rhinos and crocs and sloth bears, oh my!

Happy in Chitwan National Park, Nepal


Elephant bathtime!


More elephant bathtime

Royal Chitwan National Park was a mixed bag for us.... on the one hand, we had some pretty incredible moments here and met some great people, but on the other hand, we had a bad experience with some aspects of our "tour". I'll touch on the bad stuff first so we can move on to the rest. Our problems centered around the tour package we booked in Pokhara. As I've mentioned before, we almost never sign on to tours, but we added up the prices for the different activities and accommodations, and it pretty much was a wash whether we went on a tour or did it ourselves -- the tour was simply less work for us. So, like suckers, we booked with a guy who was professional and nice -- too bad he contracts with a crappy lodge for the tour. He'll be hearing from me soon. Anyway, we got to the "lodge" (Tiger Wildlife Camp) around 9pm, after our landslide adventure. Exhausted, we were shown to our room, which turned out to be a hovel with some planks for beds (complete with Snoopy sheets), and a filthy (as in dirty toilet paper in the bin, etc), grimy bathroom. Don't get me wrong here, our standards are pretty low since we're travelling budget, but this place was just gross. And we were stuck with it for 2 nights because we'd already paid for our package. It got worse, too. The food was fine (though we didn't have any choice in the meals), but the manager (who was a loon) tried to cut any possible corner he could, including flat out lying to us about the river levels, saying that it was too high to canoe, so we should do a longer hike. We believed him because we'd just gotten there and didn't know any better. He basically pocketed the money he was supposed to spend for our canoe trip, and we found out later that most people were doing the canoeing and loving it.... Grrr... When our two nights were up, we packed up and moved to a much nicer room at a place down the road. We still had some of our programs to do since we were delayed in starting them by the avalanche. The crazy manager for some bizarre reason decided that we were unhappy with his place and program because of the guide who took us on our jungle hike (whom we loved) and fired the guy! I was pretty upset about that and told him repeatedly that we liked the guide and that it was the room and him (the manager) that were the problems. Seriously, this guy was sleazy and nuts. Despite repeatedly telling him our grievances, at the end of the tours when he had to arrange our ride to the buses, he tried to pretend that we had a great time there and wanted us to recommend him! I'm actually being pretty brief on the negative parts of our stay in Chitwan, because they had such an impact that it almost overshadowed the good stuff. Almost.

Now on to the good parts of the experience there. Chitwan is a beautiful place. The riverine forest and open grasslands of the valley are lush and stunning. We had the opportunity to explore these on foot, on elephant, and a bit by water.

The jungle walk was the first activity we participated in. David and Vicki (from Hong Kong) and Sarah and I went across the river by dugout canoe with our two guides, and walked into the forest from there. The lead guide was named Raj, a gentle, quiet man who has been guiding inside the park for 18 years. He took us on paths through the forest, pointing out interesting things like rhino tracks and Bengal tiger scratchings on tree trunks. We walked quietly, listening for sounds that would give away the location of any wildlife. The area was full of spotted deer, and a few rhesus macaques (the temple monkeys) were up in the trees. The riverine forest here is quite open in the understory, so we could see quite a ways through the trees. A few birds were around, including a Red-headed Trogon (rare at this time of year -- they are usually up on the slopes of the hills), a Red Junglefowl (wild chicken), and a couple huge Indian Peafowl (wild peacocks). A Crested Serpent Eagle screeched as it flew in and landed in a treetop. Suddenly, we heard a loud, snorty breath off to one side. Raj immediately became extremely cautious and hurried us along the trail for an additional 20 meters, then we squatted down to peer through the trees. Eventually we made out a rare one-horned Indian rhino -- a female based on her size (massive but smaller than a male). She was moving through the trees, but starting to veer in our direction. That was when Raj saw a young rhino trailing her (which Raj later told us was a male based on the scent of its urine!). Our guide went into high gear at that point, and quickly moved us out along the trail and onto a dirt road that bisected the forest. Just like bears, female rhinos have every reason to be very protective of their young ones. The snorting through the trees sounded closer, giving every indication that the mother was agitated and following us! Raj made us jog down the road for a ways, checking behind him often, then veered us back off the road and into the brush behind a tree (you are supposed to hide behind a tree if charged by a rhino). We crouched there, hearts beating fast, adrenaline pumping, and manic grins on our faces, hoping the mother wasn't too upset with us. THEN, there was another snort directly behind us. Another rhino was in the bushes! Raj got us up and running down the road as fast as we could. We were heading towards where the forest opens up into grasslands. He obviously had a destination in mind, because he kept urging us along while checking behind us. I was the last one in line, with Sarah right in front of me. As we ran, both of us turned and looked back at the same time -- just in time to see a huge male rhino come out of the woods where we'd been hiding. We both saw him in full profile on the road, right before he turned his huge, horned head towards us. Scary! We were out in the grassland by this point, but it was even scarier out there, since the thick, thick grass and cane was over 4 meters high. There were paths pushed through it where rhinos had passed. We eventually cut down a human trail through the grass and pushed through until we came to a viewing tower looming out of the grassland. We climbed the ladder to safety, and stood watching as first one, then another rhino came running by uncomfortably close to the tower. It was hard to see them most of the time, but you could definitely tell where they were passing by the movement of grass. We'd inadvertently stepped into the middle of a chase where a male was after the female and her young one. Just like with bears, males will sometimes kill young ones so that the female will become receptive to mating again. No wonder she was agitated and not happy with us being around.....

We stayed up there for about an hour until Raj felt like it was safe to continue. It proved to be a great place to birdwatch, with such exciting birds as Emerald Dove, Yellow-crowned Woodpecker, Bay-backed Shrike, both Coucals, Green-billed Malkoha, Rufous Treepie, and many others flying over the grasslands. When we descended from the platform, my senses were amped up to level that I haven't felt since the first few weeks of hiking in grizzly country when I lived in Alaska. There were BIG animals out there.....

hiking through the grassland


Sarah "birdwatching"


birdwatching from the tower


crossing by canoe


Gharhial


post-rhino encounter


Royal Chitwan National Park

The rest of the walk was uneventful, but Raj proved to know his birds extremely well, helping me locate Brown Crake, Little Heron, White-browed Wagtail, Black-breasted Weaver, Chestnut-headed Bee-eater, Red-breasted Parakeet, Pied Kingfisher, Plum-headed Parakeet and more. Along the river's edge, we spotted a gharhial (a bizarre, fish-eating croc) and a "marsh mugger", your typical man-eating croc.


David, Vicki, and Sarah on an elephant!



on an elephant

We also went on an elephant ride for a few hours. This was a lurching, uncomfortable journey, but it certainly is a unique way to travel and we did see some barking deer (muntjacs). The elephants themselves were really neat to spend time with. Later in the day, we toured the Elephant Breeding Center, where we got to get close to some ridiculously cute 6 month old elephants. The sun was setting as we were leaving this spot, and the river and distant hills were a beautiful golden color.

boat crossing


Chitwan


Sarah with the baby elephants

One evening we went to a village cultural show, where the local Tharu people showed off some of their amazing stick dancing skills, as well as performing a few of their traditional dances, such as the dance to bring a family out of mourning after the loss of a loved one. The house was packed and everyone had a great time.

An evening walk out in the rice patties was lined with Large-tailed Nightjars sitting up on the wires. An early morning birdwalk didn't add too many new ones, but I did see an Oriental Pied Hornbill, Eurasian Golden Oriole, and Large Woodshrike.

All in all, we're both glad we went to Chitwan. Other than the idiot manager of that lodge, it was a really special place. Highly recommended!


rhino tracks


through the grassland

Landslide!

After our time in Pokhara, we headed out for our next destination: Royal Chitwan National Park. This park is located in the Terai region of Nepal, the low-lying flat area south of the Himalayan foothills. It comes as a surprise to most people that a lot of Nepal is tropical, and this park is in the heart of it.

The bus ride from Pokhara to Chitwan was supposed to take 6 hours, so we set off with high hopes that it wouldn't be a really long travel day. Of course, as usual, that turned out not to be true. We were starting to drop out of the foothills through some spectacular river valleys and were about 40 kilometers from Chitwan when we got backed up in a long line of traffic. It was pretty obvious that it was either because of an accident or landslide. It turned out to be the latter. We spent hours backed up along with everyone else, since there are no other roads connecting the Terai with the foothills anywhere in the area. There wasn't much shade, so it was a good thing that it wasn't unbearably hot -- just enough to keep people off the bus. Every once in a while a bus or car would come thundering by the line of cars, for some reason thinking they could get through when no one else could. Invariably, they'd end up backing up the highway causing all sorts of traffic issues. We met a lot of nice people while stranded on the road -- one guy on our bus was actually from Tucson! Also on our bus were Vicki and David, a couple from Hong Kong who we ended up spending a lot of time with in the following days. At one point I Sarah and I also watched a shady character get up on top of our bus and try to get into people's bags. Luckily the bus driver saw him and yelled at him to get down. He actually had the nerve to try to make it seem as if he was just trying to get a better look up ahead!

After several hours of waiting, word trickled back that there were huge rocks in the way and that vehicular traffic might not make it through that day. That settled it for Sarah and I, so we got our bags off the roof of the bus and started walking for the blockage, hoping to get across it and catch another bus on the other side. It was a two kilometer walk in the rain to the landslide spot. As we approached the area, there started to be a lot of movement of people coming towards us. They had just opened the gap for people to hurry through, and people were trying to get by before they closed it again to continue working. We sped up and pushed our way through the oncoming people trying to get there quickly. We reached the landslide as the last of the people they were letting through straggled by The road workers were frantically trying to stop people as they kept an eye upslope for sliding debris. There were a couple bus sized rocks still in the road, along with hundreds of tons of dirt and rubble. It was obvious they weren't going to get even one lane open for traffic for several hours. We rushed across the debris (two of the last 5 people to do so) and into a big milling crowd of people already stopped from going the other direction. The feeling as we continued walking in the rain away from the danger zone was very refugee-like; people were carrying all of their belongings, all walking in the same direction. Further on, the truck drivers and bus people were all taking the delay in stride. Many of them were taking showers in the small waterfalls, shaving, doing their laundry, and cooking dinner under their trucks.

We ended up walking over 8km from our bus to another bus that could take us to Chitwan. We ended up getting our "trekking" experience in Nepal after all! The bus we got onto waited around for several more hours to pick up any more people that might have crossed through the gap, then headed out. We ended up arriving at our destination almost 9 hours late. Vicki and David, both of whom had decided to wait with the bus, arrived 3 hours later (at midnight). What a crazy day, but actually not a bad one. We met a lot of really great people, including 3 Irish college boys (one of whom kept talking about his childhood as when he was a "wee" boy -- how cute) and a young Nepali man. The scenery was pretty impressive, as well. High steep green cliffs with waterfalls cascading off them will brighten any one's mood.


Heading for the landslide


Across the gap!


Pushing through the stranded masses

Pokhara and around

HI folks--

I have a lot of catching up to do from the last week of adventures (and non-adventures), so bear with me if some of the next few blogs sound rushed.

We had a fantastic few days in Pokhara, Nepal. The city is the staging point for many of the Himalayan treks people undertake; most famously the Annapurna Circuit and Annapurna Base Camp. We didn't do any of these, though we'd like to sometime -- but preferably not during the monsoon/leech season. Instead, we spent 5 wonderful days rambling around the hills and the lake that surrounds Pokhara. We put in quite a few miles each day during our explorations, wandering through beautiful forests up in the hills and through brilliant green rice patties and wetlands along the lakeshore. Pokhara itself was a breath of fresh air -- no traffic, no hassles, great food, a nice room, etc. We were there long enough to establish a routine with our favorite restaurants. We figured out where we could get the best Nepali set meal (dal baat, vegetable curry, curd, salad, pickle (sauce), chapati, and rice), and even found a place that had fantastic Italian food (on par with food I've had in Italy -- including homemade noodles!). My typical drink choices at meals have changed quite a bit in past weeks -- no coffee at breakfast, no Coke at lunch, and no beer at dinner. Just a nice glass of black tea or masala chai. And way cheaper!

She wanted some rupees for this photo... but it was worth it.

Sarah near the International Peace Pagoda above Pokhara, Nepal

One of our hikes took us up the mountainside near town to check out the Peace Pagoda up there. It was quite a sight, but the better views were looking out from it. On clear days, the whole Annapurna massif of the Himalayas stretches out to the north and east, with Mt Machupucarrhe (7000 meters) sticking straight up above the town.We didn't see this, but were treated to views of these mountains through the clouds on our first day in Pokhara, so that's OK. The birding up on the mountainside was fantastic, with such lifers as Red-headed Vulture, Black-lored Tit, Golden-fronted Leafbird, Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, Common Hawk Cuckoo, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Blue-whistling Thrush, Grey Treepie, Greater Yellownape, Great Barbet, Long-tailed Minivet and Grey-hooded Warbler. We wanted to go down the longer route through the forested slopes of the mountain, but visitors are often robbed at gunpoint along this route, so we stuck to the well-travelled paths. Go figure, people get robbed when visiting the Peace Pagoda.... We attempted a route that would take us all the way around the lake below us, but couldn't find the path at one point, so it turned into an interesting side trip to some small, little-visited villages.

climbing to Peace Pagoda

Matt! at Peace Pagoda

Peace Pagoda

view of Pokhara valley

cooling off at the top of the mountain. Gross.

Mt. Machupucarrhe

Another day in town sent us on a long, leisurely ramble along the lake. This walk included a long lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall place that had fantastic views over the lake. While waiting for our meal, I saw an immature (2nd year?) Pallas's Gull, Bronze-winged Jacana, Lesser Whistling Duck, Little Grebe, and several herons in the shallows nearby. The walk continued through rice paddies that were the most magnificent shade of green we've ever seen. Sarah got a lot of nice photos, so I'll try to add a couple here.

Ah.... papad and Nepali beer

rice fields along lakeshore

more fields

Additional pictures from Kathmandu

Spices for sale


Sabu (holy man)


Now those are heavy paniers!


typical Kathmandu scene


Wine on the rooftop of the hotel! - Sarah is drinking out of a 7-11 cup she's been dragging around, and I'm using a tuperware container.


The latest in fashionable facewear in Kathmandu -- perfect for those dust and fume-clogged days!


Patan's Durbar Square


no comment.


Another typical scene in old town Kathmandu

The Road to Pokhara

Before I forget, I wanted to mention that Nepal is 1 hour and 15 minutes off of Southeast Asia time.... I think the extra 15 minutes was Nepal's attempt to exert a little independence from its huge neighbor to the south that it relies on for most of its imports - India. Whatever the reason, it's highly confusing for me.

In coming to Nepal, we had both decided not to do a trek due to time constraints and because of the monsoons. Now that we're here, it was definitely the right decision, though it means we won't get up into the high elevations of the Himalayas on this trip. The evening monsoons are torrential downpours, which turn the roads into rivers. Not the sort of thing I'd like to be hiking or spending the night in a tent in.... Regardless, many people who trek in Nepal (including possibly me in the future) do so from Pokara, which is a few hours to the west of Kathmandu. There are some interesting day hikes possible from here, so we decided to make it our next stop.
The road to Pokhara was a spectacular drive along a massive glacial river in the Himalyan foothills. It got progressively hotter as we headed toward Pokhara, and was admittedly not the most comfortable ride. I'm going to try to sit on the roof of the next bus we are on. One extremely pleasant surprise was the clearing of the sky and the appearance of several of the Himalayan peaks -- Ganesh Himal, Himalchuti, and the Annapurna massif in particular. Each of these peaks are between 7000 and 8000 meters tall.... holy crap. This is the one thing I was hoping for while in Nepal. I knew we weren't going to be trekking, but I at least wanted to feel like we were in the vicinity of these mighty mountains; hard to do in sweltering tropical heat with the peaks hidden behind clouds. What a spectacular sight!

After 7 hours of driving and two 30-minute food stops, we finally made it the 140 miles from Kathmandu to Pokhara. It takes a while to get anywhere here, even on the busiest highway in the country. It's a two lane road that is frequently cut down to one-lane since trucks and buses just park in the middle of the road instead of pulling off to the side. Though there isn't often a place to pull off, we noticed the drivers seemed to pick the worst places to do so; in the middle of a bridge or at a blind curve are two frequent places.

Something we found out is that the price of gas and oil here in Nepal has doubled in the last two months, putting the price up around US$6.00/gallon. No wonder transport was costing more than was mentioned in the guidebook. India has a stranglehold on gas imports, so Nepal is at their mercy for this commodity.

We arrived in lakeside Pokhara without any fuss and were greeted by an aggressive and in-your-face crowd of "touts" trying to get you to go to a certain hotel (where they would receive a commission and you get a higher price). This is another fact of travel here in Nepal and India we'll have to deal with. This obviously happens elsewhere too, but I think it's going to be particularly ruthless here.

We're going to spend the next couple days hiking and relaxing in the hills around Pokhara. I'll let you know how that was in my next post!

-matt!

Namaste from Nepal

Well, we're not in Bangkok anymore. Kathmandu is as different a capitol city as you could possibly get from Thailand's slick mega-city. More on that in a minute, though. Let me tell you about the flight in!

We flew direct from Bangkok to Kathmandu on Thai Airways, and I must say, they are pretty much the best airline I've ever flown, at least in terms of customer service. Sarah agrees. We got seats on the right side of the plane on the off chance that the Himalayas would show themselves through the mass of monsoon clouds. They never did (though I might have seen a peak in there), but I was able to see the vast flat deltas of Burma and Bangledesh sliding by below.

Anyway, soon after taking off the flight attendant came by with a hot towel, followed by refreshments and some peanuts. A little while later, lunch arrived. We'd signed up for the vegetarian meal (everyone in the States knows that these options are a joke), and when it arrived, it had cut fruit, a pommelo and avocado salad, a roll, a rice-stuffed bell pepper, and a lentil and okra dish! Wow! It was all awesome, especially the bell pepper. then came the choice of white or red wine with the meal (we both got red-- and I ended up drinking both of ours). Once the meal was over, trays were cleared and coffee and tea was served. Pretty sweet. THEN they came by with a snifter of cognac! I had to get everything, of course. I love this sort of thing. There was one point when I had a Coke, wine, coffee, and cognac all on my tray at once. About thirty minutes before the flight ended, the attendants came by and gave Sarah an orchid corsage. Oh, and we weren't even in first class, by the way. The first class passengers must have gotten full body massages and had a spa if us unwashed masses in the back were treated as well as we were.


My drink array on Thai Air - Coke, coffee, wine, cognac

Anyway, we descended out of the clouds and into Kathmandu Valley -- a green bowl surrounded by high hills on all sides, with brick and concrete buildings haphazardly spread over the valley bottom. Immigration took forever for some reason, but once we were through that, we were whisked off by taxi through rutted, potholed alley-like roads to our hotel. Quite a change from Bangkok, as I mentioned earlier.

Our hotel is located on the outskirts of the Thamel district, the main tourist area of town. This is the low season for tourism here, with the monsoons in full swing. Compounding the low tourism that is the large fluctuations in political power happening right now. For those of you who don't follow Nepali news, about a month ago the monarchy was dissolved and a new government that includes the Maoist rebels was formed. Big changes for this little country. The violence from the rebellion seems to be over, but the government is still very much in flux.

For the last three days we've been dodging crazy traffic and wandering the alleys and backstreets of Kathmandu and surrounding towns. Old Kathmandu is a confusing mass of very skinny streets in between tall buildings, and rickshaws, motorbikes, and cars all crowd into the small space, making simply walking quite a stressful experience. The neat thing is that down every back alley, a huge courtyard or plaza or temple appears. Some courtyards are reached by tunnels you have to duck to get into. On one of our walking tours, we even came upon the plaza that was home to the tea house where Cat Stevens wrote his song "Kathmandu"!

It has been quite a switch to go from the clean, well kept Buddhist temples to the crazy, intertwined Buddhist/Hindu beliefs that meld so well here in Nepal. Everything is more real, in a way. By that I mean the people here aren't aloof from their belief systems -- every nook, cranny, and hole-in-the-wall is a temple to Ganesh, Shiva, Buddha, etc. -- and nothing is well-kept. Ash, incense, red powder, candle wax, smoke, offerings, trash, and colorful fabrics line the recesses of the worship areas, and the area surrounding each one is full of activity -- cows, dogs, monkeys, goats, children, crazy holy men, beautifully dressed women and all manner of other things are in constant motion. It's a lot to take in, especially for foreigners who are used to the order and cleanliness (and dare I say tedium?) of Western places.

We visited many places in the Kathmandu valley during the last few days, including the world's largest stupa (a type of Buddhist temple. This particular stupa is Tibetan, and reflects the traditions and beliefs of the many, many Tibetan refugees who have settled (and even flourished) in Nepal. The atmosphere is calm and peaceful (especially in comparison to the chaos outside the plaza), with a cobblestoned walkway all around the circular stupa lined with shops and cafes. The Tibetan Buddhist chant "om mani padme hum" echos peacefully out of the shops selling singing bowls, incense, rosary beads, and beautiful tapestries, while people walk in a clockwise direction along the outside of the stupa's wall, spinning the many prayer wheels there. It's hard not to get caught up in the centrifugal force of the walk -- it literally feels like you are going against the current if you try to go the other direction, even though it isn't a crowded place.

The temple in the next photo is another similar structure, though it is set at the top of a hill overlooking Kathmandu. Locally it's called the "monkey temple" for the rhesus macaques that hang around and amuse the visitors. I did see one monkey take a swipe at a woman who was trying to place an offering in the alcove in which the monkey was currently sitting (and eating the offerings). His photo is included here. The view over Kathmandu was quite amazing, so we sat and enjoyed it for quite a while. There were dozens of Black Kites riding the thermals and sitting in the trees around the hill, while House Crows, House Swifts, Oriental Magpie-robins and other birds moved through the brush and around the buildings. Sarah and I both found this particular stupa to be very relaxing; perhaps it was because of the beautiful filtered light of the afternoon, the worshipping devotees giving offerings, or the hundreds of prayer flags fluttering in the breeze. It certainly wasn't due to the many steep steps to get up there. =)

Swayambhunath stupa (the monkey temple)



a monkey eating the offerings


Swayambhunath Temple (the monkey temple)


Cheeky monkey!


Sarah turning the prayer wheels


Pashupatinath Temple and cremation ghats (platforms)

These cremation ghats were pretty interesting. Many people are cremated here -- you can see the smoke from a couple bodies in the left hand side of the photo. Most of the Nepali royal family was cremated here a few years ago after the Crown Prince bizarrely gunned them all down and then killed himself. In addition to the ghats, there are lots of side temples where holy men gather. They are the crazy looking, dreadlocked guys in the next couple of photos. I'm not sure what they do all day, but it seems to involve a lot of laying around and smoking pot. They definitely serve a purpose in the workings of religion here, because they are supported with alms by devotees. The more enterprising of them (and probably some fakes) cruise around the tourist areas and waylay visitors with red dye to the forehead, for which you are then supposed to give them a "donation". Talk about pressure sales. We soon learned to avoid them if possible, though the one I have a picture with at the end of this post was nice enough. He liked that my beard was approaching the size of his.


Sabhus (holy men) - they look like hippies


More Sabhu - Durbar Square, Kathmandu


At Pashupatinath Temple


The Maoist guerrillas are now a part of the government here


Hot fermented millet beer - yum!



Now that's a special you can sink your teeth into!


Durbar Square, Kathmandu


Beard brothers!

After four days in Kathmandu, both of us were very ready to escape the exhaust and dust and crowds of the place. We are both a little concerned this is a foretaste of what it'll be like in India. Exhausting!

Contrary to what I originally thought, Kathmandu is warm and tropical. For some reason I assumed it was colder, or at least more temperate. Since it sits around 1500 meters, it was high enough to have cool nights, so we enjoyed the slight temperature respite after Southeast Asia. Now we're off to Pokhara for the next stop in our trip.

-Matt!

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!