a not-so-good night out

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On the 24 September I started off to the mountain of Doi Chiang Dao, north of Chiang Mai. When in Bangkok I normally leave my main pack in storage at Prakorb's House and just take two day packs when I go somewhere (Sai Yok, Khao Yai, Cambodia...) because I don't need all my stuff all the time. So that's what I was going to do in Chiang Mai too. Bag storage at the Lanna Guesthouse where I had been staying was 50 Baht for an indefinite period (one day, ten days, it didn't matter, always 50 Baht). But when I went to put my pack in the storage room, it was just an ordinary unlocked room where anyone could walk in and out. I had my reservations but I stowed it there, went back downstairs and asked for a receipt. "We don't give receipts" I was told. "Well, how do I know my bag will be safe?" I ask. "Because it will be, that's the room my family sleeps in." "That's all very well, but how do you know someone else isn't going to take my bag? I just need something written out to say that's my bag so only I can take it." That's when she (well, she/he: 'Julie-Ron' was certainly not born a woman!), but anyway, that's when she flipped out and told me to take my bag and get out because it wasn't worth the hassle for 50 Baht. Personally I don't think its unreasonable to expect a certain amount of security if you're leaving property in their care. Maybe that's just me though. So I went upstairs, walked into the room, got my bag and walked out. There was nobody there, I could have taken any bags I wanted. So, no I definitely do not recommend Lanna Guesthouse as a place to stay!

However, I do recommend Henry Restaurant, which is just round the corner (opposite Wat Pra Singh). Excellent food. Not so much P. Coffee House, between the corner and Lanna. Its all right for breakfast but the rest of the time the meals are too small and overpriced, and there's a singer there absolutely butchering classic songs like 'Hotel California' and 'House of the Rising Sun'. He asked me how long he could stay in New Zealand for 200 pounds sterling ("three weeks, four weeks...?"); I didn't know how to break it to him! Also of high regard for me is Browny House which is an internet cafe at the intersection down Ratchadamnoen Road, opposite the police station. If you spend an hour in there (say, writing blogs) they give you a 'valued member' card and every third hour is free! That's all my free advertising out of the way. (I put this stuff in because to my eternal surprise there are random people unknown to me in places like Jerantut or Kuala Lumpur reading my ravings. So if you're in or going to Chiang Mai, these are my picks).

I caught the bus to Chiang Dao (taking all my gear with me) for 40 Baht. The town was a little smaller than I had expected. Its basically just a strip along the main highway. After being let off the bus, I crossed to a restaurant for some food. There I met a couple up from Chiang Mai for the day who were wondering what to do. I suggested the Chiang Dao Cave, probably the only attraction of note in the town, and rather handily only 1.6 km from Malee's Nature Lovers Bungalows where I was heading. And that's how I got to my destination without paying the 120 songthaew fee! At the restaurant I had bought two bottles of water. I always check the seals on the bottles because I'd heard tell that some unscrupulous folk refill them with tap water and then re-sell them. The seals where fine but when I opened the first one that night it tasted odd, not like the usual bottled water. I thought it must just be a local version. But the next day when out birding I noticed on the second bottle that the whole lid had been prised off so the seal remained intact, and then replaced after, presumably, refilling with tap water (the local bottles have a plastic zip-type seal around the top part of the lid, not a perforated ring round the bottom of the lid like in New Zealand). I had no other water though, so I had no choice.

Anyway, so I got a free ride to Malee's, the place where all birders go. Its a sort of rite of passage I guess. You haven't been to Thailand if you haven't been to Malee's. As soon as I arrived I knew I was going to like it there. The couple I rode in with had a look around and liked it so much that they seemed more grateful to me than me to them; they decided on the spot to come back in January to stay there for a while. It was really too late to try any of the jungle trails in the area so I just birded around in the garden for a couple of hours. First bird I saw was a new species for me, a crested tree-swift (and that's a nice bird too). There were no fewer than three species of drongos (black, ashy and bronzed, the first two new), as well as golden-fronted leafbird (the last of the six leafbird species in the areas I was travelling). Excellent excellent garden at Malee's!

The next morning I headed to a trail known as the Temple Gully, because it is a gully by the temple. Funny that. Normally the stream there is dry with just a few small pools dotted along here and there, and it is one of the best places for birds. Now it was full, and there were no birds. It wasn't too hard to make one's way up the stream going from rock to rock and not getting more than the soles of the boots wet, but the only bird I saw along the entire length was a wedge-tailed pigeon. It was a new bird for me, but I saw it only briefly (enough to identify it), and of course it appeared right when I was balancing on one leg trying to step to another rock. I wavered about on that leg, trying to see the bird while not falling over, then a squirrel crashed through the same branches the bird was in and both disappeared. The squirrel was new too, a mountain red-bellied squirrel (brown with a pinkish-red belly). On the way back down the stream I saw six more bird species, just one new (a hill blue flycatcher). I tried the gully three more times while I was there but always with the same poor results. I came to the conclusion that when the stream is dry the birds have to be there to drink and can be seen easily, but when the stream is full they spread out all over and can't be found.

The Jungle Trail (now called the North Trail) was my next trail. Again, it was supposed to be one of the better ones for birds. Not at this time of the year. I saw an oriental pied hornbill right at the start which was a huge surprise because they aren't normally seen in the area. I find this species everywhere I go, even where they're not supposed to be! Can't find any of the other hornbills, but pied hornbills, no problem! Then there was several hours of slow walking with no birds showing up. Then I got lost. I've been in many forests now, all over Thailand and Malaysia, as well as New Zealand, and I've never been lost before. The problem here was not so much me being useless as me using the guidance of a booklet called "The Birds of Doi Chiang Dao" written by a Belgian guy called Jurgen Beckers. He writes that when you reach a junction in the trail you turn left and its a short walk to the main road. Left, right...its a small difference but a fairly important one. After forty minutes of walking -- proper walking, not birding walking, because it was getting later -- I was still on a trail, and heading uphill not down as by rights I should have been. It could be ten minutes to the road or I could be on my way to the summit and be walking for hours more, I had no way of knowing. So I decided the most sensible course of action would be to turn around and return the way I'd come. Unfortunately the light was failing, and somehow I lost the trail. When you are lost you are supposed to stay put and wait for rescue. That's all very well to say but when you actually are lost in a big trackless jungle you don't think perfectly rationally. You more freak out. So I did what any lost idiot would do: I struck off downhill. I figured if I headed straight down there would be a road at the bottom. It was a good plan. I came across a stream, which was even better because it gave me something to follow and a stream HAS to come out at the bottom. At first I tried to keep my feet dry but I was tired and dehydrated and I slipped so many times I just gave up and walked straight down the middle. Sometimes it was bootsole-shallow, sometimes knee-deep, but I just wanted to get out. I dislocated my thumb when I smashed it against a rock in one stumble, gashed open a finger-web somewhere else along the line. When I got out my hands were a patchwork of cuts and thorns: I now literally have the jungle in my blood! My clothes looked like I'd crawled through a sewer. Luckily there are no leeches in the area, otherwise I'd have come out looking like I'd crawled through a sewer full of razor-blades.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was walking downstream. The light was going. Pretty soon the only things I could see were the fireflies and logs covered in luminous fungus. Even in such a dire situation it was nice. I deliberated on the options: continue in the dark, feeling my way along with my feet; or sleep where I was. I took the better choice and clambered up the side of the gully to find a spot to collapse. I had been going to just curl up on the uphill side of a banana plant (to avoid rolling back down into the stream) but in the dark I came across a small tree growing horizontally out from the slope. I settled uncomfortably on the base of it and curled over my bag, using it as a pillow of sorts. It was just like camping, except without the tent. Or food, or water, or a sleeping bag, or dry clothes... you know, all the things generally considered desirable when spending the night on the side of a mountain. I always have a disposable rain poncho in my bag (bought in Singapore two months before because I'm not sure what 'disposable' means) so I put that on in a meagre attempt to keep in some body heat. The main things I was worried about were mosquitoes and hypothermia. I slathered DEET all over my hands and face, accidentally getting it on my lips which went numb for an hour, but as it turned out there were no mosquitoes at all for some reason. There was always the slim possibility of a clouded leopard mistaking my hunched form for a deer, but at least that would be a most excellent way to die. Imagine being up in Heaven (or the other place) swapping death stories and everyone else was hit by a bus or stabbed by a circus dwarf or whatever, but I would have been eaten by a clouded leopard. Big kudos there! Mosquitoes, hypothermia and clouded leopards aside, I figured that so long as it didn't rain it wouldn't be too bad a night.

It rained.

As soon as it got light enough to see in the morning I was off on my way again. About 15 minutes downstream from where the night before I'd decided it was too stupid to continue, there was a six metre waterfall. After 45 minutes I came out of the stream onto a road. I've never been so glad to see bitumen in all my life! When I got back to Malee's I had a shower, food and water (I hadn't had any water in 17 hours. I was so dry I couldn't even spit). Then I went to sleep. I had actually slept most of the night out in the jungle, but it was that kind of sleep where you wake every few hours and feel like it was just a few minutes, so by morning you still feel really tired instead of rested. I also had a mysterious rash right up my left side, presumably from some kind of vegetation I'd brushed through. It hung around for several days.

Harrowing adventure ended.

Entertaining aside: on the way to Chiang Dao the bus passed a sign for a business making paper from elephant dung and natural fibres.

Other aside: on my second day at Malee's I saw, among other things, the Himalayan swiftlet, which was my 200th new bird for the trip. Its not a big total of lifers but I'm not a hard-core birder, just an enthusiastic one.

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Photos

the waterfall (and water tank) that wanted to kill me
it doesn't look much in the photo, but its about 6 metres high and quite nasty

Comments

[Peter Ericsson]

My, oh, my, what an adventure. Bet you won't go off inside the djungle without proper survival kit again. Anyhow, thank God u made it out.