The Forest Butterflies

By far the most common butterfly species we saw were from the Satyridae family: Browns and Arguses. They are usually small, brown and grey with eye spots and as they are not powerful fliers stay close to the ground making them easy to miss! 2 species in particular were often hard to tell apart, Ypthima imitans and Ypthima baldus.  Luckily each team had at least 1 experienced scientist with them to help with the identification. 

Butterfly or moth?

One of the first things we learnt on this Earthwatch project was how to tell the difference between a butterfly and a moth as both would by flying along the transects. This proved surprisingly more diffcult than I had thought!

1. Butterflies tend to have clubbed antennae while moths antennae taper to a point
2. Butterflies are able to fold their wings up vertically over their back, where moths often hold their wings horizontally.
3. Butterflies tens to have large, more colourful wings than moths, although many moths are large and colourful also.
4. Butterflies fly during the day, while moths are nocturnal.

Hill Tribes of Sapa

There a hundreds of minority groups who live in the mountains around Sapa, the French called them Montagnards (highlanders or mountain people). Each tribe has it's own language, customs, mode of dress and spiritual beliefs and it has been one of the undoubted highlights of my trip to visit some of their villages and meet them.

Most minority people live a rural / agricultural lifestyle with their houses raised on stilts and finished in natural materials in harmony with the environment. It is a hard life and despite improvements in rural schools and regional healthcare, many minority people marry young, have large families and die young.

The Red Dzao, pictured with me above, are one of the most colourful of the tribes and are easy to recognise due to their red head dress, intricate weaving, silver-coloured beads and coins on their clothing. Like in other parts of Asia, the traditional culture of so many ethnic minority groups are gradually giving way to outside influences, but it seems to be the women who are helping to keep their traditional culture alive, weaving traditional clothing and passing on this knowledge to their daughters.

While an increase in tourism has led to more revenue, cross-cultural understanding, improved infrastructure, such as roads, and employment opportunities such as guides, there is also a downside. Often the minority people themselves are not the main beneficiaries of tourism activities and have no say or control over its development. Tourism also increases litter and pollutants, lead to dependency on the tourist dollar, and potentially the erosion of local values and practices.

A good resource on how to minimise your impact when visiting such villages is http://www.hilltribe.org

Steve's Haiku

Butterfly, ah, see!

On the wind, up, down, here, there.

Beautiful; now gone.

Lost in the clouds

Arrived in Sapa today around 8:30am absolutely knacked after a very uncomfortable overnight train ride. The mountain town of Sapa is located at 1650m above sea level and minority people from villages all around come to the markets everyday but particularly on the weekend. A huge tourist drawcard is the "Love Market" held every Saturday - a kind of speed dating for the minority people who live in tiny villages dotted around the countryside. Arriving on the Monday I seem to have missed the weekend rush which I was happy about as I it made everything much more intimate. I hired a motorbike and guide who took me to 3 villages nearby. It is an incredible experience to drive on the back of a motorbike from the bottom of the valley from Ban Ho (Tay and Zay village) which is located at 600m up to Sapa and feel the change in temperature and climate from warm and muggy to what feels like an icy chill in Sapa. The road gradually winds through the mountains with no fence between you and the vertical drop on your left side. The scenery is stunning with jaw-dropping views of cascading vertical rice terraces that spill down the mountains like a patch work quilt. As we climbed higher, a thick mist rolled in so visibility was reduced to only a hundred metres or so, and to my left all I could now see was a wall of white fog and the air heavy and chilled. Quite a scary experience but amazingly exhilarating once you got over your initial fears. I truly felt like I was lost in the clouds.

Bear Rescue in Tam Dao

Steve mentioned that there was a bear rescue centre in Tam Dao and I said that I would be up for coming along if it could be arranged. Bears are one of my favourite animals and I am a supporter of Animals Asia Foundation who among other projects are working to end bear bile farming in China. Lien successfully managed to arrange a visit for the Earthwatch team one morning with the help of the Tam Dao National Park Director as it was not yet open to the public.

Once we arrived, I was greatly surprised to find that this was a brand new facility that Animals Asia Foundation had set up to continue their work in Vietnam which I faintly remembered reading about in one of their newsletters but had not put 2 + 2 together that it was the same place. What a wonderful coincidence that it was located right in the very national park that I was visiting!

The facility was extremely impressive and contained quarantine enclosures, a vet surgery and bear houses. Once completed it will be able to house a total of 200 bears. It also plans to use it as a base to raise public awareness about the barbaric practice of bear farming. They even have planted a beautiful herb garden to promote the numerous heal alternatives to bear bile. The staff were very friendly and professional and one of the Bear Managers, Bec, did a fantastic job of showing us around and explaining how it all worked.

Donning gumboots which had to be disinfected as they were sick bears in the surgery, we were lucky enough to see 2 cubs aged about 6 months who had just been rescued from the boot of a car crossing the Laos/Vietnam border. They were absolutely adorable, playing and tumbling over each other - clearly very happy and unaware of what could have been a very horrible fate.

The aim of Animals Asia Foundation is to end bear farming entirely in Vietnam. According to official figures in Vietnam there are currently 4,000 bears incarcerated in tiny cages for bile extraction, the physical and mental suffering that they endure is extreme - and the mortality rate is high.

Check out their website for more info: http://www.animalsasia.org/

Wind, rain and haiku

Woke up this morning to gale force winds and rain - not good for butterfly watching! Lien, the principal investigator, took us instead to visit the local school where we caused a bit of commotion with screams and shouts of "Halo" and "Nice to meet you" from the school kids clamouring around us like we were celebrities! We were invited up to the principal's office (a long time since I've been there!) for tea and he told us a bit about the school. The emphasis for Vietnamese children is to study english and business then on to university level as it is these skills which can help get them a job the easiest. School sizes are small because of the population of the region, (600 people live in Tam Dao village) but they still do not have enough teachers.

The next plan was to visit the local waterfall but with the wind still whipping up a gale and the rain still falling steadily Lien decided the walk would be too dangerous and we were left to our own devices until lunch. So what do you do when it's wet outside and nothing to do? A couple of team members decided to have an international haiku contest with Japanese, Russian and American versions. Lisa managed to top everyone's with a particularly naughty limerick which cannot be repeated on here, but I will publish Steve's haiku about butterflies as soon as I can get him to recite it to me again...