The Gibbon Experience

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Hello everybody,

How time is flying here in Asia and I have had many adventures since I last wrote.

I left Thailand and headed North into Laos where I took part in a very special project called "The Gibbon Experience". A Gibbon is a rare type of monkey, found in very few places of the world, livig high up in the trees. I stayed for three days living in a tree house deep in the jungle so that i might have a chance to see them. I arrived in a jeep after a very bumpy ride through orange mud and dust. From a very basic but friendly village I walked for about 2 hours to a hut right in the middle of the jungle where I was given a harness, it was attached around my waist and legs, like the one I wore for rock climbing, except this had added ropes - one fitted with a safety clip and one with a piece of old bicycle tyre which acted as a brake. This was my equipment to help me fly through the jungle!!! While I was at the hut, I made friends with an Asiatic Brown Bear cub which the rangers had rescued from the jungle. They were rearing him by hand as he had lost his mum and he loved to rough and tumble!

My new harness was soon put to use in order to get to my tree house home. I had to step up onto a wooden platform and clip my saftey rope and tyre onto a thick metal wire, I sat suspended in the air for a few moments before i pushed off to the other side - zipping through the air, just like a monkey swinging from tree to tree! It was very exciting and I had such an amazing view of the jungle below.

Night time is particularly exciting as all the creepy crawlies and unusual insect come out to play. The tree houses don't have any electricity so are lit by candles and old lanterns that many of the flying bugs are attracted to, in my tree house there was even a spider that was as big as a plate!

In the morning I was awoken by the incredible sound of the Gibbons singing to each other, they sound a bit like an owl hooting but the sound is much louder and gets quicker and higher as more of the other jungle creatures wake up and join in the song. I had to get up at 5.30 am to have a chance of seeing the Gibbons, as they wake very early and disappear too far into the jungle to follow them. On my first morning I was very lucky, I saw two Gibbons hanging from the branches just outside my tree house! Breakfast was zipped in to us, and was very different from what people eat at home. Instead of cereal or toast, I was given the traditional Laos breakfast of rice and a mixture of vegetables, which was very similar to what I had at dinner time too. I would have loved to have stayed longer but I had more things to see and do so after three days of walking and zipping around the jungle I left to continue travelling through Laos and into Cambodia.

Stripey xx

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Photos

My tree house
This was my home for three days, it was very high up, even higher than the tallest trees at home!

Asiatic bear cub
Playing around

Ready to Zip
This is the harness and equipment I had to wear to go zipping. The gloves protected my paws!

The view from my tree house
The mornings were very misty