A PARTNER FRIEDLY BIRDING TRIP TO THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, BHUTAN AND
INDIA - 15 MAY TO 6 JUNE
PARTICIPANTS
CHICKEN CHASERS (Birders who had Red Jungle Fowl as a major target
species) - John McAllister and Elize McAllister of Wakkerstroom, South
Africa and Jo Johnson of Cape Town, South Africa
CULTURE VULTURES (the Non-birders) - Shirley and Lisa Johnson of Cape Town,
South Africa
PLANNING AND LOGISTICS
Our initial planning started way back in early 2003 when Elize and I were
looking for a reasonably affordable place to spend our Silver Wedding on
31st May 2004. Our first thoughts turned to Nome or Point Barrow in
Alaska - icebergs after all seemed suitably silver in colour. This proved
to be way too expensive, particularly with the weak South African Rand of
the time.
Other thoughts included Svalbard off northern Norway and a cruise from
Iceland to the Faeroe Islands and Denmark. These were likewise far above
the limits set by our pockets. Our thoughts then turned to the southern
hemisphere and we gave the Falkland Islands some serious consideration.
Unfortunately May was a really bad month for here - the austral winter is
just not a good time for these fascinating islands. The austral summer is
our busiest time in South Africa so this was not a proposition either.
It took the visit of two Sri Lankan birders who were working in Mafikeng,
South Africa, to our B&B in Wakkerstroom, to turn our thoughts to the East.
This rekindled a boyhood dream of mine to one day visit the Kingdom of the
Thunder Dragon - Bhutan). It then became a series of short steps and many
enthusiastic e-mails via Bo Beolens’ excellent Fatbirder and Birders Travel
websites (http://www.fatbirder.com and http://www.birderstravel.com) to find
two wonderful birding tour operators in Bhutan and India - Karma Jamtsho’s
Nature Tourism-Bhutan and Mohit Aggarwal’s Asian
Adventures respectively. The next step was to
invite close friends Jo and Shirley Johnson from Cape Town and Dries and
Julia Laubscher from Johannesburg to join us. In the event Jo and Shirley
and their daughter Lisa joined us, but Dries and Julia were unable to do so.
Sure Travel in Newcastle and Fish Hoek were responsible for flight bookings
from Johannesburg to Delhi, hotel accommodation and car hire in the United
Arab Emirates (UAE) and getting the necessary visas for the UAE and India.
Nature Tourism-Bhutan organised visas for Bhutan and booked the flights from
Delhi to Paro and back. Return flights from Johannesburg to Delhi were with
Emirates with a 24 hour stop-over in the UAE on the outward bound flight.
Flights from Delhi to Paro and back were with Druk Air, the Royal Bhutan
Airline and the only airline to fly into Paro International Airport.
In the UAE we stayed over in the Emirates Wing of the Airport Hotel on a
room only basis. The very comfortable accommodation was more than adequate
for our needs. A really great feature was that the rooms were available to
us from the time our flight from Johannesburg landed at Dubai International
airport (00:25 on 16th May) until we took off for Delhi at 22:40 on the same
day. This was very useful and allowed us Chicken Chasers to go off at
‘sparrows’ after new birds while the Culture Vultures could sleep late and
visit the souks of Dubai at their leisure without having the hassles of
luggage to look after. We hired a car through Thrifty Car Hire in Dubai who
gave us a very comfortable and new Toyota sedan for the day.
In Bhutan we followed a very well-organised itinerary arranged especially
for us by Nature Tourism-Bhutan. It was really two itineraries in one. The
Chicken Chasers were very ably guided by Tshering and driven in a Toyota Hi
Ace van by star driver Shatu. The Culture Vultures were guided by Karma
himself and driven in a Musso 4-wheel drive vehicle by Dawa.
In India we followed a similarly smooth itinerary arranged for us by Asian
Adventures. On 17th May we were guided and driven by Sibi and visited a
local Park on the outskirts of Delhi for a few hours birding while waiting
for the onward connection to Paro. On 31st May we were met at the airport
by Iqbal in a 10-seater minibus. Shirley had broken her hip in a fall in
Bhutan and she and Lisa had stayed behind in Thimphu so the three of us
changed at very short notice to a smaller vehicle very ably driven by Singh.
The change over went very smoothly indeed and Iqbal had changed all our
reservations by cell-phone by the time we got to the change-over point in
downtown Delhi.
Singh drove us along India’s incredibly congested roads with their seemingly
chaotic traffic to Agra and Bharatpur over the next two days. Driving in
India was easy he told us - all you needed was a good horn, good brakes and
good luck. Our expert Bird Guide, Rattan Singh, met us at the entrance to
Keoladeo Ghana National Park and accompanied us on the rest of our Indian
adventure. We travelled by train (1st Class Air-conditioned) from Agra to
Lal Kuan where we were met by Anil Tiwari, our driver for the rest of the
trip.
BOOKS AND MAPS
I bought a copy of Birds of the Middle East by Porter, Christensen and
Schiermacker-Hansen for the United Arab Emirates which is probably the best
available for the region. I found the book on the web through Book Brains
at http://www.bookbrain.co.uk. Unfortunately the distribution maps only
show breeding ranges for the birds and this can be quite confusing. Unlike
Southern African Field guides the illustrations, status and habitat
descriptions are separate from the description of the birds and I found this
quite frustrating.
The Shell Birdwatching Guide to the United Arab Emirates by Colin Richardson
is a MUST for anyone visiting the UAE. I got a copy together with a UAE
road map by GeoProjects from Subbuteo Books in the UK
(http://www.wildlifebooks.com) but be sure to get the latest updates from
Colin Richardson in Dubai (e-mail
For Bhutan and India I bought A guide to the birds of India, Pakistan,
Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives by Grimmett, Inskipp
and Inskipp as well as a road map for Bhutan from Amazon.com
(http://www.amazon.com), but this is a very comprehensive, heavy book along
the lines of Roberts Birds of Southern Africa. I have the same criticism of
it as I have of the Middle East book - the distribution maps show breeding
ranges only and the text and illustrations are in different parts of the
book. There is a much lighter field guide version of the same book and this
is adequate for normal use. Jo bought a copy of Birds of Bhutan by the same
authors through a request he put out on UK Birdnet. I bought a copy in
Thimphu for future use. It could probably be ordered through Nature
Tourism-Bhutan. This is a very useful book for birders going to Bhutan
only, but it has no distribution maps - only text describing in which
Bhutanese provinces the birds have been recorded.
ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD
The food on the Emirates flight from Johannesburg to Dubai and back to
Johannesburg was excellent - nothing short of amazing for airline food. On
the flight to Delhi and back to Dubai the food was more typical of airline
food - very iffy. Unfortunately the food on Druk Air was very mediocre even
by airline standards.
The accommodation in Dubai was very comfortable. We had some delicious
sandwiches and chips at the Picnic Café in Um al Qawain mentioned by Colin
Richardson in his very useful book - the Shell Birdwatching Guide to the
United Arab Emirates. We had a very good, if quite expensive, Club Sandwich
for an evening meal at the airport.
While accommodation establishments and restaurants in Bhutan are often
somewhat frugal by western standards they were always adequate. Contrary to
trip reports we had read, we found the accommodation very comfortable. In
stark contrast to the comments in the Lonely Planet Guide we found the food
in Bhutan very good indeed. If you do not like spicy food however it might
be a bit bland when these are omitted from the cooking. Jo, Elize and
particularly me enjoy spicy food and thoroughly enjoyed the different
cuisine. My favourite dish was a concoction of bracken shoots, cheese and
chillies. I even managed to eat cabbage and cauliflower - something I’d
never dream of doing at home - when they were prepared with cheese and
chillies. I never managed to follow Tshering’s example and eat raw chillies
with salt though. Butter tea was drinkable, but nothing to write home
about. The tea was generally great if drunk black, but unfortunately the
coffee was all of the instant variety. The camping on the Lingmethang road
was a bit rough (smallish tent with a sleeping bag laid on two ‘duvet’ type
things on the tent floor). Foodwise we were excellently catered for by Leki
and his camp crew, however.
Accommodation in India varied from comfortable at Jungle Lore Birding Lodge
to opulent and even deliciously decadent at the Jaypee Palace. I am a great
fan of Indian food so was really in my culinary element with the food
through-out India. I could not bring myself to drink masala tea though.
In both Bhutan and India all the accommodation establishments were extremely
birder friendly. Everywhere, with the exception of the Jaypee Palace Hotel
in Agra, there was staff available to make and serve us breakfast at
whatever time we wanted it - whether it was at 04:00 or 10:00. Only at the
non-birding Jaypee Palace were we told that breakfast is served between
certain hours only.
ACCESSIBILITY
None of the accommodation on the entire trip was accessible to wheelchairs.
Shirley had a bad fall at Gangtey Goempa and was unable to walk or get in
and out of vehicles for the rest of the trip and, if you are prepared to
suffer the indignities of manhandling, the guides and drivers managed this
very well indeed. Showers and loos would pose problems though. The camps
would be impossible for anyone with mobility problems.
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