I'll start by wishing you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

We took the week off between Christmas and New Year, jumped in the car and headed north without much of a plan. We knew that Thailand was on the agenda, and that was pretty much all we knew.

Armed with a list of possible places to go birding, we decided to start off with Thale Noi on the eastern coast of southern thailand. Approximately 620km from Kuala Lumpur.

So we set off at 08:30 on the sunny morning of the 26th December.

Traffic was pretty clear on the north south highway and we reached the Thai-Malaysia border at Bukit Kayu Hitam at around 2:30pm.

I'd not driven across the border before so was unfamiliar with the process of immigration and customs procedures. Sure, we've driven to Singapore before, so expected something similar. Big mistake!

There is no signage telling you what to do, so for us, and many other drivers, it was mayhem. Total chaos and unnecessarily troublesome. We drove up to what appeared to be a passport checking booth only to find that there was nobody inside, so we drove through it. An inspector perched on a stool waved us to drive around back and park up so that we could clear immigration. We had to get out of the car, line up to get the passports stamped and complete an immigration form, then line up again at a different counter for customs forms. Only then were we able to get back in the car and drive through.

Another problem was that the parking area was full, so i had to park the car on the end of a line of cars, outside of the coned area. Upon reaching the car, we noticed a clamp on the wheel!

Luckily, some smiles and words of apology to the parking attendent we re able to get the clamp removed without suffering any penalty. The car park itself was more of a mine field with some huge pot holes, fortunately the hilux made it out easily but other cars were having to maneouvre carefully so not to get caught.

We finally made it into Thailand having spent at least an hour at the border. With the time difference of one hour, we were back on the road at around 2:30pm Thai time.

We followed the signs to Hat Yai, then Mueang Songkhla and then along the east cost road heading north to Thale Noi. It was fairly straight forward, although the traffic around Hat Yai was heavy and that slowed us down quite a bit.

Famished, we stopped off at a small village along the coast for our first dose of Thai food. Seafood fried rice, localy known as Cow Pat Thali. Delicious. The weather had been great until we reached Hat Yai, but the further east we travelled, the darker the skies got, with grey clouds rolling in from the sea. We'd forgotten about the east coast monsoon season. Fortunately, it didn't rain. At the village we ate at, there was a road leading to the beach, so we drove down to take a look. Standing there on a sandy bank looking out to sea, we were blasted with a continuous strong wind, looking at the browny grey choppy sea. It was nice to feel wind again and the spray of the sea on the face.

Not wasting any more time, we jumped back in the car and continued north along the coast to Thale Noi. It was further than we expected and the sun had already started to go down by the time we were within 40km of our destination.

We started our journey with no plans. No accomodation had been booked and we didn't even know where there were places to stay. The last hour of our journey that day was in total darkness as we winded our way through rural roads with no cars, no street lights and barely any sign of civilization to speak of, continuing until we finally reached Thale Noi.

We drove around for a short while looking for some place to stay. As all of the signs were in Thai, we couldn't determine if we were passing a hotel/lodge or a shop or restaurant etc.. But finally, we came across a place that had some huts. It was quite dark inside the place but we found someone who worked there and they gave us a room. We were the only people staying there. Bt500 per night. Seemed a bit expensive for the level of accomodation, but it had been a very long day, we were tired, and any bed looks good when you are that tired.

We had covered about 660km that day. It's not all that far, but the speeds on the rural roads in Thailand is quite slow, which only makes the journey feel a little longer.

After a crappy sleep in a banana-shaped bed in a room full of mosquitoes, we got up the next morning, loaded up the car and drove over to the Thale Noi Wildlife Study Centre, having had a breakfast of Mince Pies.

The study centre is still under construction, although some dormitories are already available for use. The wetlands were really nice and very vast.

We walked around the boardwalk studying the reed beds, the small islands and birds in flight around the area. The birding was pretty good. We had a pair of Bronze-winged Jacanas, some Pheasant-tailed Jacanas, plenty of Little Grebes, Cotton Pygmy-goose and more.

Frankly, we didn't spend a lot of time here, perhaps a couple of hours, and I'd left the camera in the car as many of the birds were out of photography range, so we just used our bins and the scope to study the birds.

Lunch was beckoning, so we drove back along the access road to a string of waterfront restaurants where we sat with a great view of the wetlands while getting a dose of Tom Yam soup and fried rice.

From Thale Noi, we continued north a little way then headed west. Our next destination, Khao Nor Chuchi in the Krabi province.

We had been given the name of a place to stay by a friend, Marakot resort. Resort is a little over the top as it was a very simple hut set amongst some trees, but a pleasant place and good food at a reasonable price.

We arrived late afternoon so we weren't able to do any serious birding although we did take a drive up a dirt road to some of the trails and passed this Red-tailed Racer basking on the warm track just waiting to get run over, so I picked it up and moved it to the side of the road as it didn't really want to move by itself. Yes, it was still alive .

We parked up and headed into a trail for a glimpse of what was to come. I couldn't be bothered to put my walking shoes on, so just went in with my slippers/flip flops. Jas disturbed a leaf as she was walking along and out popped this mega big hairy spider which made me jump, and just pray that it wouldn't jump on my foot. From that moment on, anything that brushed against my foot made me jump. What a loser!

The main purpose for choosing this area was that the Gurney's Pitta is known to be found here, although there are only estimated to be around 5 breeding pairs remaining so our chances of seeing it were slim unless we could arrange to get the well-known guide Yotin to take us to see it as he knows the exact area where it can be found.

We met with Yotin that evening, but he was unfortunately booked up on other trips for the following three days, so we were left with no choice but to go and have a try ourselves.

At 6:00am the following morning, we were up having breakfast with Michele (Michael) from Belgium, who had the fortune of seeing the Pitta with Yotin the previous day, and we went off birding together in Khao Nor Chuchi, trail B.

Along the way we saw this tiny snake on the side of the road. This one was dead. I can't seem to get an ID for it, having checked through the Field Guide to the Reptiles of South East Asia, I've drawn a blank, other than narrowing it down to perhaps a type of Wolf Snake. Any idea? Feel free to email us (link at bottom of screen).

After accessing the park, which is just a short walk from the Morakot resort, we are greeted with a beautiful stream that flows from the main tourist attraction of the area, the Emerald Pool. From there, we continued into the trail.

We were greatly disappointed with the quality of the forest. One wonders how such an amazing bird as the Gurney's Pitta can survive in such a baron place. The birding was quite terrible. Those birds that we were able to come across were extremely cautious of human presence and we managed only to see a couple of species, fortunately, one of them was a lifer, the Siberian Blue Robin, walking along the forest floor quivering its tail.

There were no leeches, as there are no mammals (besides humans) for them to feed. I repeat, no mammals. No Langurs, no Macaques, not even a squirrel. The place was devoid of so much that a forest needs to continue as an eco-system. Plenty of termites as I'm sure the Pangolins have been wiped out that would ordinarily keep the termites under control. Quite a sad state of affairs.

After a few hours, we turned around and headed back out to the road and walked back to Morakot where we packed up our things and jumped back in the car. Before doing so, I managed to get a couple of shots of the Orange-bellied Flowerpecker. Many of which can be seen in and around the gardens of Morakot.

The following couple of days were more R&R, so no birding. On the 30th December, we headed back south towards Malaysia.

The intention was to cross at Kaki Bukit so that we could be in position for Perlis State Park the following morning. A little tip folks, the border closes at 6pm (Thai time) and we arrived at 5:59pm and they'd already shut the gates. It's a 3hr drive back up to Hat Yai and then back down to Bukit Kayu Hitam!! So, another 10hrs of driving that day and we ended up in Kangar, Perlis for the night.

A very late start the following morning for birding, having had a great sleep, we filled up with our first dose of Malaysian food (Roti Canai and Teh Tarik) then headed to Penang to try and get the Brown-headed Guls in Bagan Sungai Abdul. No luck, we'd arrived just as the tide had covered the mudflats. We did get a glimpse of what was most likely the gul in flight before it disappeared behind the mangroves, but that was all.

Driving back through the Kampung I noticed this house with a whole load of caged birds hanging outside, so I walked up and started photographing them all.

Folks, please do the report if you notice caged birds of a particularly protected/threatened nature such as the Red-whiskered Bulbul, Straw-headed Bulbuls etc... and report it to report@malayantiger.net, this is the email address for the Wildlife Crime Hotline, giving them the exact location of what you saw and try to list the bird species if you can ID them. Or, call the hotline itself +60193564194.

From here, we headed a bit further south to the aromatic Pulau Burung around the Jawi area. My goodness!!!! What a stinky place. It's great for birding, but the stench is almost unpalpable. To wind the window down or open the door to get out, the stench just gets sucked into the car immediately and it's difficult not to gag.

The purpose of coming to Pulau Burung was to get some shots of the Little Stint and Garganey, both of which we achieved having smeared our top lips with some Fung Yao eucalyptus oil to make being there more bearable. I should explain why the stench is there in the first place. It's a landfill site!

So here goes for the pics starting with the pair of Garganey.

Followed by the Little Stint

A Little Ringed Plover

and perhaps my favourite for the day was this Common Kingfisher..

After Pulau Burung, it was time for some mamak food and then off home having driven around 2,000km for the round trip.

For the birdlists we have personally made for the above mentioned places, click the links below;

Thale Noi Wildlife Study Centre, Phatthalung Province, Thailand

Khao Nor Chuchi, Krabi Province, Thailand

Pulau Burung, Penang, Malaysia

At 8:30pm, having already battled my way through 1hr of traffic to reach the meeting point, we (myself, Chris, James and Frank) headed north, leaving behind us a city of rain and solid traffic. Our aim was to get as far north that evening as possible and cover as many km's so that Part 2 of the journey the following morning would be easy. We had to get to Gulau, Kedah by 09:00 to meet our host for the weekend, Hymeir. We HAD to get to that Roti Canai restaurant on time.

I started to get a bit tired by around 11:45pm and the next exit on the N-S highway was Taiping, so, we decided that we would spend the night in the nice town to break up the journey. We were all tired and would settle for whatever we could get in the way of accomodation. The first place we came across was quite a new hotel amongst some shop-houses but seemed to be hosting a lot of 4x4 enthusiasts, and sure enough, fully booked. We stopped in at Hotel Seri Malaysia opposite the Taiping prison, also fully booked. By now we were really tired and headed into the town centre and trawled our way up and down the roads. Frank recognised a hotel he had once stayed in, which we were about to settle for when we noticed another motel opposite with a sign promising accomodation for RM28 per person. Chris checked it out, Bingo! Rooms available.

5hrs of sleep in a clean bed, RM28 lighter, we got up early Saturday morning, checked out and ran through pouring rain, loaded the car and set off towards Gulau. It seemed to rain for the whole journey. Even with a couple of wrong turns, we made it to the Roti restaurant, the ONLY restaurant in Gulau at 09:00 where Hymeir and his friend Kelvin were waiting for us.

We had to wait for the rain to stop as the boats which would take us from the jetty upstream to our lodge were without cover and we didn't like the idea of getting drenched before the trip really began. So we all ordered the breakfast of champions. 2x Roti Telur and a hot cup of tea.

Now I would like to set the record straight. I know that many people can be seen taking photos of their food before they eat it and uploading to facebook etc.., I am NOT among those people, but the tea we drank was SO orange, I couldn't help but take a shot. We had passed rivers of similar colour and consistency on our way to Gulau, so we couldn't help wonder how or where the tea got it's colour from.

Well, more tea, a cup of coffee and finally the rain eased up by about 10:30am, so we jumped in the cars and headed to the jetty on Tasik Muda. By now the rain was negligible and we loaded up the little boats and set off across the lake.

The ride across the lake itself proved rewarding as we saw an unexpected bird perching on top of an old dead tree protruding from the water, a migratory Peregrine Falcon. No photos, as by this point, the camera was still tucked away in the bag.

FYI, tasik muda is man-made and covers up a logged area. The water is now used to supply drinking water to the surrounding area.

We spotted wild boar, long-tailed macaques and Osprey while crossing the lake.

Once we'd made it across the lake, we then had to navigate up the fast-running Sungai Muda, and considering the amount of rain we'd had, there was a lot of water coming down the river making life a little difficult for the little outboard engines our boats were fitted with.

With frequent cavitation. the propellors would often trap themselves in their self-made bubbles of air and we'd slow almost to a halt. Only after throttling back a little we could 'get grip' again and continue. The boat ride took us almost 1h30m and it was a really nice journey through some beautiful scenery. The river was lined with Kingfishers of many species. The banks were lined with animal trails many showing signs of recent use, so we knew we were in for something good in Ulu Muda.

Without a jetty, we had to get in as close to the bank as possible in this fast-moving river and make our way up the bank to firm ground. We'd made it. We had arrived in a very tranquil place that would be ours for the following three days. The four of us, Hymeir, his friend and two locals who would be our boatsmen, chef's and trail guides throughout the trip.

Keys were issued and we unloaded our bags into the rooms before having lunch, followed by a short rest.

A little stream ran through the compound and we had noticed a little immature Black-backed Kingfisher perching low on a branch so I ran back and set up my camera. I hadn't had a chance to photograph this species before, so this would be ideal if only he hung around long enough. Fortunately, he did.

The agenda for the afternoon was to take the boats back out and visit some salt licks situated along various places downstream. It wasn't such a great time of day for bird-watching as it was late afternoon already, but we still managed to get a decent list, including the Lesser Fish-eagle perching atop a tall tree by the rivers edge. A pair of Oriental Pied Hornbills gave us a fly-past.

At one of the salt-lick areas, there is a clearing where a pair of Black-thighed Falconets were hawking for insects. One flew down low close to where we were standing and retreated to a perch where we could see he'd caught a dragonfly.

We made our way back to the lodge after visiting the salt licks, night was upon us and it was time for food. Without electricity we relied on our flash-lights to get around.  A little tricky at times, like showering for example, but otherwise, no problem.

The site has a nice area for us all to sit and talk while eating. Hymeir spotted a small tarantula and brought it to the table which we all had a good look at before he put it to one side (later it disappeared and we couldn't find it). We wondered if it had made its way into Kelvin's bag, as he wasn't having much luck with the local wildlife, having been chased out of his room by a jungle rat and later a spider. Kelvin then moved to a different room. I passed by that room later in the evening and shone my light in and noticed a bat flying around inside there. Oh dear.

After dinner we heard the Reddish Scops-owl calling. James headed out to look for it and within a few minutes he'd got it and called us over to show us. He was up inside the canopy of a tree calling. Beautiful little owl, and my one tick for the trip.

The following day we took a long hike to a limestone cave. I have very little in the way of images for that day as I took my 500mm for a walk with only one ID shot to show for it. So let's just say that this day was more for the mammals (and insects, well.....leeches).

The area does have more than it's fair share of leeches. Most of us were well prepared by wearing leech socks, but Chris took more than enough bites for the team as he chose to wear shorts giving ample flesh for the leeches to feast upon. There are more storied to tell, but perhaps I'll save them for another day.

We did see some good mammal tracks, plenty of Elephant dung, lots of disturbed soil where the wild boar had recently foraged and the songs of the White-handed Gibbons. Birding was very good throughout the morning.

The cave was interesting. Accessing it was a little troublesome while carrying the 500mm lens, (really wish I'd left it back at the camp), but worth seeing. From the cave we headed down to a shallow river where we had a light lunch and a long soak in the cold water to wash our leech bites. The water was bliss.

After a long soak, we hiked back to camp, cleaned up, took a rest and then later birded around the area for a while before jumping into the boats for a quiet drift downstream. We wanted to see what would show up if we just drifted without power as the engine noise would surely scare off the mammals before we reached their location. It turned out that we didn't see much at all that evening, except another good selection of kingfishers.

Nevertheless, it was a beautiful ride downstream and we decided we should do it again the following morning to see if anything shows up at dawn.

On a tree beside my room were 5 lantern bugs. I'd only ever seen them in books, and was suprised at the size of them. They must have been around 2.5" long. What strange creatures.

So...we got up early and drifted downstream again.

Not much to see for most of the journey (besides the beautiful surroundings), until we were almost ready to turn around and head back when a male elephant was standing in the middle of the river bathing and drinking.

I'd taken the 500mm off and was using the 24-70mm that morning, and while it was a nice lens for the scenery, I REALLY wish I'd brought the 500 for this moment. We sat with our boats moored to the river bank and quietly watched him go about his business for a few minutes before he slowly trudged his way up the bank and off into the forest.

What a lovely start to the day!

I was also a little envious as James had brought his 300mm and had a great opportunity to photograph a Black-capped Kingfisher on a really nice perch. And he got some great shots too.

The river was so tranquil. We heard one other boat the whole time we were there, so it seems it is not a heavily used river. There was quite a bit of evidence that shows people do fish in the area. Tangled fishing lines on branches, plastic bottles bobbing in the current tethered to lines.

After our morning drift, we made our way back to camp, packed up, freshened up and loaded up the boats as it was already time to go home.

With all of the rain we'd had on the journey north, we expected the whole weekend to be a washout, but we had been fortunate to have not had any rain at all throughout our time in Ulu Muda. The boat trip back downstream changed all that. We had a freak shower which soaked us shortly after setting off. Back out on the lake, I was pleased to have spotted a perched Osprey and got a shot of him. For years I've seen Osprey and have had a small selection of crappy photos to show for it, but this time, at least we got close enough to get a semi-respectable shot before he got a bit twitchy and flew off to the next nearest dead tree perch.

And that marked the end of our trip to Ulu Muda.

We had a great time, and many thanks to Hymeir for guiding us. Earth Lodge, the camp, offers visitors a great place to stay for an eco-venture. And while it is still early days for the site, I'm sure it will do very well for years to come under Hymeir's management.

We will return. No doubt about it.