Yakety-Yack There’s a Macaque
On Thursday, we left Saigon and flew to Hue. Hue looks like a great place beauty and culture-wise, but we were headed for monkeys and we’re not looking for them in cages. After we struck out in numerous ways for the first inning, Rod and I had our hopes up for a better experience and Phuong Nha-Ke Bang National Park. This is a park with ten different primate species living in a limestone karst landscape that is full of jagged forest covered peaks, extensive caves and springs. One thing I always read about Vietnam is that it is a beautiful country and this beauty is truly exceptional at Phong Nha.
We went out in the late afternoon and drove the road that loops through the park and has extenstions that lead to Khe Sahn (a major battle diverting American military strength from the real battle called the Tet Offensive) and Laos which is less than 40 kilometers away. The road follows the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the park was used often by the North Vietnamese army to hide weapons and men in the caves. It took us about thirty minutes to come to the conclusion that defeating the “enemy” given the terrain was an impossibility and wondered why Washington would think differently!!! The park is an extremely hot place and it is probably likely that animals will only be seen very early and at sundown. We found nothing other than the original chicken – I think Rod call’s it a Jungle Fowl – and some other birds, but we did locate an area with fruiting trees following one of the streams as well as a mountainside that seemed like good habitat for some of the primates. A park employee told us that he sees hatinh langurs there many mornings around 7:00 AM.
We drove into the park by 5:30 AM for our only full day of looking for some of Vietnam’s primates of which 25 exist nationwide with 23 of these being listed as critically endangered, endangered or threatened. I suggest that this statistic alone provides enough information about the situation here and I won’t go into the others I am reading now on the internet (by the way, I am in Hanoi and while it is raining outside, I am using the computer provided in my room – that’s a first for my travels). We had some decent viewing locations, but looking for a monkey in the trees on the limestone crags was not going to be easy. When looking for monkeys we usually rely on hearing their calls, their jumps in the trees or their fruit waste dropping to the ground or by seeing some movement in the trees. Given where we were in this park, we could only really plan on hearing their calls or seeing some movement. Winds move through the rock formations and this would be a big problem for seeing movement or hearing anything. We waited at the promising hillside before and after 7:00 AM, but with no luck. Other areas proved too daunting as well and by mid-morning it was too hot, but we were enjoying the beautiful landscapes.
We did a boat trip on the river that enters a very large cave system. The boat is paddled once entering the cave and it continues 800 meters into the hill where ancient Chama inscriptions are carved on the walls surrounded by fantastic stalagtites and stalagmites. The temperature in the cave was very refreshing and we had a great time seeing this real gem of nature.
We went back out at 4:00 PM after a little siesta and checked out the area that looked promising earler and we went towards Laos. It was starting to get late as far as sunlight goes when Rod decided that if he was a monkey (he’s actually a proboscis monkey as we saw in Borneo, but I guess he was trying to say that if he was a limestone karst dweller monkey!)… he would roost in the trees on the eastside of a mountain so that he could get the first rays of light and warmth to get the day started early before the oppressive heat settled in. As for the hatinh langur that we were hoping to see, this meant they would be on the other side of the hill than we were looking at. The sun did get to the side we were at around 7:00 AM so this logic seemed to match up with the employee’s observation. The monkeys would start around 5:00 AM on the eastside and then move with the sun until it was too hot and end the day back where they started before sunset. Rod had seen the Delacour’s langur do this at another Vietnamese park in the past and it seemed like really good logic. Given what I have witnessed in the past with Rod finding wildlife, I would have believed him if he said they might be living under the bridge we were standing on.
So, we headed around the hillside. And we neither saw nor heard anything from a monkey. We headed down the road towards another hill’s eastern face when Rod’s amazing hearing registered monkey sounds. We got to the start of a very steep cliff that did not look promising, but Rod’s equally amazing sight saw something. He told me monkeys were there and I looked and see them. Finally! While the sun was fading, we looked at them through Rod’s field scope and we identified them as assamese macaques which are large monkeys with little stub tails. The tails are funny looking, but the monkey’s face is very handsome. About twelve of them sat way out in branches overhanging a very high cliff. They were secure from predators and would certainly see the rising sun very early. I was very thankful for Rod being smarter than the average assamese macaque and it appears the proboscis is smarter than the macaque although I am wondering where he fits in with the langurs and gibbons 🙂
That night we ate at the local hotel and had a great dinner as most of the meals have been in Vietnam. As with many of the menus, it listed wild boar and deer dishes. Not very cool being next to another national park where bushmeat is being served. I have not seen anything about monkeys as food although many references can be found on this subject. I asked our guide and he said they do not eat it and it is illegal, but the Chinese eat monkeys. I don’t know, but it appears that habitat loss and human consumption are doing a number on the populations. An interesting quote from the wikipedia entry for Phong Nha – “While local authorities have taken no legal action, nevertheless, some civil servants and policemen are the owners of restaurants that serve wild animal meats hunted in this national park.” and the following article is quite disturbing – http://english.vietnamnet.vn/features/2005/10/503609/
During the day on Friday we also learned that there are monkeys living on a hill that is at the start of the park and they are being protected by the locals. That sounded promising so we decided to be there for sunrise before we had to drive back to Hue to catch a plane to Hanoi in the north where we plan to visit three more parks/reserves. We arrived at the hill at sunrise and soon we heard gibbons calling. A gibbon is an ape and the gibbons at this park would be different than the Borneo gibbons that we saw in, you guessed it, Borneo. We were there to find the supposedly protected monkeys so gibbons seemed to be a real bonus. We excitedly moved to get around the hillside where the sounds came from, but our excitement soon faded when we saw a fence and determined that it was a fence that surrounded the whole hill to keep the monkeys in – a zoo!!!!
Yes, Franfurt Zoological and others are using this hill to try and save some primates. While this is a good cause, we had no interest in seeing captive primates even of their cage is many hectacres in size including a whole limestone karst formation. The disappointment was there, but we were happy to see the macaques and the wonderful park and we can only hope that the habitat can support the existing populations and the locals will avoid poaching. It seems that they need a park program to get local support for saving the monkeys in exchange for more tourism especially since the park is really only promoted for its caves and climbing. It is likely that the poaching of monkeys provides more income than the current tourist money associated with primate viewing or research projects. As has been proven in many natural places, without making a financial win for the locals, the conservation hopes are unlikely to succeed.
Tags: Asia, vietnam
vagabondrick
I’m sure glad Rod was able to spot the few monkeys you did get to see in the wild. Very fascinating to read of your attempts. Oh yes, I am reading finally – and Happy 4th of July