The Gibbon Experience!

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We set off for the border after an insect-free lie in and a quick stop at the bakery for breakfast. The bus took about 2 hours until we arrived in Chiang Khong. We got a tuk tuk to the river where we went to passport control and officially left Thailand. We crossed the river by a long boat to get to Laos where we walked up the hill to get our Laos Visa. From here we found a guesthouse and booked onto ‘The Gibbon Experience’ - a three day trip into the jungle to live like gibbons! We were to stay in a tree house and zip-wire from platform to platform around the jungle! We had to stay a day and night in Huay Xia, the border town which turned out to be pretty dull! The town consisted of one street with not much along it, it seemed only the people going on ‘The Gibbon’ with us the next day were stopping here. The only thing we wanted to do, which was to send a package home was impossible as the Post Office seemed to close for a four hour lunch break and never open again with only a man asleep on the floor under a mosquito net listening to extremely loud Laos music!

Finally the day was over and we went to bed ready to get up early for ‘The Gibbon’. We left the next morning after a short safety video for a 3 hour ride in a truck to the village near Bokeo National Park - the setting for our trip. We then had an hour long trek to the kitchens and the start of the zipping. We chose our tree houses and Steph and I were to stay in Tree House One with a Dutch honeymooning couple called Frans and Saskia. We got to the house via our first zip which was pretty small. We then had a break before taking our zips all the way to Tree House Seven where we were joining the rest of our group to have our dinner which was zipped to us by the cooks! Our walk home that evening was pretty tough as we had to climb a massive hill but was also well worth it when we got to zip across the 400m zip, 200m off the ground at sunset which was setting over the top of the hills in the distance-stunning. We had shower in our tree house which was in itself an experience as the shower was bordered by walls on three sides and a large net the other which meant that you were showering next to a 50m drop overlooking the tops of tree with views of the mountains in the distance. Added to this, by the time we got back it was semi-dark! That evening a volunteer with the project called Drew and a ‘Gibbon’ guide called Ja joined us for the evening which was passed sharing a bottle of Laos Whiskey (called Lion King) and playing card games such as Last Card and Pyramid.

We woke early to go in search of gibbons which we didn’t see but it was great as we zipped through the valley before the mist had evaporated so the trees were covered in a mystical mist which was beautiful. After our early start we went back to bed fearing that breakfast would come zipping towards us before we’d had chance to lie down! As soon as our heads touched the pillow we heard the now familiar noise of a zipping guide. As Frans moaned ‘go away’ I suggested that we cut the wire! After breakfast we made our way to Tree House Five. This meant we experienced most of the 30 zips in the area including some much higher than the tree tops, some that lasted for ages and others that meant that you had to do the leap of faith Indiana Jones-style walking off a ledge with only your harness and safety rope stopping you falling 300m!! That evening passed in a similar manner with Drew and Ja again visiting us after we’d had our sunset zips and our dark shower! This time the shower involved Steph standing on a 5inch long Grass Hopper. All we heard was a yelp from the distance!! In terms of bugs there were quite a few weird and wonderful beasties! We were swarmed by mosquitoes from the early hours of the morning (thank goodness for the Mosquito nets provided), had to suffer bees from the two MASSIVE nests on the branches of our tree all through the day, had even bigger bees coming out at night attracted by the candles and a lovely collection of beetles, flying crawlies and crickets! Oh, and that’s without the enormous colonies of ants EVERYWHERE and the leeches that popped up now and again on the walkways between zips, we kept doing regular leech checks, lighter in hand!

That night we saw lightning in the distance and felt a storm brewing up among the hills. Drew very calmly told us that it might be an idea to put our harnesses on as he thought an evacuation would be necessary. Off we zipped with head torches on and flash lights in hand into the darkness. The end of the way was lit up by a small collection of lights as a small group of guides had come from the kitchens to see if we were ok! We had a short walk to the kitchen where we had a cup of jungle tea, hot chocolate for Steph, until the wind had passed. On our way back to the tree house we heard a rustling in the bushes and then after we’d walked a little further heard a yelp from behind. Apparently a King Cobra snake had slithered across the path in between the Dutch couple and the guides had fled!! We all made it back to the tree house and now Frans was doing a pretty hilarious impression of the snake!!

The following day we woke to see the misty hills again but the view wasn’t as good that day. We made the most of it though and did our favourite zips again as they would be our last ones! After this we walked back to the village and got the truck back to Huay Xia to catch the overnight bus to Luang Probang, a small town in the North East of Laos where we’re due to meet my Australian friend Anna on the 5th June.

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