Saturday, Feb 27 - More birding in Khao Yai

 We got up again at 4:45 and stumbled down to breakfast, pretty tired! We divided up into the two vans and again set off with David up into the Park.

We drove to a youth camping area that was filled with teenagers, all sitting cross-legged and listening attentively to an instructor teaching them about the wildlife in the park. Pretty amazing to see them all so interested and quiet. We stood on the edge of the lawn area and looked up into a fruiting tree. It was filled with birds all sizes from dramatic Great, Oriental Pied and Wreathed Hornbills to Thick-billed Green Pigeon and Moustached Barbet. A Giant Squirrel (~3 feet long!) ran through the tree until a troop of Pig-tailed Macaque monkeys scared off a lot of the birds. We showed some of the students what we were looking at as it was great to see kids so interested.



We’ve noticed several groups of Taiwanese tourists leaden down with amazing cameras with huge lenses and were told that bird watching is more popular than golf in Taiwan! There is a famous birding organization in Bangkok also and many people drive out from there for the weekend. So great to see so many nature buffs!



After catching up with our cooks’ van, we stopped for coffee, fruit and cookies on the side of the road and then David took us to a spot where he had heard a Japanese birder was staking out a Red-headed Trogon’s nest. We found the steps down into dense woods where the birder was, apparently having sat there for hours with his camera setup pointing at a hole in a dead tree trunk. It took a while to figure out that the female was wedged in the hole with her brown head just emerging out. We sat perfectly still for 20 minutes and suddenly the male, a beautiful 15” brown-ish bird with a lovely rosy breast and black and white tail fluttered in and fed the female a large walking-stick insect. Trogons are very secretive birds and would have been impossible to see if we hadn’t learned about the stake-out! A really lovely, but poorly named species as is often the case!



I was thrilled and settled back into the van for the ride back for lunch when Heidi who was sitting in front called out that she had seen something emerging from the underbrush and out came a Silver Pheasant, a really magnificent silvery white pheasant with a black belly and an intense red bill and face. He crossed the road and began displaying by fluffing up white feathers streaked with black hieroglyphics as a female and another male approached. I was in the back of the van and tried to get some shots through the windshield, not great as you can see, but it gives you the idea! So great to have one magnificent bird appearing right after another!!

We met up with the other van and had another great picnic lunch: soup with bok choi and a wok dish. As we were eating, Dion found a fluffy white aphid walking along the road.

We returned to the hotel to rest a bit and organize our gear: tonight our three vans are going to set off north with all our luggage and we will follow on a Royal Thai jet tomorrow afternoon with only hand bags.



We birded some more, but there was little activity; at 5:30 we drove to the base of a huge limestone cliff and waited until after six when it was getting dark. Suddenly millions of Wrinkled-lipped Bats started emerging from a cave in the cliff. They were high above us and resembled a dark horizontal tornado writhing across the sky!

We could just hear their wings beating and in moments it was over!

We returned for a delicious dinner Thai dishes and curries and off to bed.

Friday, Feb 26 - Birding in Khao Yai National Park

Up at 4:45 and met for a quick breakfast before loading up into the vans at six in the dark. We entered the park and drove through dry deciduous forest of scrub and bamboo and into cool evergreen dense jungle. We immediately began seeing wonderful birds flocking in seeding bamboo like the Vernal Hanging Parrot, a tiny stubby-tailed green parrot with a bright red bill! We worked our way further uphill and saw an Oriental Pied Hornbill, a large bird with an ornate large bill. We also saw baby Pig-tailed Macaque monkeys, a very pretty red Barking Deer, and an enormous 3-foot turtle!

Our leaders, Dion Hobcroft, an Aussie, and David Bishop, a Brit, both of whom live near Sydney, are really amazing in their ability to spot birds high in the tree canopy and get their telescopes right on them, and to pleasantly discipline us so we all share the views of the birds, best seats on the buses and are quiet!

At one PM we pulled over to the side of a narrow road where a row of stools were set up and our amazing chefs (husband and wife team who were chefs in Japan) had a great spread set out of spicy coconut shrimp soup, rice and chicken curry, with papaya for dessert! We returned to the hotel for a two hour siesta (your loyal blogger took advantage of the time to download photos and post an entry…rest??).

At four we all met and got onto the vans to return to the park for more birds, and met at six for another delicious dinner and waited until dark when we climbed onto open jeeps for a night drive.

David had a powerful spot light that he shone on trees, road and grassland. Nocturnal birds and mammals eyes glow when hit by a light, so suddenly there would be two glowing rubies and then we could see the shape of a Sambar Deer, or golden eyes of a large owl. We screeched to a halt to see a Reticulated Python stretched across the entire width of the road! His brown and emerald patterned back almost glowed as he slowly left the warmth of the pavement! It started to get quite cold which was a novelty. We returned to the hotel at ten and unfortunately missed seeing giant porcupines or elephants but we were tired and happy nevertheless.

Immediately collapsed into bed!

Thursday, Feb 25 - Bangkok to Khao Yai National Park

Up at 5 AM, suitcases out at 5:45 and down to another fantastic breakfast buffet. I was feeling queasy and only had museli with longran fruits and coffee,, but I felt much better! We met in the lobby at 6:40 and set off in two comfortable vans, with another van for the cooks! Pretty plush!




Bangkok is about the size and population of LA , so it took us an hour of freeway driving to get out of the city and into the flat agricultural land consisting mostly of rice paddies. We stopped a couple of times to walk through grassland and saw several beautiful birds.

We stopped at Wat (temple) Pai Lom, a famous Buddhist monastery. The temple areas protect their wildlife so they are a good place to bird, and I could get some culture!

Our galley van pulled up and set up a table with coffee, tea, & cookies. We walked behind the wat and saw several hundred Lyles’s Fruit Bats hanging in trees. Their heads are covered in reddish fur and they look like foxes, thus they are often called Flying Foxes. They were flapping their wings to cool themselves in the 90 degree heat and then wrapping themselves up just like Dracula. Pretty neat!

We then drove to Ayutthaya, the original capitol of Siam in the 13 and 1400s before it was weakened by invasions from Burma and the king moved the capitol to Bangkok. It is a beautifully preserved area of temples and shrines showing the basic brick structure without all the gold and colorful decorations.

It was the middle of the afternoon and we were getting pretty tired, but revived upon seeing limestone peaks and cliffs appear as we gained a bit of elevation and left the paddies and entered orchards of papaya, mango and bananas. We drove into a park surrounded by limestone spires to a Buddhist monastery that has a wide staircase bordered by two enormous dragons that climbs up a sheer limestone cliff up about 500’. Quite spectacular! We were there to look for the very rare Limestone Wren-babbler which unfortunately eluded us, but the staircase more than made up for it to me!

After another hour’s drive we finally arrived at Khao Yai National Park and our hotel, a rather modest, but very pleasant, place to stay. After several beers and a good dinner of various vegetable, chicken and beef dishes we collapsed into bed….we meet for breakfast at 5:30 tomorrow

Wednesday, Feb 24 - Joining the tour

Wed, Feb 24 up at 5:30 and down for another great breakfast of sweetened egg yolk buns and sushi for me and eggs for RRZ.

This is transition day so we decided to lounge. I took another swim in the pool, we rearranged our gear, ate peanuts and our welcome beers that we had put in our room frig and forgotten about and at 1:30 reluctantly checked out, grabbed a taxi and headed for the airport and the Novotel Hotel. This is where we are to meet our leaders, Dion and David, and the eight other participants at six for dinner..

We wandered down to the enormous lobby and spotted birder types right away! We met Dion and David, our leaders from Australia, plus Frances from Queensland, Mary from Ohio and all the others from California. We went into dinner. As this is an airport business hotel I wasn’t expecting much, but we were overwhelmed by the variety and quality of the food! I started with oysters on the half shell and sushi, Bob had excellent pork curry and then fish curry and we had a coconut dessert with young coconut shoots in sauce…just amazing!

Tomorrow we meet at six AM for breakfast…the work begins!

Tuesday, Feb 23 - Exploring Bangkok

We both awoke at 5:30 feeling refreshed and rested!

Went down to the breakfast buffet overlooking the river and both had our dream breakfast: mushroom, tomato and onion omelet for RR and sushi with amazing pickled ginger, pork buns and pomegranate-shaped fish dumplings for me. Too great!!

We walked to the river to catch the Marriott ferry that seems to run 24/7, and 20 minutes later were delivered to the #4 pier where we got onto a regular passenger ferry. Zoomed up the river past brightly-painted water taxis and huge barges pulled by tiny tug boats hauling freight down to the Gulf of Siam. We disembarked at Pier #9, walked through a crowded market to the Grand Palace. Lonely Planet suggests coming here when it first opens, but we were a little late and had to join the swarms of tourists trying to visit it also.


At least we didn’t have to go into the dressing rooms and put on rented clothing as we had read up enough to know to wear the long sleeves and pants and closed shoes demanded to show respect! I wanted to rent head sets and tapes to have a running commentary on what we were about to see, but the agency demanded that we leave our passports or credit cards behind as a guarantee on returning the recorders and RR didn’t want to do that, so we set off grumpily and in total ignorance to explore the Palace.

It was totally amazing: golden temples and gods, green, gold and red tiled roofs, curlicues, jewels, and tiles, ornate beyond belief. And people photographing their relatives standing in front of every possible object! We found that if we explored obscure little alleys and corners, we could get away from them and see equally beautiful things. We found an endless mural depicting the history/mythology of Thailand with warriors, goddesses, monkeys dressed in monks robes, and crocodiles.

We left about 1 PM and got back on a ferry that was crammed with people..”ferry overturns, hundreds lost” flashed through our minds, but we made it back to Pier #4 and climbed onto the Marriott ferry, where we sat feeling rather grubby, until a boat man handed us cool damp lemongrass-scented towels to clean ourselves bit before we re-entered the magic world of the resort!



We changed into shorts and went down to the pool area which consists of several levels, main pool with surrounding ponds with lily pads and fish, a café and lounge chairs. I ordered Tom Kha Gai soup on the recommendation of Suzanne, my sister-in-law, and Bob got beef, pork and chicken satay. The soup was the best ever: coconut broth with cilantro, fresh ginger and lemongrass. I only shared it with Bob because I’d promised to before it came. We had two pitchers of beer and collapsed for naps.



I had to try the pool and so went down about six and slipped into the large stone furiously-bubbling hot tub for a while before stepping into the large ~90 degree water pool. Absolute heaven! I floated about until it was dark and returned to the room where we decided to go to Brio, a elegant Italian restaurant downstairs, for pizza and campari/rum/oj drinks. Watched the curling competition on TV and fell asleep.

Monday, Feb 22 Arriving in Bangkok

Mon, Feb 22- it’s 6:30 AM and we’re sitting in the transit lounge in Taipei on our way to Bangkok. We’re flying EVA Air, a Taiwanese airline, because they offered business class seats for coach price and well worth it! Lots of leg room, prettily decorated cabin and individual on-demand movies! Got about six hours of sleep, plus seeing “Bright Star”, “The Invention of Lying” , “Amelia” and an interesting documentary on the history of blue jeans!



RR had pre-ordered a fish dinner which was pretty good, but I had a choice of very good seafood pasta or chicken. His breakfast turned out to be fish also, so I ordered a mushroom omelet for him and traded.

We had an amazingly smooth landing and debarked quickly leaving behind a very neat cabin, rather that the total chaos and garbage one sees after a 14-hour flight on an American airline.

We explored the terminal, visiting live orchid and silk flower exhibits and boarded another EVA jet for the four-hour flight to Bangkok. Clouds all the way until Thailand and then hazy tropical humidity over flat agricultural lands until we reached Bangkok airport with it’s fantastic architecture.

We cleared customs and picked up our bags, stepped into Bangkok’s 90 degree, 100% humidity and got a taxi for the 40-minute ride through the endless, rather unattractive, sprawl of Bangkok - until you suddenly see an exquisite golden temple or lovely ornate bridge. We finally pulled into the Marriott Spa & Resort on the west bank of the Chaophraya River. My sister, Hilary, who has accumulated about one million Marriott points for her consulting work, gave us two nights at this totally plush hotel. Because of her high rank with the chain, we got a lovely river-view room, complimentary breakfast, cocktails, snacks, laundry… We found a bowl of exotic fruit on our table and ate a crunchy sweet Rose Apple.

I think we’ll just hibernate here and recover from our 27-hour ordeal and jet lag before we join the birders on Wed afternoon!

We went down for our cocktails, explored beautiful bars and cafes (there are TEN just in the resort!) and settled into a lovely area of plants and dark wood floors and furniture and were served Mai Tais and invited to sample the hors d’ouvres…well! No need for supper after this array of tiny delicious made of who-know-what sandwiches, pastries, summer rolls, dips, sauces- and even desserts. Collapsed into bed at 8:30...

Off to Thailand!

We’re off to Thailand, leaving tonight, Saturday, at 11 PM, skipping Sunday and arriving in Taipei and then Bangkok Monday morning (we're still in SB, but the Blog is already in Bangkok time!). 
This is a Victor Emanuel Nature Tour, so the birding will be long and hard, but Bob hopes to get ~370 new life birds, so it should be worth it! Great food and scenery and, I hope, Internet connections off in the boonies. XXX, Katy
p.s. you can click on a picture to enlarge it.