On to Dalat

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Despite having been assured that the ferry driver to get across the river would be there at 6, he was not. I found someone sweeping the path who was able to call the ferry driver, and we got across the river just making it for 6:30. The bus was late of course, so I had to wait anyway, but it was a bit nerve-wracking because there is only the one bus daily at 6:30.



I wasn't overly worried about the bus being late because the boat driver pointed out exactly where the bus would come. It seems that in Asia everyone is born with a sixth sense, they can detect the aura of an incoming bus. The locals don't wait at bus stops, there are never any timetables or route numbers, and the name on the front generally correlates to the destination, but never the actual route. However locals just turn up by the side of the road at exactly the right time and just know the bus. I don't think this is just a case of me not knowing the Vietnamese buses but I would know back home. I still check timetables and route descriptions when I get the bus!



I asked about getting a bus direct the other way from Dalat back to Cat Tien and apparently there is a direct bus (obviously) but it will just say Saigon on the front because it goes to Saigon but the long way around via Cat Tien. However all the buses that go direct to Saigon from Dalat will also just say Saigon and will also claim to drop you at Cat Tien when they actually mean they will drop you at the junction on the main road and expect you to get a motorbike taxi. The locals of course would just use their bus sense.



The bus was much bigger than I would have expected, one of those classic Asian rickety coach type things, although a good chunk of the seating had been removed to make cargo space and there was a lot of stuff being transported, seemingly mostly fresh produce. We drove around town for a while picking up locals and goods because that's how local buses work here, and then about an hour later started heading towards Dalat. I was charged 150k for the bus, although I'm pretty sure I was overcharged as a tourist. I tried to look to see how much locals were paying, but because they were charging for cargo too so it was complicated.



The bus driver was a fan of spending extended periods of time on the wrong lane to overtake large rows of traffic. At least when it comes to bus v motorbike, the bus wins, its more bus v lorry or bus v other bus that concerned me. Of course being Vietnam, it all just worked out and we never hit anything. It's worth noting the near-complete lack of small private cars though, there really were next to none. And all of those that there were seemed to be very new, fancy, and expensive. I saw absolutely no old junk cars, they seem to just not exist in Vietnam. As we approached the highlands - Dalat is at altitude on the Dalat Plateau which is an area with high rates of bird endemism as you'd expect from a highland Plateau in the lowlands, hence why I'm visiting - I could already foresee the large amounts of mist, rain, and fog that my future held. It was very pretty and lush with stunning forested mountains as we wound our way up the highway. I imagine the poaching pressure on whatever wildlife is here must be enormous though. Of course most of the land was cleared for settlement and agriculture too, with just mountain tops remaining forested. The area around Dalat itself is surrounded by an interesting mix of broadleaf and pine forest, dramatically different to the lowland rainforest of Cat Tien. It's also colder, of course, being higher up. The daily highs and lows seem to be about 6 degrees different.



I had booked a moderately cheap room for Dalat for about 200k per night (I saw about because booking.com seems to give very weird prices - the official price for five nights is 1million and 655 dong which is very odd given that the smallest denomination of currency that exists is 1000 dong). You could probably get a room for just under 200k if you really looked and you could probably get a dorm for under 100k. I've somehow ended up with a room that is insanely big, however. 200k per night isn't all that much for a room relative to other places on the internet, it seems towards the lower end. Yet, the room I've got has two quite large beds and a private bathroom. It would easily be big enough for two adults and the beds are that kind of almost a double bed size that could just about fit two people in each bed but it would be a push. I'm not in a fancy hotel or anything, it's rather run down, the bathroom is tiny, but I was totally expecting all that for 200k. No air con but you don't need it in Dalat because it's cool anyway. I wouldn't have booked that room, and it wouldn't have been priced at that I don't think so my guess is that their single rooms are full or being developed because there's some construction going on.



From my room on the third floor and also on a hill slightly, I can look down over Dalat which is quite an interesting looking town it's a bit fancy and quirky with a big lake in the middle and lots of colourful buildings, surrounded by forested mountains. The bus took about 5 hours to get to Dalat, but because it had left so early I was in my accommodation by midday. Having skipped breakfast, my first priority was getting some lunch, however all the local restaurants, and there were many, seemed closed. So I ended up at a rather fancy but somehow also really cheap Indian restaurant. It felt extremely British. Unlike at Cat Tien, I now feel very self conscious about how absolutely all my things are stained with mud, my backpack is especially bad and it appears uncleanable.



At Dalat there are two main birding sites: Mount Lang Biang and Tuyen Lam Lake (as well as Ta Nung village but the logistics of that seem complicated without having someone in the know so I'm probably going to skip it) and after today I've got four full days here at Dalat to bid them. Both are a little way away and require full days so I didn't want to do either today. Instead for the afternoon I got a taxi to Datanla Waterfall just outside town. Some reports say this place is great, others say there's no birds at all. Worth a shot for a few hours I thought, and we drove past the entrance on the way in in the bus and it looked very foresty and promising.



In Dalat there are no GrabCars, only GrabBikes which I'm still a little hesitant to use so to start with at least I picked up a taxi on the street. Luckily, they're metered in Dalat. The taxi wasn't too expensive, probably about three times the cost per minute as a Grab in HCMC but still not too expensive. It took a while for me to explain to the driver where I wanted to go, however. I kept saying 'Datanla' over and over again and he didn't understand until eventually I wrote it on my phone and he said 'oh, Datanla!' exactly the same way I had just said it the last dozen times. I've missed out on all that fun with Grab.



Datanla is Vietnam's answer to ecotourism. Demolish all that pesky forest and replace it with tourist infrastructure. Datanla is a theme park but one that's set in forest focused on a waterfall with roller coasters through the trees and a canopy rope course and that sort of thing. There's still a good bit of forest though, especially on the edges, and both pine and broadleaf forest. I was deposited at a pine forest area near the rollercoaster and walked around the back of the rollercoaster - where I probably shouldn't have been - because I could hear birds. I really thought I was in Europe. A pure pine forest filled with large numbers of tits and treecrepers. Some greenfinches and a jay showed up too. Am I really in Asia? These were all slightly different from the European ones though, all distinct species from their similar ones in Europe. Oddly, the most distinctive one, the jay, is the only one that some people still lump! (not the greenfinch, that’s completely different looking)



I then found the actual entrance, paid the 30k ticket (rides are extra of course) and found some broadleaf forest with a gorgeous Orange-headed Thrush behind one of the many shops selling tourist tat. It had been fifteen minutes and I'd found six new birds, five of them lifers. Looks like I've been lucky with Datanla!



There a few walking trails in the forest at Datanla. A bit too manicured for my liking, but not bad. It was fairly busy though, as a standard spot on the Dalat tourist route. Tour groups in Asia always amuse me though where the leader has a big wavey flag and a whistle and the whole tour group wearing matching hats and badges follows along like lemmings on a school trip, all very drole . (I'm aware the lemming thing is a myth, I also believe that's my first use of the word drole in this blog. A great word and a Yes Minister classic)



The waterfall itself was very impressive, if it weren't for the hundreds of muppet tourists taking selfies, the stalls selling carved wood tat, and the poor sod working there who had to dress like a muppet to be an extremely prejudiced and un-PC vague resemblance of a native American chief. Datanla is going with theme of wilderness and nature for the sort of person who's never been outdoors before.



I think most of the birds seen today will turn out to be quite common and easy, it's mainly that the Dalat Plateau has a largely unique and distinct avifauna. Not nearly the avian biodiversity of tropical rainforests, but quite different stuff.



I eventually found a nice little trail through the forest along a stream that didn't have many people on it, which was pleasant. The for at is an interesting mix of cool montane broadleaf forest and pine forest. I'm not sure what determines the forest time, presumably either soil or microclimates. There weren't huge numbers of birds, but a Slaty-backed Forktail on the rapids was nice, as was an extremely confiding Blue Whistling Thrush which I sat and watched while it hopped about on the exposed rocks by the rapids until it eventually came so close to me that my camera could no longer focus. As I headed out, I passed a very showy Red-cheeked Squirrel on the path looking for food scraps now that most visitors had left. I don’t think I managed to get any pictures at Cat Tien. And right at the exit, I saw two birds which I can’t for the life of me identify, although it seems like it should be obvious. Very Ashy Drongo -like (as in, the pale grey sort) similar size and shape but slightly darker grey and with a black face, very cuckooshrike like in colouration but otherwise like an ashy drongo.



Several hours at Datanla was, overall, more productive than I had anticipated given all the tiro reports that say 'we saw absolutely no birds at all'. I'm especially happy with the Orange-headed Thrush as it's a species I missed at Mt Kinabalu. (and is a winter visitor?)



Datanla closes at five so I left then having spent about three hours there. Several nice species and a nice little introductory bit of birding. There are still lots of more Dalat speciality birds to get though, and four more days to do it. I walked around town a bit in the evening, it is quite a pretty town. I spent ages trying to find a shop that would sell the sort of nuts and cereal bars that I like to take with me to eat for lunch while birding, but failed completely. All I could find was absolute junk food which is annoying. Anyway, I have got a really nice view of Dalat from my bedroom.



New birds:

Green-backed Tit

Chestnut-vented Nuthatch

Vietnamese Greenfinch

White-faced Jay

Long-tailed Shrike

Orange-headed Thrush

Langbian Sunbird (distinctive local race of Black-throated. I’m not sure that any lists actually split it, it almost qualified under HBW’s Tobias Criterion. Given it’s a distinctive geographically isolated population of an otherwise widespread species, I don’t think there’s any clinal variation, I think it’s a good split)

Blue Whistling-thrush

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