify them myself.

 

At Bukit Fraser I stayed at the Puncak Inn which is definitely the cheapest place around although it is by no means cheap.

For SE Asia, I have the concise version of the Robson guide for birds and I have photocopied the necessary plates out of the Francis field guide for mammals. The whole book is too heavy to carry around.

For Borneo, I have with me the Phillipps' guide for birds and I've got the smaller, old Payne guide. I have the Phillipps mammal guide at home too and photocopies of a few pages with me.

For Australia, I don't have the books with me and I'm lucky enough to be able to pick them up when I'm there from my aunt but I will be using the Sclater for birds and the Menkhorst and Knight for mammals.

 

Wildlife Around Kuala Tahan at Taman Negara

I got the first boat across the river to go into the national park at 7. Around the headquarters there was a tame argus pheasant roaming around. It would be really cool to see a wild one and I’ve heard the calls around, but this one doesn’t count. I also found out that I had forgotten to get my camera battery out of the charger. I have a spare non-official one which I put in and the camera didn’t really like it very much and wouldn’t stay on for very long and then decided to die completely which was annoying. It wasn’t too long after walking around that I found another of the big targets for the area, a Crested Fireback Pheasant. This was an absolutely stunning male so I was really kicking myself for not getting the camera battery out of the charger. I birder around in the morning a bit, but decided that I wanted to go back and get my camera battery because you never know what you will see. It doesn’t take long to get across, but it is a waste or two ringgit.

There actually seemed to be a slightly higher level of bird activity a little later in the morning and I re-found the fireback. They seem to be really quite common around actually and there is a very brazen pair around near the swamp loop. There were quite a few interesting birds seen including nesting Black-and-red Broadbills, a Raffles’ Malkoha, and Jambu Fruit Dove. A little later I bumped into the same birder from yesterday again having a last look around before leaving and he had not seen a Jambu Fruit Dove so we went around to a fruiting tree where I had seen it along with lots of bulbuls although they all seemed to have left since.

I stayed around birding until almost 1PM when it started to get too hot to do anything. It’s a really hot day today with completely clear skies during the day. I decided that I would organize the Kumbang Hide stay and I’ve confirmed for the nights of the 4th and the 5th staying at the hide (that’s tomorrow night and the night after) and got the boat sorted as well. I tried to see if I could find anyone at all interested in doing the hide to split the boat cost but the only people at all interested wanted to do a hike instead so I’ve had to pay the full RM240 for the return myself. I think I should still have enough money to last me this whole time until I get back to KL anyway. And while I was sorting the boat I decided I might as well spend more money and book a night drive as well which is RM40 for two hours starting at 8:30 which isn’t bad. I had lunch and sat around a bit in the afternoon because there wasn’t too much point walking around in the forest in the heat and then in the early afternoon, I headed back across for another bit of birding.

The thing I like about Taman Negara is that all you have to do is walk around very slowly on board walks and your list very slowly but surely increases and although you don't see many birds, when you do see one it seems to be different quite often. Unlike at Bukit Fraser where birds are numerous but there are large flocks of the same species. I know I've just arrived at Taman Negara but I do think this is generally true and based on the guide book for potential species that I could see, there's certainly a lot of diversity.

A bit later I found two people who were very interested in the Kumbang hide and would have split the cost with me if I had found them and done it earlier but they were leaving today. That's the difficulty with being a solo traveller, although it is nice not to be waiting for anyone and not to have anyone waiting for you.

The afternoon birding was quite successful and I added a number of new species. There's a really nice quiet peaceful spot not too far from the entrance with a bench overlooking the river surrounded by rainforest and I really like it there. I can just sit and relax looking out onto the river and wait for birds to show up. I stayed until dusk then headed back across for dinner and then went up to the night Safari pick up area. I didn't have my hopes too high based on what I had heard and the generally seeming scammyness of all the mainstream tour operations but if I didn't try it once I would regret it.

All around the village are odd mural things with clichéd things written on them like 'no pain no gain' and 'be the solution not the problem' and so just thought to myself: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. It's been far too long since I've had the chance to make any science jokes and that's a nice classic.

Anyway, the Night Safari itself wasn’t bad. The spotlighter was a small boy about 8 years old at most and he actually knew what he was doing and was actually spotlighting for eyeshine and not just shining a torch around randomly. The night safari goes through the plantain habitat and then into what is almost proper forest but isn’t actually part of the national park and doesn’t have the massive old trees but is slightly newer growth. There was a reasonable amount seen, starting with an as yet unidentified black snake which the driver (not the boy spotlighting – he didn’t speak English) claimed was a cobra. Also seen were a number of massive scorpions and on the mammal front a large number of Red Giant Flying Squirrels, a Leopard Cat, and, most surprisingly, two Slow Lorises. Though not nearly as nice of a view as at Bukit Fraser as these were high in trees. Also in the same night safari vehicle was a group of French speakers and I can understand and speak some French but they assumed I couldn’t. Which was amusing because they were complaining about me also spotlighting and identifying things without waiting for the driver to say (although I didn’t correct the driver’s misidentifications, that sort of thing is rarely worth doing) and thought the small child should do it on his own. I found both the lorises anyway, although the child found the leopard cat. Just to be annoying, right at the end of the drive as it was ending I made a final remark in French as I was leaving, just complex enough that they would know I understood everything they had been saying. Necessary? No. Amusing? Yes.

So the night safari wasn’t as poorly run as I was expecting. I have arranged my boat for tomorrow to leaving in the early afternoon to take me to the drop of point for the Kumbang Hide. The hide itself is a couple of kms up from the drop off so I’m going try and leave some of the things I don’t need somewhere around here if I can find anyone who works here as I’ve not seen them around at all. And then I’ll be picked up on the 6th after two nights in the hide. I highly doubt there will be any phone connection, and there’s no food, water, or electricity so I’m taking stuff with me. So obviously this will be it until after I’m back.


New birds:

Horsfield’s Babbler

Crested Fireback

Asian paradise flycatcher

Jungle Myna

Jambu Fruit Dove

Black-and-red Broadbill

White-rumped Munia

Raffles’ Malkoha

Black-winged Flycatcher Shrike

Lesser Shortwing

Purple-naped Sunbird

Thick-billed Flowerpecker

Sooty-capped Babbler

Buff-vented Bulbul

Crested Jay

Checkered-throated Woodpecker

Crimson-breasted Flowerpecker

Short-toed Coucal

Black-bellied Malkoha

Black-naped Monarch

Rufous-collared Kingfisher

Scarlet-breasted Flowerpecker

Stork-billed Kingfisher


Mammals:

Sunda Black-banded Squirrel

Lesser Treeshrew

Leopard Cat


+Unidentified snake claimed by the night driver to be a ‘deadly black cobra’ but it’s not.

 

Did you get to see the deadly black cobra too on your night drive?