Have you ever had the dream to live in a tree house when you were young? Thanks to the Gibbon Experience, this dream has come true for me during the past 3 days. It was by far one of the craziest and at the same time toughest experiences I have ever had! On Wednesday Morning, our group of 13 people left Houay Xai in a jeep in order to drive to the Bokeo National Reservoir close to the Thai border. During the drive, we had already time to get to know the others a bit better and somehow we just „clicked“ [View Full Entry]

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Day 348: Friday 12th June - Crossing over the Mekong into Laos Today I am crossing over the border into Laos. Despite looking into both the border crossing formalities and whether I can get Laos currency on the other side of the border, I am none the wiser. Some sources say you can’t get a visa on arrival, most say you can, but the length varies between 15-30 days. Similarly, I find a few internet sites that say that there is an ATM in Huayxai on the Laos side of the border, whilst most say there isn’t, and a money changer [View Full Entry]

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The bloody staff cancelled our bloody booking! We said we'd be in the office 'first thing'. Dom went there at 7.30 and they were closed, so went back at 8.10 and was apparently 10 minutes late and the bookings had been given to other people! What the hell? So anyway we had to wait till the next day, which wasn't so bad. Hoi Xiay, the town on the Thai border spelt differently on every signpost, doesn't really have much going for it apart from a few nice restaurants and the opportunity for resting from a bus journey that was supposed to [View Full Entry]

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Ce je bilo 12 stopinj kriza, kaj porecete na OSEM?!!?!?!? PA sem sla menda v tople kraje ... skratka, vceraj zvecer sem se zagrebla za dve deki, ker ena pac ni nobena, cetudi sem imela svojo spalko, in povem vam, se na ISlandiji ni bilo tako mrzlo! BOgi Andrej je imel samo eno deko in zmrzoval ... (Mimogrede, vsi sprasujete, kdo je on. NAceloma pisem o sebi na tem blogu, zato ga ne bom prevec izpostavljala, ampak stvar je taka: dobila sva se v Chiang MAiu, prej sva se staknila na blogu od STA, in ker imava isto pot, pac potujeva [View Full Entry]

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Kikirikanje se je zacelo ze ob 4h zjutraj (Christian: "I think we should have eaten more chicks for dinner ..."), ampak bolj kot to je bil problem MRAZ. KDo bi si mislil, da je "zima" v Aziji dejansko zima??? Tako da me je kar malo zeblo ponoci, kljub svoji spalki ... Zajtrk: noodle soup (Sicer iz vrecke, jebiga, tudi LAos je ze moderniziran ocitno), fried egg, deep fried banana (je razlika med friend in deep fried, my friends) in zeleni caj in Nescafee 3 v 1, ki mu tu pravijo, ne vem zakaj, Vietnam coffee. Ampak nek jim to bude cestitka. [View Full Entry]

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V guesthouseu smo rabili vse drugo kot mrezo za komarje, kajti Andrejeva all-in-one naprava je kazala, da je bilo ponoci vse tja do piclih 12 stopinj! Torej komarji ne sploh, mraz zelo ja! Ali jebiga, desi se. Ob petju petelinov smo najprej placali sobo (model ni imel 10 tisoc kip za vrniti, tako revni so tu), potem se je nasa cetica odpravila na zajtrk. Svicarja sta jedla spet noodle soup, midva pa fried eggs, vsi pa spet lemongrass tea. Sli smo do officea in po cudezu so nas ze cakali - tu v Laosu je vse bolj na easy. Pustili smo [View Full Entry]

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Wow, what an amazing experience that was! The name 'gibbon experience' may be a bit misleading though......our guide hadn't seen one for 10 months.......perhaps they should call it the 'zipwiring experience' instead. It was fab though..... despite the lack of monkeys.... and I'd definitely recommend it, but book ahead because there's rarely a space last minute. I wasn't exactly sure what I'd signed up to as things weren't too clear when I called. The website had said there were two different experiences....classic and waterfall, the latter having more walking involved. Turned out it was [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone, Pai So the next day we headed off to Pai. The minibus took 3,5 hours to get there but the road was really nice as it was thru a beautiful mountainious terrain. We got some advice about where to stay and so booked ourselves into a small bamboo hut along the Pai river. After we had some dinner we explored the town centre and settled down for some Cupa Libres at a place where they were playing amzing live music. A guitarist, bassist, drummer, saxophonist, fluitist and trompetist were playing really nice jazz, soul and blues music. The town [View Full Entry]

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See for yourselves: ps there is another movie of me zipping on my hyves. [View Full Entry]

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Filling in some gaps - left Chiang Mai for Chiang Rai where I spent one night, then boosted straight for Houayxay, the first town across the border in Laos. Jumping on a bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong, I got talking to a British couple - sorry Jasmine, last I heard we included Wales in that statement ;-) They were headed to Houayxay too, but were going north from there to live in the jungle for a few days in what is called the Gibbon Experience. I had heard about a Gibbon sanctuary where they had made tree-houses and set [View Full Entry]

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