eco-tours south east Asia?
 

I am planning a back packing trip to south east Asia for most of the rest of 2020 starting in may. I am super interested in ecology and botany and was wondering if anyone has any good recommendations for eco tours that are quite cheap, or just people that are also interested in botany. I am mainly interested in carnivorous plants (nepenthes) and orchids so want to structure my traveling around these plants, I have tagged the countries I am interested in but I am open to suggestions.
thanks in advance.

One of the best places for observing botanical changes was climbing Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Climbing (walking really!) from the park HQ at the base to the summit will take you through rainforest, temperate areas, cloud forest to bare rock at the peak. The vegetation changes dramatically along the way - orchids, giant ferns, carnivorous plants ( esp. pitcher plants) raffelesia Etc.

Elsewhwere in Borneo there are many national parks where the authorities are desperately trying to hold back te tide of illegal logging, the spread of palm oil plantations etc. Royal Bellum and Taman Negara parks are the two most famous and a cheap way of visiting both is by rail. Google Jungle Railway. Places like the Kelabit Highlands are less visiting an I think you would find some time there rewarding.

"Eco" is one of the most overused phrases in world tourism any many cases you will find that operators just tag the world on to a normal tour. Check out their carefully and don’t expect them to be cheap.

Tragically many of the countries you tagged don’t have great track records of conserving their ecology. Expensive research before leaving will avoid disappointment .

Despite the expense, if orchids are a passion, then you might want to find a way to spend a day or two in Singapore -- its National Orchid Garden is amazing (as is the Singapore Botanic Garden in which it is located), and the Gardens by the Bay have some wonderful examples of various plants of the region (and not). Unfortunately, it's not an area suited to those with limited budgets.

We saw wonderful orchids in both Sabah (on the slopes of Mt. Kinabalu) and Sarawak. I do agree with KJA that the best orchid display gardens are in Singapore.

Another great place for orchids ( and it is free! ) is in Kuching. Some photos on our blog @ https://accidentalnomads.com/2015/08/22/kuching/ . There is also some stuff on Kinabalu Park there in another post.

Vietnam offers a lot of ecotourism destinations, for example, in the North, you can visit Sapa, Ha Giang loop, Cao Bang, Ninh Binh, and Mai Chau. In the South, you should consider Phong Nha-Ke Bang, the Mekong Delta, and Phu Quoc Island. These attractions are open spaces with a lot of natural landscapes for you to explore.

You might look at Cibodas Botanic Gardens which are south of Jakarta in the Puncak area of West Java. This site is in Indonesian language, but I'm sure you'd be able to find information in English if you search.
https://krcibodas.lipi.go.id/From Wikipedia: "There are approximately 10,792 living specimens in the garden, including 320 orchids, 289 cacti, 22 succulent plants, 216 algae, 103 ferns, and 1162 garden plant species that live within the proximity of the botanic garden. . . .In April 2014, the botanic garden opened a new section, the House of Nepenthes (Rumah Kantung Semar), containing 55 species and 47 hybrid species of nepenthes.=10.8333px"

Coincidentally, this place was featured in the Jakarta Post today. It's more geared toward growing food plants, but it looks charming so I thought I'd pass it along. The price is right.
​​​​​​http://portibi.com/

​​​​​​Portibi and Cibodas are in the same general area, but there's a mountain in between so it make take a while to get from one to another.

Laos is an excellent destination for eco-tourism, especially the North around very charming Luang Prabang and north (Nong Kiaw)

Vietnam is also a good choice for the eco-tourism. They have a lot of primaeval forest and karst mountain, especially in the North of Vietnam.

Personally, I really like Ha Giang and Ba Be, they're so marvelous.

Babe Lake is great and of easy access now that there are direct minibuses Hanoi-PAC NGOI, the Thai village where are the homestays (the best is Mr. Duy Tho) : primeal forest, beautiful one-day boat ride with walk to a waterfall, and good trekking through the jungle.

Hi everyone
hanks, everyone that replied, these all seem like amazing options I am excited to check out. I have a few places, in Vietnam mostly, that I am going to check out. as I am planning to be in Southeast Asia for a while I wanted to also visit the Philippines, and specifically Palawan so if anyone has any awesome plant and nature info on there as well I would really appreciate it. I saw a bunch of stuff on youtube about hikes up mount victoria and wondered if these are things that are available to the average tourist.

yeah just thanks again in advance! :-)

Hi, As you are interested in ecology and botany tours, you can go to Manila (Philippines). In Manila, there are few places like Manila Zoo, National Museum of the Philippines, UST Botanical Garden, Rizal Park and many others to explore. I recently visited there and it's amazing and affordable too. As I was with my friends everything gone shared. But still, this place is not much costly.

Well, I doubt that people interested in ecology just want to see a zoo and a botanical park, two things that they have at home !