First-time birding trip to Northern Thailand - Jan/Feb 2024

[PeterHG]

 

 

Before this year our travels to Asia had been limited to a single trip to Sri Lanka, some years ago, so we decided that it was time to go and visit another oriental destination and Thailand seemed a logical choice.

I had read a tempting trip report by @xelas (https://www.safaritalk.net/topic/22561-birds-and-temples-of-northern-thailand-march-2023/) and upon contacting him received many more tips and the assurance that a self-drive in Thailand was certainly doable. I had contacted a few travel agencies here to see if they could put together a mixed nature and culture trip, but they had no real knowledge of birding areas and also did not offer self-drive options. We then decided to work out and book everything ourselves, with the help of the trip report by @xelas and a few others I found on Cloudbirders e.g. https://www.cloudbirders.com/be4/download?filename=BERRYMAN_Thailand_01_2019.pdf

 

Like @xelasI also made good use of two sites:

http://www.norththailandbirding.com/

https://www.thaibirding.com/

 

Nearly all accommodation was booked through booking.com, prices ranging from €30 to €65 a night for the two of us. The flight from Amsterdam to Bangkok was with Etihad, involving a stop-over in Abu Dhabi: 4 hours on the way to Bangkok and 1 1/2 on the return flight. We paid €1100,- in total for the flights, including luggage.

Like other airlines Etihad allows online check-in from 24 hrs before the flight, but unlike other companies changing seats without extra charge is limited to 4 hrs before. Not a great service, but flights were fairly comfortable with a little more leg room than we were used to.

We booked the car(s) through Sunny cars, the first one from Bangkok for 13 days ( €455,-) and the second from Chiang Mai for 11 days (€377), including second driver and full insurance. In fact both cars were rented through Budget without any problems. This was probably not the cheapest option, but we have used Sunny Cars a few times before and they are reliable. We got a fair-sized Toyota Yaris Ativ ( automatic) and could store both the suitcases and rucksacks in the boot. At the Budget desk we were warned not to make use of the M-flow sections of the highway or we would be fined some substantial amount of money. This got us a little worried as we feared it would involve finding alternative routes, but in fact they are just separate lanes in sections where you have to pay toll. Your car has to have a chip, which is charged automatically and allows for a faster flow. We just stuck to the left lanes and paid at the toll booth. No problem. All lanes merge again a few hundred metres further along the highway.

The domestic flights (Bangkok- Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai-Phuket and Phuket Chiang Mai) were booked through the excellent 12GoAsia website:  12Go: Book Trains, Buses, Ferries, Transfers & Flights.

We wanted to finish the trip with a few relaxing days on a quiet island and after looking through a lot of options decided upon Koh Yao Noi. This would involve a flight to Phuket and a ferry to the island (only 30 minutes with the speedboat). And yet another flight o Bangkok to catch the Etihad return flight to Amsterdam. A bit of a hassle for just a few days, but in the end we felt had been worth the effort.

 

Our itinerary boiled down to this:

Bangkok 1 night

Khao Yai 4 nights

Bueng Boraphet 2 nights

Ayutthaya 1 night

Kaeng Krachan/Pak Thale 5 nights

 

— domestic flight to Chiang Mai—

 

Chiang Mai 1 night

Chiang Rai 1 night

Chiang Saen 4 nights

Fang Hot 2 nights

Don Inthanon 3 nights

 

—— domestic flight to Phuket——

—— ferry to Koh Yao Noi

 

Koh Yao Noi 3 nights

 

—— domestic flight to Bangkok and fight to Amsterdam the day after——

 

Preparations for the trip were hampered by physical problems for both of us, but in the end we were given green light and our much-anticipated adventure could begin….

[inyathi]

That looks like a good itinerary, looking forward to reading more, I hope you had some great sightings.

[Tdgraves]

Koh Yao Noi is lovely - hope you got the sea eagle...

[Atravelynn]

Gorgeous intro photo!

 

[Kitsafari]

very much looking forward to this. 

[PeterHG]

 

The flight from Amsterdam to Abu Dhabi (7 hours) went smoothly and the 4-hour-stopover was spent in comfortable chairs in the newly opened Terminal A of Zayed Airport. Quite a sight, this spacious terminal....

 

 

On the flight to Bangkok (another 6 hours) the aisle seat next to us was occupied by an Egyptian passenger in his sixties. He constantly asked for whisky whenever a stewardess passed by and by the looks of him he already had a few before. When he learned we were Dutch he kept on about the fact that soft drugs were free in Holland and thus what a wonderful country we were living in. We could not convince him otherwise, He was also adamant we were on our way to Thailand because cannabis was legalised. That was most definitely his own reason for travelling there, he stated. Six hours can seem like weeks....

 

We got to Bangkok in the end, were picked up by the hotel taxi and taken back to the airport the next morning to collect our car. Having settled that, we set off towards our first destination: Khao Yai NP, some 180 km NE of Bangkok. To get a taste of Thailand birding an en-route visit to the Pathum Thani rice research centre seemed like a good idea. We used Google Maps as our navigation system and, with a few exceptions, it did a good job. Traffic was rather heavy and some of the U-turns Google Maps suggested were closed so it took a little longer than we had expected to reach the site. This whole system of U-turns took some getting used to anyway.

 

 

We spent a few pleasant hours driving along the tracks bordering the many rice plots and saw a good number of species. Most of them later proved to be quite abundant, but at the time we were excited by sightings like Great Myna, Zebra Dove and Amur Stonechat, which were all lifers. I’ll post some bird photos here as part of this report, but the bulk of them will appear in the Big Year Thread. All in all it was a good decision to make this stop, before continuing our drive to Khao Yai.

 

Zebra Dove

 

Eastern Cattle Egret

 

 

I had encountered some difficulties in finding a birding guide for Khao Yai. The few people I found online or were suggested to me were not available. As we were unfamiliar with most Asian birds we very much wanted to spend the first day with a guide. In the end I came across the Tontantravel website and contacted them. They could provide a guide and also made a suggestion for accommodation. We booked both. Thailand is not an expensive country in many respects. Accommodation costs a lot less than in Europe and the food is both cheap and delicious. But for guiding, in my experience, the rates are just as high as over here. We paid €190 for a day’s birding for the two of us. This included transport, lunch and entry and we felt it was well worth the money. The guide, a young guy who was quite fluent in English, was passionate and certainly knew his birds. Also he was pleasant company. Through his expertise we saw many more birds than we would have managed ourselves and he gave us some good tips on where to go in the next few days. I’ll telL some more on what we saw in the park in the next instalment.

 

 

[Miss Biscuit]

Great photos to start...Looking forward to this report. I have a few days in Bangkok (first time as well) this June and then a return to add some time in the north at the beginning of 2025.

[PeterHG]

Thank yoy @inyathi

On 3/2/2024 at 4:22 PM, inyathi said:

I hope you had some great sightings.

We certainly did !

 

On 3/2/2024 at 6:23 PM, Tdgraves said:

Koh Yao Noi is lovely - hope you got the sea eagle...

Yes, it was a lovely island, indeed! Unfortunately we did not get to see the sea eagle, although I did my best...

On 3/2/2024 at 11:17 PM, Atravelynn said:

Gorgeous intro photo!

Thank you for the kind words. Thry are truly spectacular birds and getting a chance for a flight shot was great!

On 3/3/2024 at 3:06 AM, Kitsafari said:

very much looking forward to this. 

Thank you. I'll try not to disappoint...;)

On 3/4/2024 at 5:38 PM, Miss Biscuit said:

I have a few days in Bangkok (first time as well) this June and then a return to add some time in the north at the beginning of 2025.

That sounds good! We did not really visit Bangkok, but we loved the north!

[xelas]

While I have followed your trip through your blog, I am also looking forward for the full size trip report. I am sorry that I have forgot to mention about the M-lane, but rental car companies obviously do their due diligence work; we have even got photos of how the "forbidden" lane looks.

 

Judging by the price the "English" speaking bird guides are asking for, birders must only be a very wealthy persons (in their eyes). A recent (failed) guided birding in Oman would cost us 150 OMR for 4 persons ... per day and without transportation!!

 

I am glad that some of my informations was useful to you, as I am still owing you for your crucial support in my decision to self-drive in Sri Lanka! 

[PeterHG]

On 3/6/2024 at 9:22 AM, xelas said:

A recent (failed) guided birding in Oman would cost us 150 OMR for 4 persons ... per day and without transportation!!

Perhaps the failure was a good thing...... We do like to go out with local guides, but it certainly adds to the budget.

[PeterHG]

Khao Yai

 

 

Khao Yai is the oldest national park of Thailand and one of the largest. The park covers an area of more than 2000 km2, and includes rainforests and grasslands.The altitudes range from 400 to 1000 metres. Because of this it can be quite chilly early in the morning, especially in the back of an open safari vehicle, so we started our guided day with a warm sweater. After admiring the views from one of the dedicated viewpoints, our guide made several stops along the road, where we would get out and scan the trees for birds. One of the most spectacular birds of the forests is the Great Hornbill, one of the larger members of the Hornbill family. The guide knew the spot with the greatest chance of seeing them and sure enough we found a pair high up in the trees, showing well and even allowing a flight shot eventually (the one I posted in the introduction)

 

Great Hornbill

 

When continuing the drive suddenly an elephant with a tiny calf emerged from the forest and quickly and nervously crossed the road behind our car. The mother flapped her ears threateningly in our direction and then they both scrambled up the shoulder and quickly disappeared into the forest again. We stared in amazement and never thought to take a photo. Well,, we probably would have been too slow anyway. The guide told us this had been very special. People often book a guide especially to see a wild elephant, but they don’t succeed very often.

 

On our walks we were accompanied by the haunting songs of the gibbons. The sound carries for miles and we were amazed and enchanted by the morning chorus. The gibbons do not show themselves too easily. The numerous macaques do.

 

White-handed Gibbon

 

 

Pig-tailed Macaque

 

We had lunch near the visitor centre, where you can find several restaurants and coffee bars. Some nice nature trails start there and our guide took us on a short walk along the river to show us an other impressive inhabitant of the Khao Yai forest: the Buffy Fish Owl.

 

 

Buffy Fish Owl

 

The next two days we went into the park by ourselves. The entrance fee is THB400 per person (€10,-) and another 30 THB for the car. Birding was much more difficult without the local knowledge of the guide, but we enjoyed it anyway. Strangely enough the silence of the forest was rudely interrupted by the piercing sound of leaf blowers. I do realise that the number of leaves in a forest can be overwhelming, but blowing them away from dirt roads and edges of camping sites did seem rather pointless. I’m sure there must be a valid reason somewhere….

 

Being fairly close to Bangkok the park gets quite busy in the weekend, especially at the visitor centre and the signposted viewpoints and lakes. 

Edited March 7 by PeterHG

[Kitsafari]

15 hours ago, PeterHG said:

Strangely enough the silence of the forest was rudely interrupted by the piercing sound of leaf blowers. I do realise that the number of leaves in a forest can be overwhelming, but blowing them away from dirt roads and edges of camping sites did seem rather pointless. I’m sure there must be a valid reason somewhere….

 

 

Being fairly close to Bangkok the park gets quite busy in the weekend, especially at the visitor centre and the signposted viewpoints and lakes. 

 

There is no point in using those darn blowers - absolutely none except to provide gainful employment. The blowers merely aim to blow the leaves into the grass area but by the end of the day the wind will just blow the leaves back onto the paths. 

You should hear Herman's choicest words for the "blowers" because you encounter them almost every time you walk into a park in Singapore. Noise pollution in what should be "quiet" and peaceful park can drive one mad. All because the city folks cannot abide leaves strewn on walking paths or roads. they view such leaves as debris which should be cleared to show the "beauty" of the concrete path or roads. 

 

[Kitsafari]

On 3/4/2024 at 12:40 AM, PeterHG said:

 

 

But for guiding, in my experience, the rates are just as high as over here. We paid €190 for a day’s birding for the two of us. This included transport, lunch and entry and we felt it was well worth the money. 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting to hear this! We always thought it is more expensive to hire a guide in Europe than in Southeast Asia. what you paid seemed also very reasonable. I've just finally found a local guide for a 3-day trip to Kok Kham and Khao Yai. It was not easy to find an available guide as this time of the year marks the reverse migration of birds and good guides have generally been booked. My guide quoted Bt9500 a day that includes all meals, transport, guiding, and accommodation (your EUR190 is equivalent to about Bt7400. Another guide quoted Bt9000 covering only guiding and transport. Five years ago, I paid Bt11,000 for a day-trip (transport and lunch) that was guided by a foreigner residing in Thailand. The big advantage of getting a local guide is that they know the spots where targeted birds are, and they often get information from people living in the area for the locations. 

Herman had found his target birds, including the spoonbill sandpiper - a huge target of mine which I had dipped in two previous trips. Immediately after the doctor gave the all-clear last week, I booked my trip to Bangkok from March 17 for a focused one-day trip to find the spoonbill, followed by 2 days in Khao Yai, inspired by @xelas 's lucky sighting of the elephant!  

 

 

 

[PeterHG]

I

8 hours ago, Kitsafari said:

All because the city folks cannot abide leaves strewn on walking paths or roads. they view such leaves as debris which should be cleared to show the "beauty" of the concrete path or roads. 

Thanks for the enlightenment! It did seem to us like a pointless exercise.

[PeterHG]

8 hours ago, Kitsafari said:

Interesting to hear this! We always thought it is more expensive to hire a guide in Europe than in Southeast Asia. what you paid seemed also very reasonable.

It was a little higher than we had anticipated after reading recent trip reports, but certainly not unreasonable and, like I stated, well worth the money. I do agree on the advantage of hiring local guides and we had some really good ones! 
I do hope you get to see the spoonie and it’s good to hear Herman succeeded. We got it, too, thanks to another local guide

[Soukous]

58 minutes ago, PeterHG said:

Thanks for the enlightenment! It did seem to us like a pointless exercise.

they are used everywhere it seems. I remember the good old days when a broom did the job. Cost a lot less and made a lot less noise. It did require more effort though.

[Soukous]

55 minutes ago, PeterHG said:

I do agree on the advantage of hiring local guides and we had some really good ones! 

 

Self driving is great fun and very rewarding but in an area I've never been to before, or one with a particular target species, a good local guide is invaluable.

[PeterHG]

Bueng Boraphet

 

From Khao Yai it was 240 km to our next destination: Bueng Boraphet, a large semi-natural lake with surrounding wetlands. It is situated near the town of Nakhon Sawan, where we found some rather basic accommodation. On the south side of the lake is a so-called bird “park” or bird sanctuary and on the north side you can find a visitor’s centre. We only visited the southern part. On our first afternoon there, we booked a boat trip for early the next morning. This amounted to 1200 BHT (€30) for a 2-hrs trip. Unfortunately it was a grey morning, which did not help for the photography opportunities. On the positive side: the outboard motor produced so much noise that most birds were gone long before they came into camera reach anyway ;). Still it was a very nice boat ride with some nice birds and beautiful shallow pools with red lotus flowers.

 

 

 

 

Cotton Pygmy Goose

 

The rest of the afternoon we spent walking the dirt roads bordering the lake and adjoining water bodies as well as exploring the boardwalks. We came across one of the few remaining fresh water crocodiles and enjoyed both the birds and the butterflies. By the size of it one could easily mistake this Golden Birdwing for a small bird. We also spotted a rat snake, mainly because of the loud alarm calls of the Prinias, that were probably afraid their nest was going to be raided.

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop was Ayutthaya, the ancient and once powerful capital of Thailand. A historically interesting place with many ruins of former temples and palaces. We explored the city on bike, which turned out to be a good choice. Our hotel, the lovely Baan Tye Wang guesthouse, provided them free of charge. We cycled round the centre and walked through some of the most interesting and impressive ruins. This was the only place where elephant rides were still offered. Needless to say we stuck to our bicycles…

 

 

[Dave Williams]

Enjoying this report Peter. My first impression is that you tried to pack in too many places to suit my idea of a tour but each to our own. I have a plan up my sleeve for The Gambia in 18 months and that might involve overnight stops. I love Thai food but the one long trip we took there didn't leave me sufficiently impressed to go back BUT your report might change my mind. We didn't self drive but took taxis. We found an island paradise, almost deserted of humans where we probably stayed too long as the accommodation was basic but comfortable in all but the salt water showers which don't leave you feeling clean.

Self drive definitely sounds like the way to go.

Re leaf blowers, I just got back from Costa Rica and they were irritating at the Arenal Observatory Lodge gardens. The gardens are a small part of the 730 hectares of grounds but they are also the best birding spots. The British have an obsession for gardens and they like them neat and tidy. The volume of leaves falling in Costa Rica would soon have the gardens looking very untidy but also over a hiding place for snakes and other potential dangers too. We didn't wander the trails there as we didn't have time but we did in the Monteverde cloud forest and the leaves were cleared from the trails there too, probably for the same reason. It's also why they ask you not to wander off the paths.

As for paying for guides, I have experiences of paid guides in different places. They are always better that trying to find your own but it depends what you think is value for money. Wherever there are American visitors, charges seem to be higher and quoted in dollars. 

[PeterHG]

15 hours ago, Dave Williams said:

Enjoying this report Peter. My first impression is that you tried to pack in too many places to suit my idea of a tour but each to our own.

Thanks for the comments, Dave. Yes, we did visit quite a few places, but as we spent four weeks in the country it did not feel too rushed and on our first visit we wanted to see different areas. Having said that, if we would go back we would probably also restrict ourselves to fewer locations.

Your explanation about the leaf blowers makes sense, although I did not remember them being so intrusive in Costa Rica. I hope you had a great trip there. Are you posting any photos/ report anywhere?

[PeterHG]

Kaeng Krachan

 

From Ayutthaya we drove south to Kaeng Krachan National Park, a distance of 260 kilometres taking both the 1 and 4 highways. This involved crossing a large section of Bangkok, not the most pleasant driving experience.

We had book a cottage at Baan Maka Nature Lodge. This is a popular spot for birders and usually needs to be booked well in advance. It gets good reviews on various website and they are well-deserved. It is a beautiful and relaxing place to stay and one can book guided trips to the National park or a morning/ afternoon at one of the hides. We stayed there for 5 nights and like most guests we always had our evening meal at the lodge. Excellent and not expensive.

Like we tried to do at other locations we had booked a full day in the park for the next morning. We opted for Piak, who turned out to be an excellent and passionate guide. He knows all the sounds and all the right places.

 

 

 

 

On two afternoons we booked a hide and this allowed us to see some forest birds and mammals up close. Use of the hides is 250 BHT per person and both times we really enjoyed it. As they are situated in the forest there is not a lot of light for photography, but we got great views of otherwise very shy species. Also most modern cameras in combination with post-processing software still produce good results, even at high iso values. My camera camera is an OM systems (formerly Olympus) OM-1, with a 300mm lens attached. It only has a small sensor, a so-called micro four-thirds, but bot camera and lens are comparitively light and serve me well.

 

Indochinese Blue Flycatcher

 

Black-naped Monarch

 

Common Treeshrew

 

Lesser Mousedeer. 

 

Yellow-throated Marten.

 

When two of these huge martens came out of the forest, all squirrels and birds disappeared and it took a long time before they returned. They must be formidable predators.

 

 

 

Edited March 15 by PeterHG

[Soukous]

Well done on navigating Bangkok. It's not a feat I want to undertake again. 

Some lovely birds so far Peter and the poor light doesn't seem to have slowed you down.

[TonyQ]

Lovely photos @PeterHG

A fascinating country birding and non-birding

[Dave Williams]

Wonderful to get some small mammal photo opportunities.

My only visit to Bangkok was a coach trip from a cruise ship. The city was gridlocked and on that experience I certainly wouldn't self drive there!

 

[PeterHG]

3 hours ago, Soukous said:

Well done on navigating Bangkok. It's not a feat I want to undertake again. 

I'm with you on that!

 

2 hours ago, TonyQ said:

A fascinating country birding and non-birding

Exactly and we enjoyed both aspects.

 

2 hours ago, Dave Williams said:

Wonderful to get some small mammal photo opportunities.

Yes, the hides were well worth spending time in. I don't think we would have stood a chance of seeing animals like mouse deer or tree shrew otherwise.