LaughingDove Goes Travelling - SE Asia and Australia

Yep, the boardwalk goes up to the canopy walk. So it's a good couple of Kms of boardwalk in that direction.

 

Actually I'm just investigating the extent of the boardwalk now and it appears to go another km beyond the canopy walk, seemingly all the way to Bukit Teresek.

 

That sounds like fun! At some point, maybe on the flight to Sandakan, I'll write down what I think those 10 are and as I see my ten we can see how well I can guess what species you haven't seen that I have a chance at.

I hope you're not being too overambitious with what I can see. I may have been seeing lots of flying squirrels, but I'm not that lucky. Don't expect me to find a Clouded Leopard or Bay Cat, for example.

 

Taman Negara Final Day


It was a foggy morning when I woke up, but still no rain though and the river is getting quite low. It’s much, much lower than it was when I first arrived and at the river swimming area, there’s now a huge sandy beach exposed that was entirely underwater when I got here. It was quite a quiet morning birding, although I did see a Lesser Mousedeer from the boardwalk and a nice view of a male fireback pheasant just sitting quietly on the boardwalk. I’ve still not managed any pictures of the mouse deer though, they just run away too quickly. The forest also seems to be overrun today with a mixture of Low’s and Slender Squirrels with large numbers that seem to just have appeared out of nowhere. I also got an unexpected fly over by a flock of Long-tailed Parakeets.

I’ve been having potato bread that I carry with me for breakfast every morning in the forest (none of the restaurants open until after 9 which is too late for breakfast). Today, the potato bread I had bought was quite old and stale which was unfortunate, but I only mention it because normally it’s a really good thing to have for breakfast and it seems to be available absolutely everywhere here, even in the tiniest of little shops, and it seems to be much better and more sustaining than normal bread. Quite a good food option. I also got another view early in the morning of a Red Muntjac at the Tahan Hide again. I just went around the Swamp Loop and a bit of the way up the Genet Muda Trail in the morning and although it seemed quiet and this is my seventh day, I was still adding the occasional bird which shows how biodiverse the area is and how many species there are that you could potentially see. You could spend weeks here and still be adding new species from the boardwalks around the entrance.

I haven’t seen any pittas though, which I had hoped for, although I do now know where to go and see them. The Blau and Yong Hides and the path around there are supposed to be excellent for them, although I won’t make it on this trip because it’s another long and expensive boat ride away (a comparable distance to the Kumbang Hide) or a long trek. Both Garnet and Banded Pitta would be possible there and a group of French birders and mammal watchers who I’ve been bumping into a lot on the trails around the place (and who are off to the Kumbang Hide tonight), saw a Banded Pitta near the Blau Hide and heard Garnet. I guess I’ll just have to come back to Taman Negara at some point then and try for pittas around those hides and there are lots of other possible species at Taman Negara, like Rail Babbler. I certainly can’t complain about what I’ve seen though as I have seen absolutely loads of species and the vast majority of my targets. It’s not difficult or expensive to get back to Taman Negara from KL either and it’s certainly very cheap once I’m here.

I crossed back over for lunch and then had the surprisingly difficult task of finding someone to pay for my accommodation but someone did emerge eventually to take my money from the house next door where the family who owns the place lives. I wasn’t charged the tourism tax either, which is good. I also asked a couple of locals about the bus back to Jerantut and got conflicting information about whether it was 10 or 10:30 and whether I would get it from the main road coming in or down the side road where the little shops are. I guess I’ll just be prompt and find it tomorrow morning. I sat around resting for a bit, and then headed back across in the mid afternoon for the rest of the day’s birding and the final night of spotlighting.

As I was walking around the swamp loop at about 3, just as I was thinking that I had come across too early and it was too hot and I should go and sit down somewhere, I got an absolutely amazing sighting. In the lower branches of a tree about 20 metres along the boardwalk was a Green Broadbill! Just sitting there! I slowly walked up the boardwalk until I was just alongside it and it continued to sit there, about a metre and a half away with an almost entirely unobstructed view. It's such a stunning looking bird, the green Broadbill, and although I got a brief fairly distant view of one at the Kumbang Hide this was amazing! Sitting there resplendent in stunning artificially bright shimmering green and black with its weird shaped head completely filling the frame of the camera. Just wonderful, and a reminder that you never know what Taman Negara will throw at you at any time and any place. It sat there preening for about 5 minutes until it vanished off into the forest.

As the evening approached, I walked down to the canopy walkway and then continued a but further up to Bukit Teresek which is just a small hill really but because the whole area is lowlands it looks out over the forest as a relatively high point. I watched as the sun was just setting over the forest, although it was very cloudy and not an impressive sunset, but still a lovely view looking over the forest. I watched the night descend over the forest from the view point and it was a very calm and relaxing atmosphere as the birds stopped calling and the insects started. Then, just as it got dark and the bats started to come out, I descended the boardwalked steps back down. I think this path has the potential to be a very good spotlighting route on the way down because you get a view of the middle layers of vegetation and are closer to the canopy for any animals, but it still is closed forest and not easy.

There were lots of insects of course and lots of bats including some fruit bats although all being in flight even the fruit bats are difficult to identify and I wasn’t able to ID any of them. I drew a complete blank spotlighting along the path back down to the resort/HQ, apart from an interestingly patterned gecko at the Tahan Hide, with just bats and invertebrates otherwise. Although the spiders are really cool looking and massive. When I got back to the HQ it was just past nine so I decided just to have a quick look in the campsite area and then go. That turned out to be a very good decision indeed, because just underneath the house/restaurant thing by the campsite there were two Brush-tailed Porcupines minding their own business munching away to themselves on some fallen mangoes. They’re really cool looking porcupines, much odder looking than the seemingly more common Malayan Porcupines that I have seen before in places like Khao Yai. These two Brush-tailed Porcupines sat eating the mangoes for a while and then each one picked up a mango in its mouth and they trotted off. A really nice sighting to end the night.


New birds:

Silver-rumped Needletail

Finsch’s Bulbul

Grey-rumped Treeswift

Long-tailed Parakeet

Scaly-crowned Babbler

Rufous-winged Philentoma

White-chested Babbler

Rufous-chested Flycatcher


Mammal:

Brush-tailed Porcupine


+Gecko sp.

 

Yeah I did. It's ridiculously high. I suppose that's why they only have floating things anywhere near the river, I guess the water level must fluctuate quite a bit quite regularly.

 

I'm a bit late to this but this is my first time keeping up with a ZooChat travel thread, and it's been an amazingly exciting read, especially for someone like me who's never traveled internationally for wildlife watching. The amount of species you're seeing is insane. I know it's one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth but I guess it's hard to grasp how much so until (vicariously) experiencing it. Reading about the tapir sighting was so enthralling!

Your travels, dedication and patience are really impressive for someone so young. Keep at it, may you get to see many more gems, and I can't WAIT for the photos!

 

Back to KL

I popped over to the national park very briefly in the morning just to walk around the Swamp Loop a bit, although I couldn't spend very long. I didn't see anything particularly interesting but you never know. The only fairly common target species that I missed was hanging parrot. I missed pittas too but needed to go further to have a decent chance.

The bus left from just down the road that turns off at school, by the row of shops. Kuala Tahan has a disproportionately large school because it provides basic education for the Orang Asli children in all the nearby villages. It's about 70km to Jerantut which is about an hour and a half on the bus and and easy direct bus, though only twice a day at 10 and 5 and 8 and 3 going the other way.

At Jerantut I was told that the bus to KL was completely full. Instead, I should get a bus to Temerloh leaving in about 20 minutes and from Temerloh there was a bus to KL every hour. It was annoying and time consuming with an extra change and marginally more expensive, but ultimately not a problem. The bus to Temerloh stopped at Kuala Krau. Krau wildlife reserve is supposed to be a good place to visit, though I'm not sure if it's possible by public transport.

At Temerloh, I was told that I had just missed the1:30 bus and was told that the 2:30 was completely full and I just got the very last ticket on the 3:00 bus. It was really, really busy at the bus station though I'm not sure why. It might be to do with eid, although that's not for a few days yet. Has a public holiday just started maybe?

While I was waiting, I went to try and find a western union for some money and I found two within a reasonable walking distance with the help of Google, but both were closed. All the bank type things and Western Unions seem to be closed Saturday and Sunday, which is a problem since today is Saturday. The banks had ATM sections open but the Western Union counters themselves were both closed which was annoying and a waste of energy carrying all my stuff in the midday sun. I have to hope I can find one that's open all week in KL although with all this faffing around and waiting for a bus at Temerloh it will be much later than I was hoping by the time I get back to KL. There was no proper food available around the bus station either, so I had to just eat the few snacks that I had brought and absolute junk food from a small counter, meaning my lunch was a very nutritious combination of chocolate and coke. An hour and a half isn't so long of a wait though.

I booked my accommodation on the bus, and decided to stay around the same area, Bukit Bintang, as first time but in a different place and I splashed out on a single room for RM36 per night for two nights. It's not much more expensive than a dorm really anyway. The bus itself was a proper long distance coach with assigned seating and, rather nicely, air conditioning! Also extremely unusual on the bus were seat belts. No one put them on of course, but they were there which is very unusual. It was an 'express bus' which I had thought meant it would go directly to KL. Actually, all it means is that they won't stop at any old point on the street like all the other buses do and only stop at the specific points. I say won't, but actually they will if you ask the driver, just a with a stern word first about how it's and express bus and they don't stop. Someone is else on the bus did this, and they clearly knew full well what they were doing but that the driver would just pull over anyway. From the bus I saw the most graphic advert for a fire extinguisher I have ever seen. It was a father crying while holding the burnt and wounded remains of a roughly 5 year old boy in front of a burning house with a big advert for a fire extinguisher. I don't know how any company was allowed to run that ad.

The bus got into the bus station at about 5:40 and I got the monorail directly to Bukit Bintang where I'm staying. When I got to the place which I had booked, the person there had my booking but apparently had just given it away and they no longer had space. Which was annoying. She was very apologetic and rang a nearby similar hostel to ask if they had a similar room available for RM40 (+tourism tax) which is only 4 ringgit more than the first place and only 10 ringgit more per night than a bed in a six bed dorm at Sunshine Bedz where I stayed when I was in KL at the start but this is for a private room. An extremely small room with no window, but I private room nonetheless. It also has wifi and air conditioning, this is my first time staying in somewhere with air conditioning since my aunt’s house in Bangkok right at the beginning of the trip and although I haven’t been missing it when I don’t have it, it is quite nice. It’s not the most salubrious accommodation, rather run down and dirty, but for a private room in this area you won’t get much cheaper at all than 40 per night.

After arriving at the accommodation I had two main jobs for the evening: money and food. Then I could relax for the night. The money at a Western Union was much easier than I had feared because there was one open quite nearby. There’s a long and annoying form to fill in though and a Western Union attracts a weird sort of clientele sending and receiving cash. I then went and found some food and found a nice sort of street stall with a whole array of satays and different things on sticks and you could just select a few of each that you want which they would then barbeque for you which is nice and the sort of thing I like.

I think I’m going to go to Zoo Negara tomorrow, but I need a rest and a lie in first and I’m not going to be doing super-intense zooing from open to close documenting every single sign and bit of exhibit like I have done and tend to do with zoo trips in Europe. Just a relaxed day tomorrow because I am starting to get a little travel fatigue and need to have my energy back up for Borneo, although the entry fee to the zoo seems to be very expensive indeed and it is apparently a public holiday (based on what the person said in the accommodation that I had booked where they had given away my room. Not sure what holiday it is though.)

 

Next Friday (the 15th) is Hari Raya Aidilfitri - the end of Ramadan and the end of fasting. Saturday will be a public holiday, and in some parts of Malaysia Sunday may also be a holiday. But even though Friday isn't designated a holiday, shops and businesses may close on Friday anyway. There's likely to be a lot of traffic too, possibly the couple of days before Friday as well.



Hix

 

Yeah I know about next weekend but I wasn't expecting it to be busy already. Apparently it's because it's school holidays and that schools have their holidays starting a week early.

 

Zoo Negara


Not having a window, as is the case where I’m staying, is a bit disorienting for waking up. I’m going to avoid rooms without a window in future.

I had a bit of a lie in and got up at a leisurely pace. I asked about a taxi direct to Zoo Negara and was told that it would be about RM35 which is too much, so following the advice of the zoo website I got an LRT train to Wangsa Maju station (two trains actually, with one change) which was easy enough and cost RM5.3 and from Wangsa Maju station I got a taxi to the zoo for just under RM7. There is a bus stop just outside the zoo so there is probably a way to get to the zoo by bus with some changes, but I think the LRT and short cheap taxi route is the most efficient and not really that expensive and despite leaving quite late and not rushing at all, I still got to the zoo by around 11. For the return taxi though, I, surprisingly, couldn’t find any taxis around at all outside the zoo so had to call a Grab which is the Uber equivalent in SE Asia (previously both Uber and Grab were operating but Grab bought out Uber SE Asia earlier this year. It’s exactly the same as Uber though) which actually cost a couple of ringgit more than a metered taxi.

The entry fee to the zoo is what really hurts your wallet though at RM80 for foreigners (and the local rate at just over half is not cheap either!). I would regret not visiting Zoo Negara though and RM80 would be a mid-to-low-priced zoo in Europe at about 17 euros. I’m not going to do a thorough and detailed review of the zoo because I don’t really have the time or energy to do so and there’s probably already a review on ZooChat somewhere but I quite liked the zoo overall. There were a couple of unusual species, or at least unusual for me/in Europe, like Masked Palm Civet, and they seemed to have both Red-legged and Dusky Pademelons. Where did they get the Red-leggeds from? Unfortunately the reptile house was closed for renovation and I think they have a few rarities there which I couldn’t see, but there were some unusual birds and fish too and the aquarium was rather nicely done. I particularly liked the waterfowl lake in the middle of the zoo with large numbers of free-flying, though I don’t believe actually wild, waterbirds and lots of herons and storks and things with a lovely view of a forested rocky escarpment behind. Zoo Negara is not an inner-city zoo, it’s right on the outskirts of the city and consequently seems to have plenty of space although enclosures for things like elephants and African hoofstock were not particularly large. Not horrendous and they would pass perfectly well in Europe. I don’t think there were many enclosures that would be regarded as bad by European standards, apart from possibly a few of the primate enclosures which were on the lower end of acceptable, but it was overall a pretty good zoo.

They hold two different subspecies of Gaur too which is interesting and lots of Malayan Tapirs. It feels different seeing a Malayan Tapir in a zoo now that I have seen them in the wild too. There was one walkthrough enclosure with a particularly ominous sign in front warning about the zoo not being liable to property damage, injury or loss of life! What monstrous beast could they be keeping in this walkthrough? It was.. wait for it… butterflies. That was the warning on the sign outside the butterfly house. It reminds me of that film by John Cleese. Fierce creatures or whatever it’s called. I’m sure they’d have liked those butterflies. The most famous/popular bit of the zoo is their Giant Panda ‘Conservation Centre’ (the inverted commas are my own) which seemed excessively pompous with a 20 minute limit on how long you could spend watching the pandas and a lobby/reception area that looks rather like a posh hotel. People complain about Pandas in zoos and they’re certainly not worth the money or expenditure, but they’re not super common in zoos outside China and it has been a while since I last saw one. They had a white tiger at Zoo Negara too and although Giant Pandas in zoos outside China are pretty pointless for conservation, I would argue that keeping White ‘Bengal’ Tigers is arguably worse.

I spent about 5 hours in the zoo in total which is about the most you could spend doing the zoo at a slow pace. I had a meal in the zoo restaurant too which was, of course, poor quality and extortionately priced, but I really didn’t want to eat snacks from my backpack for another meal. I need a bit of a break after a meal a day at Taman Negara and Bukit Fraser out of my backpack as well as, of course, the two nights in the hide.

I did really enjoy my day at the zoo though, a nice relaxing day in nice calm surroundings. I had been worried that the zoo would be really busy but it wasn’t crowded at all. So I’m feeling a bit more rested now which is a good thing because I’m up quite early tomorrow morning to catch my morning flight from KL airport (which miles away from the city itself) to start the next leg of the trip. Borneo awaits!

 

There were two enclosures labelled as Red-legged Pademelons, one was clearly Dusky but the other seemed to be something different and not Agile Wallaby either. Maybe not Red-legged Pademelons but definitely a small wallaby. I'll have to check.


That's interesting about the tiger, I didn't know that. Presumably still horrendously inbred? Is there a separate breeding stock of white tigers in India that is pure Bengal?