Howie-n-Karen: Asia

(I’m at the mercy of a wireless internet connection that I’ve found while sitting on Sam’s veranda. So if this does not get posted right away, it’s beyond my control at this point.)

At six in the morning, it’s still dark as night. The temperature is a pleasant 78 degrees and there is a very slight cool stirring of air.. Yesterday there was a breeze and it was cool enough to force a light sweater on me. Howie didn’t need one, though. It’s Friday; we arrived a little after noon on Tuesday. Our body clocks have adjusted enough that today I decided to stay awake when 5:30 a.m. arrived. We leave for Kaeng Krachen this morning and I need to get this out.

Samut Sakorn (Wednesday, 25 January 2006). This was our first birding excursion of the trip. Dao, Sam’s driver helped us find Mr. Tee, who led us to the salt pans that had quite a number of stints, plovers and gulls. But we did not find the spoon-billed sandpiper, our main objective. We had other birds and a lifer or two for Howie and we will look for the sbsp at another location on Friday.

On the way back to Sam’s Dao suggested a little restaurant on the river for seafood. It was and adventure trying to order from a menu written in Thai (and we forgot to bring along our phrasebook). But I remembered the soup we had last night and the word for rice and fish and vegetables so I threw them out willy nilly. The one thing we were sure they understood that we wanted a Singha and a Coke. What came was the soup and an order of fried rice with crab that was delicious. (Oh, I understood when the waitress asked if we wanted it spicy hot – I said no). It was hot enough, though. Actually, it was perfect.

The flight over from San Francisco to Taipei lasted 13 hours and was uneventful. The seats were stacked too close to each other that everyone had to put their seats forward every time a meal was served. You knew right away we were not on an American airline by the smells. People brought meal they’d packed and there were spices and garlic smells so strong, I think Ev would have needed to leave the premises. China Airlines served congee for breakfast, fish and rice for lunch and a noodles and pork dish for dinner. With wine. The movies were awful but we slept most of the time between meals.

The four hour layover in Taipei was spent walking the corridors of a huge airport and doing Sudoku puzzles. I got Howie into it. Sam was waiting for us when we arrived and we are being hosted royally.

Lunch was on the veranda and the first of our Thai meals was excellent. We were taken around the neighborhood to get the lay of the land and later stopped to check out Sam’s factory. I had heard the place was state-of-the art but what we learned while touring the spotless facility and landscaped grounds was that he has a very innovative, generous and cooperative approach to running his business. Needless to say, he is very good at what he does.

Our stay in California was three weeks long and along with preparing for our trip, we got to visit with some friends and relatives, but alas, not all. We had some great meals and fun parties. Ev and John were totally generous hosts, at both their places. All in all, we had a wonderful send-off.

January is one of the coolest months in Thailand and it certainly is milder than when I was here last July. We walked around the salt pans in the heat of the day on Wednesday and it was pleasant, not hot, with a constant breeze keeping the humidity at bay. We did turn on the airconditioner last night, at Sam’s suggestion, mostly to keep the noise down. After that we have kept it off so as to better adjust to the warm nights.

For those who want to know, here are our plans, so far:

Friday, 1/27: – Kaeng Krachan NP, via another spot for the spoon-bill. We plan to stay for 5 days and nights. Sam will send Dao to drive us there and even pick us up when we are ready to return to Bangkok. We will have to rent a 4-wd vehicle for parts of the park or hire a pick-up to drive us all the way to KM 30) where we will camp for a couple of days. Although we brought a small tent, Sam wants us to use his big dome tent.

Thursday, 2/2 – return to Bangkok.
Friday, 2/3 – Saturday, 2/4 – Sam is taking us to Nakorn Nayok, where he has a golf resort in the mountains. We will meet some of his Rotary friends and my friend, Mimi, who is a very good golfer. There will be birding for us while the golfers golf.
Sunday, 2/5 – fly to Phnom Penh early in the morning (Bangkok Air). Shop for camping food supplies and meet up with Wayne of Conservation Int’l. Monday we take off on our backpacking trek in the Cardamoms, in search of elusive endangered bird species. That should take a week.
Monday, 2/13 – make our way to Siem Riep to visit Ankor Wat and Lake Tonle Sap. We will also be checking out a clinic where Howie might be able to do some volunteer work in the future.
Monday, 3/6 – fly back to Bangkok (Bangkok Air).
Wednesday, 3/8-3/14 – fly to Chiang Mai (Bangkok Air). Look up some friends, birds.
Wednesday, 3/15 – fly to Bhutan. Dana Gardner is the tour leader. We had dinner w/ him in Berkeley and decided to join the first of two tours he’s leading. Two weeks of birding.
Wednesday 3/29 – Assam (by land) The first week in India will be part of the bird tour led by Dana. When that ends, we will either stay there and tool around on our own or leave and join Bambi and Tracy in Sichuan for a week.

This brings us to late April. May and June are up in the air. July is Vietnam (DaNang for a month of volunteer dentistry).

Yesterday we spent the day pulling our kit together. We explored the neighborhood, walked around the STOU, an open university a block away, where we discovered a sunbird I’d never seen before and a prinia (sp?). [As I read the Bangkok Post this morning, I learned that the crown prince was there conferring degrees just after our walk.] We also bought crispy banana fritters from a street vendor, found an ATM that works with our savings account (very important) and found a place where Howie got a haircut. He even trimmed his moustash, zappa and eyebrows (a first). In the evening we drove into the heart of Bangkok with Sam and met Wile and Tanya for dinner at a Thai fusion restaurant, which we had to ourselves. After dinner we were dropped of at Phillipe’s, where we met up with Sam. It was Mimi’s birthday and, counting me, there were five of us who went to RIS (my Thai high school) there: the other two were Flora and Ann (a grade behind the other four of us). I had mentioned to all of them that I was returning in 2006 but Sam was the only one who really believed me.

Sam’s neighborhood is on the outskirts of the city. While walking around birding yesterday, Howie came across a house with a sign that read “Wildlife Conservation International.” We dropped in and met the director who gave us a brief introduction to the projects they are undertaking in Thailand. We explained our situation and he invited us to tag along on a couple of his trips to the outlying areas. We plan to take him up on that when we get back from Cambodia. Especially intriguing to Howie: the hornbill tracking project up near Mae Sot, the place we plan to explore later in the year, where we may do some volunteer work at the Burmese refugee hospital.

Tags: Bangkok, birding, Thailand, Travel

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