Adventures - Sapa rice terraces, Vietnam

Went to Sapa, Vietnam for a quick 2-day relaxing trek (with hotel stay at night).

My friend and I took the mini-van ("Limousine") to from Hanoi to Sapa. We departed at 7am and reached at about 2pm, a 5-hour journey. The winding road towards the end was a little uncomfortable.

Sapa is home to various hill tribes, including the Black H'mong tribe people who make up the majority. The tallest mountain in Indochina is also found in Sapa (Mt Fansipan).

The benefit of travelling during winter is probably the weather, which was cool and comfortable for hiking. The cons would be that the rice terrace did not look as picturesque. 

There was not many bees, except a little Hylaeus bee.

Possible trails and villages belong to the various hill tribes.

Sun-rays peeking through the clouds during our trek to the rice terraces

...

H'mong lady "smoothening" flax with her hands, so that she can use it to make clothes later.

Rice terraces. According to our guide, there is only one "crop" season in Sapa, which feeds the people and is not commercially sold. 

The many peaks at Sapa

Adventures - Taroko National Park (Hualien) and Yangmingshan (Taipei) in Taiwan

Just a quick post about two national parks in Taiwan! Went in late Feb 2019 and it was almost the end of winter and start of spring! 

Taroko National Park (Hualien)

We took Taroko train from Taipei Main Station and had pre-booked tickets (online). The train ride was scenic! We hired a free-and-easy driver from Klook. Definitely a recommended way to explore Taroko as you can customise your itinerary, and even do some trekking! 

Here's the Qingshui Cliffs, beautiful but rainy day morning. 

Qingshui Cliffs

We went to the Shakadang and Lushui trails - these were the easiest but rather scenic trails in the park. 

The Shakadang trail is the only trail where you can see blue water (it's the last tributary leading to the larger Liwu river) due to the rocks.

We drove through the national park, visited various "attractions" like the Swallow Grotto, Chingxi Suspension Bridge and Cimu Bridge.

Grey water in contrast to the blue water above. A beautiful sight to behold!

Yangmingshan National Park (Taipei)

We took a tour of the Northern part of Taipei, so one of the stops was Yangmingshan National Park; again we used Klook. We made it there just in time for the flower festival and it was crowded. The sakuras and plum trees were blooming, so it was really nice to catch the blooming flowers. We only spent 2 hours there though, unlike Taroko NP where we spent the whole day. 

Flower Clock with many tourists.

Sakura!

We also made a short stop at the Datun Nature Park which is beautiful as well! The clouds obscured our view as we were leaving.

Datun Nature Park

We saw a few male long-horned bees (Tetralonia) sunning on Rhododendron.

A little long-horned bee from genus Tetralonia.

Will end the post here! It was such a great trip to these two national parks. Hope to go again and spend a longer time there!

Adventures - Sarawak, Kubah National Park

Was there for 3D 2N I believe. Kubah National Park is supposedly famous for frogs, there is a frog pond which has many ranid frogs. Stayed at lodge that could house 6 persons, there was air-conditioning but no hot water. Will update another time.

Some photos:

Adventures - Sabah, East Malaysia (#2 - Kinabalu National Park)

Not much time to write a detailed post about the fauna at Kinabalu National Park, did both day and night walks, so got to observe diurnal and nocturnal fauna.

The place is rich in stick insects, and amphibians. There were Orthoptera, Coleoptera present.
Did not spot any Odonata. There were rather few ants and bees, not as species rich as the lowland forests.

It was rather dry despite the monsoon season. The mosses were not wet.
Many of the orchids were not in bloom, esp. at the Botanic Gardens, unlike the previous time when I visited in June.




Some of my best photos; will elaborate further another time.

What's going on at Pasir Ris beach?

I had a short and relaxing break at a family-organised chalet in Aloha Loyang and thoroughly enjoyed the good food and company in my 2D1N stay there. As usual, I went on a very small scale exploration of the Pasir Ris breah coastline just outside the chalet area but was taken aback by the amount of trash and dead organisms on the beach.

Heavily littered coastline. I believe that most of the trash is derived from Pulau Ubin that is directly opposite..

More trash and P. Ubin in the distance

I am not very sure why there is just so many dead organisms here. Within a 50 metre stretch of sand, I have counted about 5 dead horseshoe crabs, 6 dead fishes, 2 dead crabs and likely to be many many more, since I wasn't paying attention to every detail. The Loyang Shipyard was close by and the pollution derived from it could be a possible reason.

Dead horseshoe crab

Dead filefish

Dead unidentified fish

Dead catfish?

Dead flower swimming crab

Dead swimming crab

More trash is seen during the lowest tide of about 80 cm

Durian husk. (hrmm)

Grey heron flew by. :)

Pair of Oriental Pied Hornbills in the distance..

Was mind-blowned by the trashy beach until I heard some squeaks and spotted a pod of Smooth-coated Otters swimming pretty fast along the coast. Most had fishes in their mouth and I wonder if those fishes are even healthy/fresh ones to begin with. :/

In short, this experience serves as a great reminder of the need to manage our waste properly and not throw them into the sea in an irresponsible manner... Gotta keep our beaches clean!! >_<