Surprises in Northern Thailand

Hi! It has been a few days since I last wrote. If I recall, I last mentioned that we were going to head up to Chiang Dao for a couple days in some lovely bungalows there. Well, that did happen, it just took a couple more days to get there than we thought it would.

We packed up our bags on the day we were going to head out and went downstairs to get some breakfast. The day went downhill from there. I walked down the way to get money from the ATM and then Sarah went down to do the same. She was gone for quite a while, and finally returned with a stricken look on her face. The ATM machine had eaten her card! Talk about irritating timing. This isn't that big a deal in itself; every trip has to have at least one monetary emergency somewhere along it. We walked back over to the place that had the ATM and had them call the bank to get the card out. The bank said "no problem, we'll have it out... tomorrow." Grrr..... I was determined to get the card out as soon as possible, so Sarah and I started walking the mile or so to the bank offices to speak with a manager. We got about halfway there when Sarah began to feel seriously nauseous. We decided it was best if she rested in the shade while I took her documents and tried to work the card problem out. I fibbed a little to get them to hurry with the card extraction (I told them we were flying to Nepal in 2 hours), and they had the card for me within 30 minutes. The next problem arose when they wouldn't release the card to me. I went looking for Sarah but couldn't locate her (I figured she'd gone back to the hotel, but that was a long way). So, sweating profusely, I quickly walked back to the bank, where I convinced them I was legitimately picking up her card by showing them our matching Arizona Driver's Licenses, her back-up Xerox of the card, and finally a bunch of smiling photos of us on my camera. The language barrier didn't help this process.

With card in hand, I headed back to the hotel to find Sarah miserably sitting on a stool --- it was obvious that it would be a really dumb idea to travel anywhere that day. We checked back into the hotel (this time in a nice room with a TV, and most importantly, air-con). This turned out to be a good idea; let's just say Sarah needed it. It was obvious that she was going to be in the room for the whole day, so after making sure she had everything she needed, I went to a movie. When I got back, she was curled in a ball on the edge of the bed -- and pretty much didn't move for the next few hours. Whatever sickness hit her hit hard. I'll spare the details.

So here I need to confess that I'd been researching the possibilities of doing a day trip into Burma (Myanmar), and had planned it for one of these days. It's a common and easy crossing for people who need to update their Thai Visas; you just can't leave the border city. When Sarah got sick, that negated the possibility of doing this little side trip (I'm sure my parents are sighing with relief right now). I can certainly see the lack of logic in going on a full-day excursion into Burma while my girlfriend is sick in a hotel room.... It turned out to be good that I didn't go, because whatever got Sarah decided to visit me the next day. It wasn't as bad for me, but we didn't leave the hotel room all day. Sarah hadn't left for almost 36 hours by that point. It's never fun to be sick in a foreign country away from friends and family, but at least we had each other.

So, two days later than we planned, we packed up our bags and made it to Chiang Dao, an hour up the road from Chiang Mai. We caught a truck out of town and made it to Malee's Bungalows, a recommendation from my friend Emily Drew. We spent 2 days in a cute little bungalow and enjoyed the quiet and greenery of the area while our stomachs were on the mend. It did rain a lot, so that put a bit of a damper on my birding activities. Nevertheless, I had a great time prowling the trails and gullies around the Wat at the end of the road, about a kilometer past Malee's. Sarah and I enjoyed some walks on the surrounding roads and paths as well, but she wasn't quite back up to par yet, so she took it easy and read a lot.

We were the only guests at the bungalows -- it would have been fun to have at least a couple other people around (I was hoping for birders). The morning we arrived, a group of 20 cavers had just checked out. Oh well. Malee's food was great; one meal even made it onto the "Best of" list for the trip. I'll write up the current "best of" list in the next posting.

Scroll down below the pictures to find out a few of the birding highlights from our time in Chiang Dao.

Malee's Bungalows - ours is on the right.

Big moth -- actually, this is the small male.

Cute tokay gecko, but you can't tell scale in this picture. He's actually over a foot long! He ate that giant moth in the earlier picture!

Another monster.

Orchids - Malee's Guesthouse near Chiang Dao


Wat Tham Pha Phlong - near Malee's


ancient wat near Chiang Dao Caves


Amazing stir-fried veggies- only a buck!



flowers along road

It's the monk store! Everything a monk could ever need.

As usual, the best birding was along the roads, parking lots, and paths. Each time I went up the dense forest trails, I did a lot of work for few birds (though the ones I found were good ones). Around Malee's, I was excited to find quite a few Crested Treeswifts (a type of swift that can actually perch in trees -- unlike most). Other neat birds around were Little Spiderhunters, Blue-throated Barbets, Mountain and Dark-necked Tailorbirds, Black-throated Laughingthrush, Olive-backed Sunbird, Striated Swallows, Scarlet Minivets, Black-hooded Oriole, Oriental Turtle-dove, and Spotted Dove. At night, I heard Collared Scops-owl and Asian Barred Owlet. Closer to the wat, I added Asian Blue Fairybird, Violet Cuckoo, Buff-throated Babbler, Blue-winged Leafbird, White-crowned Forktail, Streaked Spiderhunter, Mountain Imperial Pigeon, Mountain Bulbul, and Rufous-fronted Babbler (the form here is sometimes split into a separate species -- Deigan's Babbler). In the afternoon one day, I hiked a "trail" along the firebreak in the forest around the wat. It turned out to be a trail in only the vaguest sense. It started off in extremely overgrown, dense grass and bamboo, then went straight uphill for a long time. This whole stretch was extremely slippery due to the clay and the recent rains. I was pulling myself up using the plants above me, with the thought that there were cobras in that forest constantly on my mind. When I got to the top of the steep part, drenched in sweat, and was finally in the area that had a good trail for good birding; then it started to downpour. I should also mention that the loudest cicadas I've ever, ever encountered reduced the audio detection of birds to almost zero. Seriously, I thought I was going to have permanent hearing loss! You can ask Sarah -- they were seriously loud! Anyway, it poured for the rest of the hike and I only saw a couple birds. The big consolation prize was right at the end when I was sloshing back down the middle of a stream; a Blue Pitta flew out in front of me. This is one of the birds people come here to see. Amazingly, I had dry feet after all that, thanks to the overshoes Sarah and I bought before we started the trip. All I can say about that hike is I'm so glad there weren't leeches....

After catching an overnight bus back to Bangkok, we're catching up on errands and whatnot in preparation for our flight to Nepal in two days. The next stage of our journey is about to begin!

-Matt!