Xerophytic Begonia from Palawan

The northern part of Palawan is a beach bum paradise. It is also dominated by  prominent limestone karsts which understandably see much less human traffic than the beaches. The cliffs are very photogenic and instalgrammable when observed from afar but the treacherous steep slopes can be daunting.

 

 

Fortunately there was a cliff which can be accessed through a cave. The stalagtites and unusual geological patterns of the walls were interesting, but they were sideshows. Actually we were also unsure what to expect, we just need to climb some limestone cliff and check out the flora offerings... 

 .... the cave opened into a west facing cliff face and we were blinded by the intense sun.


the first thing I noticed as my eyes acclimatised to the light was high quantity of Dioscorea seed capsules sprayed all over the ground and this Euphorbia antiquorum which can be found all over seaside limestone from Indochina to Malaysia. I remembered saying to my mate not to expect any Begonia in this type of habitat, when he interrupted "looked behind you".....

.... is this a Begonia I see before me .... or an alien ?
Actually its the recently described Begonia elnidoensis which is named after El Nido the beach enclave that is full of beautiful bodies of water and humans. It is one of the most xeric Begonias I have seen. Some Begonias in seasonally dry area will become dormant, leaving behind a tuber in the ground to wait for the next favourable growing season but this Begonia keeps growing even in the dryest season.

Growing on near vertical cliffs, they have more stems than leaves. This being the dry season (there was no rain for 3 months or so) and with little shade from the sun on the vertical cliffs, leaves are very few and the dominant feature was the thick gnarled stems, some longer than 2 feet, growing out and almost perpendicular to cliff faces. Plants supposedly grow on and on - old stems die out but new ones appear from the thick clump. It does not has prominent tuber or caudex. 

Another similar Palawan endemic, Begonia wadei, differs from having a hairy petiole, amongst other characteristics.

At another locality, less exposed and more humid, we saw more leafy specimens with brilliant red-veined leaves, even flowering specimens, which was surprising in this dry period. There are also some seedlings peeping from crevices. The seeds are reported to be dispersed by wind.

 

Reference  : Hughes, Mark; Peng, Ching-I et al, May 2018, PLoS One 13(5) e194877

Inside looking out

For once I was glad I was inside looking out. Especially when "in" was an air-con cabin in a 4x4 and "out" was 40 DegC solar bombardment.

For these Thai monks collecting alms, it was a long way to the next village.... monk hood is not for slouches.

The apparatus that looks like a large coney dog on a stick actually opens up as a mosquito net called "klot" - which suggest that these monks will be sleeping in the wild and which also means they are likely Thudong or forest monks.  These are wondering monks that do not stay put within a monastry and instead lead a nomadic lifestyle - meditating in the wild and blessing villages they visit along the way. 

Monsoon season in Langkawi

It was the rainy season so the much touted beaches in the Malaysian island of Langkawi were not at their best. No matter, I had come to shoot some wildlife and had more than what I had bargained for ....

I had made a few sightings of colugos in Singapore but this is the first time I saw so many on a day - sometimes on the same tree ! This is my favourite family of colugos which greeted me over a three days spell.

 

Due to a very heavy storm the previous night, many colugos congregate on a few big trees. Judging from its bulging patagium, the one at the top could be a female with a young nestled inside .... 

I scrutinsed the tree trunks during the night hoping to catch a glimpse of them gliding, but alas, due to the rain, this is what they did instead..... Its a very interesting posture and one which I have not seen  from this angle before.

 

and in the early morning, just when we were about to have breakfast, we saw this adorable juvenile napping ....

Another iconic wildlife - the hornbill. There are at least two species on the island, the larger Rhinocerous hornbill and this - the more common Southern Pied Hornbill which I sighted on different days.

In the early morning, a colony of them was having a noisy quarrel in the dense shrubs before flying high onto a tall tree to preen.

I was also at liberty to get really close to some dusky leaf monkeys. In Singapore, leaf monkeys are very shy. Granted, that was a different species but being closely related, I was expecting the same behaviour. However, it seems they were pretty nonchalent about humans watching them here.

 

Unlike the macaques that we often see, this species is a strict vegetarian - as you may tell from its common name.  They also have very distinctive white patches around the eye and mouth. 

 

Near the beach, a solitary male allowed me to get within touching distance and was happily munching the leaves of sea hibiscus Talipariti tiliaceum . Actually, this species is not picky about food they eat and have been known to consume 90 plus species of plants.

Other than the cheaper hotel rates and lesser crowds, the added advantage of the rainy season is catching the Tempuron Falls at its full roaring glory.

Signing off....cheers !

And I still haven't found, what I'm searching for

.... 600m asl, somewhere in Northern Leyte, Phillippines.

Farewell my porcupine - horsing around in Northern Vietnam

Northern Vietnam is a hinterland for traditional medicine, much of which, unfortunately, is plucked from the wild. While making a brief visit there, I found myself drifting in and out of  medical shops, some of them being just holes in the wall, checking out what they have to offer....

The first shocker for me is the ready availability of these kidney-shaped organs, which are actually  stomach of the Himalayan porcupine Hystrix brachyura subcristatum. These animals are quite commonly kept by villagers since all its parts are valuable - the meat can be consumed,  the stomach is used to treat intestinal diseases and the quill for malaria. By law only the farmed animal parts can be sold - but realistically there is no way of verifying.

The photo below, as you may have guess, is a phallus of some beast, and despite the language barrier I later found out to be the poor horse.  Ever since motorbikes and tractors have been introduced to this region the status of the horse as a beast of burden has reduced significantly. In fact, I did not recall seeing a live horse at the country side but horse meat and its parts were offered in restaurants and shops.

These are not firewood. They are the trunks of a woody shrub Mahonia neplensis which is found in the highland provinces of Northern Vietnam, spreading all the way north to the Himalayas. The bitter yellow trunk contains a high concentration of alkaloids which, according to  traditional doctors, is similar in function to the bear bile. With bear hunting now out-lawed and a widespread backlash on bile farm practices, this plant will see increased economic value over the years, at least in this part of the world.

Supposedly, faeces of flying squirrels can invigorate blood circulation - the catch is that it must be eaten uncooked. I would like to see Andrew Zimmern (of Bizarre food fame) tackle this one. Several shops displayed the mummies of the giant flying squirrels Petaurista  sp although I do not know of its use. Having seen the adorable creature alive and kicking at the Singapore Night Safari, I was actually sorry to see its village cousin ending this way.  

 

A threesome of the less aerially gifted, though no-less mummified, members of the squirrel family. 

Mythical powers of the Linzhi (Ganoderma lucidum) mushroom is well known amongst Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese - the earliest record of its use being in the late Han period more than two thousand years ago. These specimens from a local shop looked rather spindly but the shop owner assured they were the real deal.

And now for some local wine, perhaps to go down with your prime ribs ?

The ubiquitous cobra wine - sometimes with a scorpion thrown in for added measure, can be found in every self-respecting medical shops in Vietnam.....

.... but I was totally unprepared for this large jar of alcohol containing a pickled monitor lizard....

....likewise the ones with multiple carcasses of the Towkay gecko.
This is how one makes a lizard wine - the specimen chosen must have its tail intact as this is the most potent anatomy. Its eyes must be removed, otherwise the eyesight of the drinker will be harmed. Sometimes, the internal organs are removed but not necessary so. In place of the eyes, each hollow socket is sometimes stuffed with a single wolf berry. The whole reptile is then soaked in white wine for 6 months at least before consumption. By then the wine would darken to a brownish hue. And what is it supposed to do for you ? Other than boosting men's libido, it is said to strengthen the lungs and aids concentration.

Hornet wine .... now I suspect you can put any critter in that vial of alcohol and they will find a medical use for it. Maybe its just a man's excuse to his missus to get tipsy .....

After rummaging through the dark and dusty medical shops, I took to the road and arrived at a tribal market, which was a much more cheerful affair. There were many tribes in this single congregation, and they can be identified by the clothes worn by the woman folks.

The bright colourful  ones are the Flower Hmong....

 

..... those donning black solemn clothes with red head dress are the Dzaos.

a pot bellied piglet with a limited worldly outlook .....

 

 .... and this will go to the pet shop .... kidding.

 .... and whatever remained of a well fed python - the lumpy bits being actually the fat storage organs.

Most of the peddlers from the hill tribes are women. This is a place for them to meet up and chat with each other....and shop.

A man displayed some roots of wild Panax notoginseng, a relative of ginseng and a major ingredient in the famous proprietary Chinese medicine 云南白药 (Yunnan Bai Yao) that was said to be carried by the Viet Cong to treat wounds during the Vietnam war. The local name for this is San Qi (literally means three, seven) which are the years in which the root is most potent. Roots of the cultivated plants can be commonly found in shops in the city.

  

The spiny fruits may have come from a palm but I do not have a clue what the rest were. I did find the fern rather attractive and bought a bunch back for the garden.   

A fallowed ground

.... time to send off another year of the usual economic crisis, natural disasters and East Asian assets bubble, sprinkled with a little nuclear scare. Some may point out bits of notable bright sparks, namely - the obliteration of some seriously undesirable characters, crumbling of tyrannical regimes, scientific break-throughs and revitilisation of Liverpool Football Club.

Anyway, it had not been my most productive period and I am glad to see the back of it. Now, if I can only find the "Reset" button ....

Winter in highland terraced rice field of Lao Cai, Northern Vietnam, where duration of rice growing season is roughly half of that in the lowland due to the cold climate.

Sierra Nevada detour

A detour from my usual babble on the SE Asian scene, we took this roadtrip after finishing business in the US West Coast.

Burning the wheels down the uneventful highway out of Vegas in the early morning, the landscape became decidedly more interesting once I swirled west into a country road which twirled between and around arid hills dotted with Yuccas and brown scrubs.

I only managed to find the turn-off to White Mountains after a couple of attempts (cursed GPS). My reason for being here was to see this old timer – the eastern bristle cone pine Pinus longaeva – the oldest living organism in the world. A specimen here was said to be more than 4800 years old but we would not be told where it grew.

To be frank there were more than 1 species of pine tree here, and they all looked similar to me. However, as one climbed towards the treeline, the concentration of the real McCoy became much denser.
Supposedly, there were slivers of living tissue sandwiched between those gnarled lifeless trunks, but then again, some may have been killed by lightning – hard to tell really, especially when they have so little leaves.
We pushed north under a wide sky glowing crimson to spend the night at Lee Vining.
Before the first ray of sun, we bolted out of the door to soak in the lunar ambience of Mono Lake and its ancient tufa towers. These calcium deposit were only visible after the lake was partially drained to irrigate orchards and now the local conservationists had stepped in to stop the waterline from dropping further.
I kept my fingers crossed at Lee Vining – sometimes Tioga Pass, our planned entry route to Yosemite, would be closed due to snow in October. This time luck was on our side. This was the view of the mountain range we would be traversing …..
Patchy fall colours were were starting to show as we entered Tioga pass, which ascended up to 3000m at the western Sierra Nevada before dipping towards the valley.....
....leading us right into the glacial-carved panoramas of Yosemite National Park.

At Olmstead Point, I took a vested interest in a strangely shaped pine, and hoped it would be a hundred times smaller so it could fit into my bonsai pot …..

Signing off .....