Listening Earth Blog

Thailand’s border with Myanmar (Burma) is a curious area. The last hills of the great Himalayan range separate two Buddhist nations with a long history of conflict.

Last week we visited the ancient city of Kamphaeng Phet, only 100km from the border, and in the early morning light, walked around the ruins of temples built contemporaneously with Chartres Cathedral. At that time the city was seen as a frontier bastion against the incursions of the Burmese army. Eventually the invaders triumphed, and in the 1500s the graceful courtyards and serene stone buddhas of Kamphaeng Phet were abandoned to the jungle.

We often think of Buddhism as the most peaceful of religions. Yet here were two Buddhist nations at war. And it is still going on. The border area remains contentious and volatile, infamous for skirmishes and some serious smuggling.

I mention all this as an insight into Mae Wong National Park, from which we have just returned. The entrance road ascends through hills, once populated by tribal people but now deserted, terraced hillsides overgrown with tall grasses and returning to forest. After an hour of tortuous bends, we crest the final hill to arrive at a tiny campsite, and a view over wild forest to the west. On the horizon, Burma.

It is an odd national park, with its mosaic of primary forest and denuded hills, but being there it made more sense. Depopulating the area and administering it as a national park seems a practical way of stabilising a contentious border area. Whatever the reason for Mae Wong’s existence, it is a great place for us to record birdsong that is representative of what would be heard in Burma.

After researching this park using Google Earth, finding the isolated campsite on the satellite images and wondering what the surrounding forests would be like, it was exciting to actually be there. We had also read of the biting flies known as ‘khoon’ that are found at higher altitudes, and within a few minutes of our arrival, they made our acquaintance. Lovely little critters – they land and bite without you noticing, leaving behind a welt like a botched blood test, which supposedly will keep itching for the next month.

The forest itself was dense, and the only track through is the continuation of the road leading into the campsite. This road was once trafficable all the way on to Umphang some 40km away, but is now closed and being rapidly reclaimed by the forest. After only a short distance it became a tangle of vines, tall grasses and wild bananas. It was quite heartening, despite the brambles, to see how the forest is growing over what was once a bitumen road.

Our 3 days of recording at Mae Wong have been everything we hoped, with a huge diversity of birdlife including partridges, spectacular racket-tailed drongos, cute midnight-blue niltivas, sunbirds, laughing thrushes – all coming together each dawn to create a rich symphony of sound. We hope the recordings and photos do it justice.

Before Mae Wong, we spent a few days at Thung Salaeng Luang National Park in northern central Thailand, an area appreciated for its unique pine forests. Not what one would expect of Thailand, but to camp in an idyllic site under gently sighing pines, and in cooler weather, has been a welcome delight. And once again, both a rich source of natural sounds and beautiful sights.

Throughout the last week, we have been in the company of our good-hearted driver, Suchat. The minute he met us, we were informed that he was to be not only our driver, but our friend and bodyguard, as he had been a champion Thai kick-boxer winning international competitions in Japan. He has not only kept us laughing, but introduced us to exotic local cuisine based on ingredients we were not too sure we wanted to know about.

Now it is back to the big smoke. Actually, being the summer here, the whole country is clouded in the smoke of agricultural burn-off, making the air hazy and stinging the eyes. So Bangkok’s infamous pollution has some competition. From Bangkok (and a hopefully brief visit to the immigration dept to extend my incorrectly stamped visa), we anticipate heading south, down the Thai peninsular, and back to the gibbon forests that were our inspiration to visit here in the first place.

Read on to part 3

Tags: meditation music, National Parks, natural sounds, nature CD, nature download, nature music, nature sounds, sounds of nature, Thailand