2024-birding vietnam: Tuesday, Jan 23

We yawned our way down to meet David, Tien and Bom at 4 AM this morning. The intent was to get to Yok Don National Park before dawn as Katy mentioned yesterday. We got on the van and a hotel staff ran up with bags of breakfast for us! Wow, that was impressive that someone would make all of that up for us at that hour.

The drive to the park took about an hour. It isn’t that far but many parts of the road are under construction - replacing, paving, etc. Bom had to slow down to a crawl much of the time to get past bumps and holes. The gate of the park was shut when we arrived about 5 AM but Tien got out and went to talk with someone - he has done this many times before. We drove through and down one road as far as we could go. It was still dark so we couldn’t see what anything looked like yet. We got out and David and Tien looked for owls and nightjars. Soon, an owl was calling and we saw 2 Brown Boobooks sitting and then flying. It slowly started to lighten and we drove back down the road to another spot where Bom pulled over and set up breakfast. The hotel staff had put together fruit (watermelon, dragonfruit), hard boiled eggs and corn amongst other things. We had 6” baguettes and our peanut butter and strawberry jam and of course, David’s vegemite (an acquired taste). Bom made us coffee and we enjoyed our side of the road feast.

This park is the largest in Vietnam and is made up of a complately different type of forest than we’ve been in. This is a dry deciduous forest and former home of elephants and tigers. Katy and I felt it was quite similar to forests we have visited in Southern Africa. The park also borders Cambodia and there is a park on the Cambodian side as well. The park is bisected by the Srepok River which is a major tributary of the Mekong Delta.

Walking down the road in a very different and dry forest

Something has “glued” these leaves (about 6” long) together. We decided NOT to disturb it.

Fascinating tree with white frilly flowers that burst out of green pods. We saw a Cambodian striped squirrel gorging on the inside of the flowers

We then started wandering down the road to see what might be up with the dawn. The most exciting thing was a pair of White-rumped Pygmy-falcons. These are small beautiful birds and a life bird for Bob! We also saw a Purple sunbird - with gorgeous colors and a Burmese Nuthatch, another life bird for Bob. Another stunner was the Black-headed Woodpecker which looks like no other woodpecker you’ve ever seen - not red, white, and black but black, yellow, red and green.

The disturbing thing about being in this national park was that we were constantly passed by motorbikes and some heavy duty dump trucks. We figured that 100 motorbikes and 100-200 people passed us while we were there. Apparently, there is some place that people farm in the park and these were all people going to do that. Many riders were couples with the woman in back with a wicker basket attached like a backpack. The constant noise and being sure that we were out of the way was wearying.

By 9 AM, the forest was pretty quiet. We walked into the forest for a bit and saw a few more birds but finally decided to wrap up our park visit about 9:45 and head back to the hotel. It took an hour+ again but now we could see what was going on and there were crews paving the road in a number of spots.

Part of the Kok Don park sign includes bird watching! So now we know how it is spelled in Vietnamese though pronunciation is a bit harder.

We arrived back at the hotel and everyone went for showers since we hadn’t taken the time at 3:30 AM……. We met up for lunch at 12:30 and ate in the hotel restaurant. The staff here are extremely nice but their English is quite limited. Again it is safest to point at the menu where each item is in Vietnamese and English.

After lunch, Katy and I did a bit of exploring out of the hotel. We didn’t wander too far as we really don’t want to try crossing a big street by ourselves. You truly take your life in your hands as no one stops. There are occasional stoplights but otherwise traffic keeps moving and pedestrians are lowest on the totem pole! We went down the street and turned right towards a street market. We stopped by one vegetable stand and then headed to what looked like a shopping center. Inside, there are varying degrees of separation but some stores lead right into the next. We wandered about and then realized that there was a grocery store at the end. Since we have been eating rapidly through our supply of dried mango, we thought we might find some more.

The front of our 18 story hotel in Buon Ma Thuot

Virtually every tiny village we have been through has a shop with the Apple logo - I doubt that Apple has actually licensed or franchised with them all.

Vegetable and fruit offerings just around the corner from the hotel

Specially designed gift boxes and bags of goods for Tet

Katy and I went up to the 18th floor Roof Top bar which we were hoping was outside but was not. It may be that it is just too windy here to have an outdoor bar up that high. The room is large and has an amazing assortment of chairs in varying styles and colors. No one else except on e staff was there but we had a drink and then went down to meet Bob and David for 6:30 dinner and the list. We are off to Dalat in the morning.