THE CLOUDED LEOPARD
ELUSIVE KING OF THE FOREST

A king of the Indochinese forests, the clouded leopard, also known as the clouded tiger or clouded panther, is as mysterious as it is rare. One of the most elusive creatures in the forests, the feline lives in the solitary corners of South Asia's last natural sanctuaries.

The clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) owes its name to the long stripes and spots adorning its coat, with patterns reminiscent of the clouds or mists of the forest heights. It is also called the mint leopard in China, the clouded big cat in Cambodia, the tree leopard by the Burmese, and the harimau-dahan (branch tiger) by the Malay.

This leopard is distinguished by its upper canine teeth, which are comparatively longer than those of other living felids. They resemble tusks with a sharp posterior edge, leading scientists to compare the clouded leopard to the saber-toothed tiger, which has been extinct for 11,000 years. Its coat is stamped with spots of dark color, elliptical to rectangular in shape and bordered on the back by a thick black line. Black dots are sometimes found inside the spots, and a partial double stripe runs down the animal’s spine.

Weight varies between 11 and 25 kg. The largest males can reach one meter ten, with a tail measuring up to 90 cm. The tail is also characteristic of the species, acting as a pendulum as the big cat moves from branch to branch. The leopard is capable of descending a trunk upside down or hanging onto a branch with its hind legs; of all felines (along with the margay), it is the most talented at moving between the trunks and branches of the forest canopy it loves.

The clouded leopard is not arboreal in the true sense of the word. It uses trees primarily as resting sites – crucial in Asian forests, which are full of ground leeches ready to feed on the fresh blood of living creatures. Large numbers of leeches can cause substantial blood loss and secondary infections from the wounds they create (Smythies, 1959).

The leopard is solitary, secretive, and essentially nocturnal. Enjoying dense forests, it spends most of its time in the canopy, coming down almost exclusively to hunt and rehydrate. Its calls include a short, high-pitched meow and a loud squawk, both emitted when it is trying to locate another member of the species. Its diet consists of deer, muntjac, wild boar, monkeys, Bengal slow lorises, pangolins, squirrels, and birds. It is equally adept at hunting from the ground or ambushing from trees and can leap from a branch directly at its prey or chase it into the trees. If it encounters a tiger, one of its main predators, the leopard uses an avoidance strategy.

The leopard’s lifespan is estimated at between 12 and 15 years. The female gives birth to four or five kittens in her den or a hollow tree. Blind at birth, the kittens begin to see at around 10 days. By 20 days they are wandering, and by their 15th month they begin to live independently.

In ancient times, the leopard was hunted by various Proto-Indochinese confederations, who used its skin as ceremonial finery or part of tributes. Chan groups in Sarawak use its canines as ear ornaments and its skins as sitting mats (Gibson-Hill, 1950; Shelford, 1985). For some aboriginal groups in Taiwan, possession of the clouded leopard’s fur is a sign of power. For other groups, such as the Rukai, the big cat accompanies and directs the souls of deceased ancestors; killing it brings misfortune upon hunters and the members of their community.

There are now only about 10,000 clouded panthers left in Asia. They can still be found in nature reserves and national parks in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Formosa, Laos (Nam Et and Hin Namno parks), Cambodia (Phnom Prich, Botum Sakor and Phnom Samkos nature sanctuaries), and Vietnam, in the depths of Ke Bang national park. Various modules are available with the respective park rangers. The chances of spotting the elusive leopard are slim, but discovering its habitat and tracks, hearing its call, or simply knowing that it’s roaming nearby is a rare joy in itself.


© Illustration credit: Damien Egan Fine Art 
 

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The world’s tenth-largest river and Asia's fourth largest in terms of flow, the Mekong rises in the Qinghai Himalayas and flows through China, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia before finally emptying into South Vietnam after 4,900 km, where it is traditionally known as the “River of the Nine Dragons.”

This mythical river has been a commercial and migratory route since ancient times, serving as a passageway between the middle and lower valleys of the Mekong and China, with caravans linking Yunnan and Chiang Mai. French explorers Ernest Doudart de Lagrée and Francis Garnier first travelled the river from its mouth to Yunnan between 1866 and 1868, during a Mekong and Upper Song-Koi mission. They emphasized the Mekong’s complex navigability, due to the many rapids and jumps that punctuate its course.

In Laos, the Mekong meanders from the northwest to the south of the country. It skirts the eastern part of the famous Golden Triangle and the great plain of Vientiane, before serving as a natural border with Thailand from the center to the south and entering Cambodia at the Stung Treng province. The upper reaches of the Laotian Mekong are characterized by a variety of peoples, long granite or karst massifs, and valleys generally oriented on a north-south-west axis, bordered by eminences such as Phu Doi Lo (2077 m, on the Thai border), Phu Pouy (1325 m, Nam Pouy NBCA area), Phu Som (1724 m), Sayphou Houaxang (783 m), Sayphou Kaothang (1122 m) and Sayphou Khatham (934 m). Numerous streams and rivers rise from these heights, generally flowing towards the southwest and the Mekong; the most notable are the Nam Ma, Nam Tha, and Nam Beng (the latter joining the Mekong at Pakbeng).

The main peoples of the region include the Laos, the Thai Dam (Black Thai), the Thai Khao (White Thai), the Lue (Lü, along the Mekong axis), the Nua (north-west of Muong Sin), the Khmu Lu, the Khmu Khong, the Nguan (south of Muang Sin), the Samtao (south of Muang Sin), the Doi (west of Luang Namtha), the Mien (Yao, northeast of Muong Sin), the Hmông (east of Luang Nam Tha), the Silla (east of Muong Sin), the Mousseu (west of Muong Sin) and the Pana (northeast of Muong Sin).

It is on this upper Laotian Mekong that Heritage Line’s latest marvel, the Anouvong, has been plying the waters since its launch at the end of August. Named in honor of the last ruler of the Kingdom of Vientiane, who fought the Siamese invaders, this first-class boutique vessel pays homage to an era when travel was associated with adventure into the unknown. Just 48m long, this intimate vessel harmoniously blends traditional Laotian craftsmanship and artwork with French colonial finesse. It features eight large staterooms and two lavish suites with inventive layouts and panoramic windows flanked by elegant French balconies overlooking the Mekong River. Its amenities exude a nuanced extravagance, with an intimate dining room and a Café-Bar and Lounge bathed in light with its adjacent wooden terrace deck with a distinguished ambience. Its stern is topped by a tucked-away spa, offering a wide range of rejuvenating massages and body treatments, steeped in Laotian spirituality.

This modern-day Laotian Santa Maria invites guests to meander along the legendary Mekong for a three- to seven-night journey from the Thai border to Luang Prabang or Vientiane, and back again. It is an odyssey for the senses, gliding serenely past a landscape of mountains and forest bangs dotted with Lao, Khmu, Lue and Hmong untouched hamlets, with the opportunity to experience their age-old traditions and practices firsthand. On board, travelers enjoy state-of-the-art service and a host of indulgent activities, including cooking classes, yoga, Tai Chi, meditation, introduction to the Lao language, a barbecue on an enchanting strip of sand, a Baci blessing ceremony, vernacular music and dance shows, an encounter with elephants in their natural environment, or insightful lectures on the esoteric facets of the ancient land of the Million Elephants. 


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© Photo credit: Alexander Stephan

                           

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From Mok Kau...

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In 1675, in Oudong, then the modest capital of the kingdom of Cambodia, a Chinese man named Mok Kau, who had fled China with dynastic change presented himself to the king. Mok Kau easily convinced King Chey Chetta IV to let him lease the small port of Peam (today Ha Tien). The port was a deserted place reclaimed by nature and only a theoretical possession of the royalty of Oudong. With the contract in hand, Mok Kau settled this no man’s land. After a few years of hard work, he transformed the region and made Peam a force for neighboring countries to reckon with.

Agricultural development was a key activity. French horticulturist Pierre Poivre was full of praise for Ha Tien in his book Voyages d’un philosophe (1769):

“Its territory became the country of all the hardworking men who wanted to settle there. Its port was opened to all nations; soon, the forests were felled intelligently, the lands were opened and sown with rice; canals drawn from the rivers flooded the fields, and abundant harvests provided the farmers with the material for their subsistence, and then as the object of an immense trade.”

Pierre Poivre gave Ha Tien the name of Ponthiamas, from the Khmer “Banteay Meas,” literally “the Golden Fortress,” because the city’s bamboo ramparts sparkled like gold in the setting sun. This mysterious kingdom of Ponthiamas enjoyed a certain notoriety in Enlightenment France, which discovered there an implementation – undoubtedly involuntary – of its ideological thought. “He therefore did not establish any laws; he did much more, he established mores,” explained Pierre Poivre. After him, the Marquis de Saint-Lambert, a long-forgotten philosopher of the Enlightenment, wrote a book questionably titled Ponthiamas or Reason without ever visiting the region.

...To Mac Cuu

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Mok Kau, who was not a philosopher, was much more concerned about the regional strategic hazards on which the survival of his “kingdom” would depend in the long term. The geopolitics of Ponthiamas rested on two pillars. The first was its strategic location as a buffer “kingdom” between Siam and its capital of Ayutthaya to the west and the Nguyen family to the north. Nominally subject to Thang Long, the current Ha Noi managed a true State that extended from the north of Hue to Nha Trang, where the last Cham kings reigned. Second, it was an obligatory point of passage (and therefore control) for commercial flows through the Gulf of Siam. Ponthiamas found itself on the front lines and was not able to enjoy its tranquility for long. In 1718, the city was destroyed by the Siamese, and Mok Kau took refuge in Ream. As soon as he returned in 1721, he set about rebuilding it.

Abandoning his impossible neutrality, Mok Kau had to choose a reliable protector. He decided to seal an alliance with the Nguyen family of Hue in 1725 and went down in history under the name of Mac Cuu, a Vietnamese version of his Chinese name. While Ponthiamas was now in the Vietnamese orbit, it hadn’t really lost independence. Ponthiamas had never enjoyed official independence, even if the bonds of vassalage towards the royalty of Oudong were only purely theoretical, and in the royal annals of Hue, it was only a question of “protection.”
 

The Golden Age and the Fall

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Mac Cuu passed away in 1735 and was succeeded by his son Mac Thien Tu (1718 – 1780). A sovereign and poet, Mac Thien Tu left the masterpiece The Ten Landscapes of Ha Tien. Under his leadership, the Ha Tien Academy was created and celebrated throughout the Chinese world.

He added to Ponthiamas’ commercial power and military strength by building a formidable fleet capable of threatening Siam. Until then, the small kingdom had wisely pivoted between the important regional powers. Now Mac Thien Tu intended to play in the big leagues with their related risks. In 1771, Ponthiamas was destroyed by the Siamese for the second time, then sacked during the Tay Son revolt (1771 – 1792).

In 1780, Mac Thien Tu traveled to Bangkok with his sons to accompany a Vietnamese delegation to King Phya Tak (Thaksin) to sign a peace treaty with Siam. A series of misunderstandings aroused Thaksin's suspicions, and the members of the delegation were accused of espionage, tortured, and put to death. Mac Thien Tu committed suicide by swallowing liquid gold.

A few members of the Mac family who remained alive continued to play a role in Ponthiamas, which was in decline after the modification of maritime routes marked the end of the strategic role of the Gulf of Siam in the first quarter of the 19th century.

Ponthiamas lived, but its history of more than a century, wrote Émile Gaspardone in 1952, “clarifies an important aspect of the modern history, so little known and so disdained, of these regions of Indochina where towards the end of the 17th century, thanks to a reversal of population, was established the most precarious and advanced position in the south of Chinese civilization”.


Jean-Michel Filippi.