From Doi Inthanon To Li Village Near Mae Ping Via Backroads

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Tara

One of the best things about renting a car is that you can explore as you wish. Northern Thailand is so beautiful with interesting small villages that tourists don’t get to so we enjoyed a pleasant road trip as we left Doi Inthanon and headed towards Li Village for birding in Mae Ping.

This is what the route basically looks like with the offshoots to Doi Inthanon and Mae Ping in red.

Chom Thong is a fairly large town but once you are through it, you won’t see any more towns until Li.

Roads are well marked usually in both Thai and English so just be sure of what town you are headed for or which highway/road you are looking for. We were looking for 1103.

Now you are on a pleasant smaller road with only the occasional truck to spoil the view, just pass them.

Keep following signs to either Li or Mae Ping.

Once you are on 106 heading through Li, at the opposite end of the town is a very nice restaurant with nice views and various Thai dishes. They will with-hold chilis on request. The Baan Pailyn motel is next door. It was getting a bit late to approach Mae Ping with nothing booked so we decided to stay there one night and go to the park first thing in the morning.

There’s a small market in town good for fruit and snacks. They do have other food options but everything looked too spicy for us.

Li temple

We stopped at a small grocery store to stock up for the park. We took a pass on these fresh chicken feet!

More of the market.

Beautiful temple on the road towards Mae Ping.

Entrance to Mae Ping.

The “Wildlife” You Don’t Want

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Tara

Eco-travelers go to great lengths to get to places where exotic wildlife can be seen up close. But here’s some “wildlife” you DON’T want to see – bedbugs! Learn how to avoid them here.

Birding The Chom Thong Countryside (Near Doi Inthanon)

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Tara

The last morning of our visit to Doi Inthanon we made one last visit to the Blossom-headed Parakeet Conservation Area to see the parakeets in hopefully better light. Then we just drove around looking for birds. A Lesser Racquet-tailed Drongo swooped low in front of our car too quickly for a photo. He disappeared into the trees and we hung around hoping he would come closer.

Here’s a few pics I snapped – nothing great but a good idea of what to expect from the countryside. This is all private property – farms and such.

Lunch At Mr Daeng’s Bird Centre, Doi Inthanon

Posted on June 20, 2015 by Tara

Discovering Mr Daeng’s Bird Centre in Doi Inthanon was a pleasant surprise and I wish we had more time to spend here. Mr Daeng is the local bird expert and has all kinds of photos and displays around his property just south of Km 34.5. Check out his website for some amazing photos!

They serve delicious Thai food here. While you are waiting, check out the photos!

The Green Cochoa is high on every birder’s wish list but unfortunately we weren’t so lucky!

The lodging is behind the restaurant.

Mr Daeng can organize bird guiding but you do need cash. As usual, I was plastic-rich and cash-poor but next time I would be better prepared as I am sure we would have seen a lot more with Mr Daeng as a guide!

After our late lunch, we left the park and stopped for a quick look at the temple. I wanted to make a return visit to the Blossom-headed Parakeets.

Bar-throated Minla or Chestnut-tailed Minla (Minla strigula)

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Tara

The Bar-throated Minla or Chestnut-tailed Minla (Minla strigula), is a species of bird in the family Leiothrichidae. It has traditionally been placed in the genus Minla.

They have a large range spanning most of South-east Asia. I took the photos above at the Visitor’s Centre at the Summit of Doi Inthanon (blue dot) where they are very easily seen.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS BIRD

Wikipedia

Birdlife

A Birder’s Blog

VIDEO

Here’s a nice close-up that shows how the bird moves about in a twitchy way.

A Day Trip To Doi Inthanon – The Summit

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Tara

After leaving Km 34.5 we kept driving up the mountain past the temple to the summit which has a nice visitor’s centre.

There’s a small museum with some educational displays of birds. If you come here on a tour from Chiang Mai, you will be taken here.

There’s a nice cafe with good coffee and a place to sit and watch birds visit the feeders. Finally some close-up shots!

There is a snack bar for cakes and drinks.

Here is a souvenir shop with the usual postcards and tourist stuff. Beware of the hilltribe hairbands. I bought a small pony-tail sized one and the colours ran on my shirt!

Blue Whistlingthrush

Elusive River Chat

Boardwalk behind the visitor centre

Dark-backed Sibia

Blue Whistlingthrush

Chestnut-tailed Minla

Across the road from the visitor centre is this nature trail, also on boardwalks.

Dark-backed Sibia

I have no idea what this means but it’s a cute little statue!

The highly sought-after and extremely fast Green-tailed Sunbird!

Local transport

A Day Trip To Doi Inthanon – Km 34.5

Posted on June 17, 2015 by Tara

Doi Inthanon is one of Thailand’s top national parks, has a good bird list and is easily reached from Chiang Mai so I highly recommend a visit here. You can combine this park with the Blossom-headed Parakeet Conservation Area just outside.

There are some excellent maps here.

Get there early to be in position when the birds wake up and start foraging. This makes the tourist day trips from Chiang Mai less attractive as you would get there too late. We had a rental car from Hertz and the independence was great!

A Red-whiskered Bulbul welcomed us in as I paid the fee – 400 Baht each in cash only.

We drove up the mountain admiring the interesting statues along the road.

We stopped at a picnic ground and ate the packed breakfast from the lodge. Not many birds were around.

We continued on and came to Mr Daeng’s Bird Centre which is well known amongst birders as a great place to learn about local birds. They have a nice restaurant but since we had breakfast we just had some tea and decided to come back for lunch. What I didn’t know before is that they also have lodging so you can start out earlier to the birding trails. You can buy a small guidebook here to help identify the birds. Bulbuls and Sparrows were everywhere.

Our next stop was the trail at KM 34.5 which is well marked. There is a place to park off road at the bottom, then you walk up the hill looking for birds. I didn’t too too well with photos so I recommend reading this page to see better photos as an idea of what birds are found here.

We saw several Grey-chinned Minivets as you can see in the photos below. The males are red and females are yellow.

Large Niltava

Ashy Drongo. We also saw a Lesser Racquet-tailed Drongo but he got away before I could get a photo.

Our car and parking area as seen walking back down the hill.

Copa’s New Program Has Good Deals For Eco-tourists – 4000 Free Miles For New Members

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Tara

Copa is based in Panama and serves most airports in the Americas so it is well positioned for people wanting to get from the USA to the birding hotspots of Central & South America. As an incentive to get new members, they are offering up to 4000 free miles (which is almost a one way ticket within Panama or Colombia) to join ConnectMiles and fill out your profile up to 30 June.

Use this link to join. You will get 1000 miles straight away and 1000 miles in about 4-6 weeks.

Then go to this profile page and click on the blue link that says “Complete and win 3000 miles”. It’s not a contest, everyone wins! You will finish this exercise with 3000 total miles and 1000 more to come in 4-6 weeks. The program is in its infancy so no one knows yet what credit card partners they will have but hopefully they will partner with Citi Thank You, SPG and/or Chase Ultimate Rewards.

Complete the steps in order. You will need your passport for step 2.

The award chart for Copa flights is pretty good for both business and economy. They don’t have online redemptions yet but they expect to soon. It’s not likely anyone will have enough miles for a redemption at this early stage anyway. The Star Alliance chart is similar to United Airline’s chart and is too big to copy here so please view it on their website.

The fees aren’t too bad.

Blossom-Headed Parakeet (Psittacula roseata)

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Tara

The Blossom-headed Parakeet (Psittacula roseata) is a parrot which is a resident breeder in northeast India eastwards into Southeast Asia. It undergoes local movements, driven mainly by the availability of the fruit and blossoms which make up its diet. In these photos which I took near Doi Inthanon, you can see the difference between the male and female. He has a brighter head with a distinct neck ring and she has a pale lavender head with no neck ring.

Although the Blossom-headed Parakeet has a fairly large range across South-east Asia, Thailand is by far the easiest country to travel in logistically, especially for people like me who prefer independent travel in a rental car. After doing my homework, I settled on Doi Inthanon (red dot below) as the best bet to see this bird reliably.