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Published: April 26th 2008
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Gibbon Experience
My room, top of the tree house Ok, so after I left yah folks I went to go get me a hearty breakfast and some very strong, yet tasty, Lao coffee before starting the Gibbon Experience since I already learned that most of these 3 day treks feed you very little food (mostly rice and vegetables) and I didn't want to drastically lose any more weight. I already lost about a good 14 lbs on this trip after weighing myself the other day!
I picked up the 2 litres of drinking water since they haven't had any running water up there for the past 7 days since their pump broke...hmmmm, no drinking water or showers for 3 days...this will be interesting. The trip started with us having to watch a video on how to put on the harnesses and safely get onto the zip lines to avoid any accidents (we asked and they have had some pretty bad ones up there!). Then the 11 of us crammed into a small SUV and drove out 3 hours into the deep forest of northern Lao in a province called Bokeo, through winding roads around mountains mixed with beautiful greenery and so many slash and burn patches.
Getting to
Gibbon Experience
View from our tree house in the morning the base of the camp, we all jump out and the afternoon heat starts to kick in as I cradle my precious water knowing that I'll be rationing it on this trip. Its funny how much more thirsty you get knowing that your water supply is limited. and then the hike begins! We hiked a good 2 hours straight up the mountain past a village and up and into base camp completely drenched in sweat (by now I'm pretty used to the feeling) and I grin thinking that we were told it was going to be a leisurely 1 hour walk...haha, how many times have I heard that already. At base camp we get our trusty harnesses, they show us how to work our safety clips (just a mountain hiking clip attached to a rope tied to the harness) and cringe at the thought that this will be protecting me from the line and a 200 feet drop to the valley's bottom. But hey, we're in Lao where safety, well, ain't so important 😉 We trek another 30 minutes or so to our first zip line into Tree house 1 (there's a total of 6 tree houses all scattered throughout
the mountains that you get to by zip lines and trekking several hours) where I get to talking to Courtney, who's a British volunteer for the Gibbon X, and I ask about some of these "accidents" (I'm sure you guys were wondering too). She proceeds to tell me that most of these accidents have happened when 2 people zip at the same time or when someone starts zipping before the first person finishes and they collide into each other (2 people have died and several broken bones by others). Also when it thunderstorms to stay in the tree house and not to zip to land since at the top of the tree is a huge copper antenna and the base has several copper rings to take any lightening through the base of the tree and disperse it on the ground. Though a couple of weeks back there was a big electrical storm where the sky was filled with so much lightening that it looked like it was cracked and the people in tree house 3 got spooked and decided to forgo safety and zip to land. Well as one of the girls was zipping across the line the line was
struck by lightening which put her into a coma...don't worry, she survived. I turn to Courtney and say "great, thanks for sharing" with a grin.
We get to the first zip line and all the local Lao guides run, snap on their harnesses, and zip across, some upside down, some backwards, some spinning in circles, and some singing as they do it. Courtney turns to us and goes "don't do that".
The first zip is probably the worst since you are literally trusting your life in these small tiny device that has wheels that easily turns to its side disengaging from the line when there's no weight on it. But after the first one, it's all good to go and its funny after awhile you're standing on rickety tree platforms hundreds of feet from the ground with only a safety harness protecting you and you're standing up there without holding onto anything marveling at the view.
The following 2 days were filled with eating tons of rice, cabbage, and some unknown vegetables and I learned quickly to only eat in the day light since the first night we ate late, I took out my flashlight to see
what I was eating and see it covered in bugs. Tons of more zip lining, trekking, mosquito bites, ant bites by those big red suckers, and leeches! But the highlight was that they fixed the water pump by the second night which was perfect timing since we had all run out of water and were starting to get very paranoid and anxious. Taking a nice cold shower, suspended hundreds of feet in the air with that view was unbelievable.
When we got back into Huay Xai I already had my game plan set of my next destination. Time has become critical since my flight from Vientiane to Bangkok was only in a couple of days so I decided to skip going to Vien Vieng (were people get drunk tubing down the Mekong River) and just chill and relax in the capital of Lao, Vientiane. I book my flight, have dinner with Gibbon X crew, and get a good (bug-free) night sleep.
Vientiane is beautiful, it's a very small capital but has the same Lao, chill, laid-back feel. The capital is right on the Mekong River with a sea of river side restaurants all facing the river serving all
the local cuisine. I check-in to my Guest house by the river, walk around the capital checking out sites, jump onto a tuk tuk (that gets stuck at one point in the road under construction, and also almost tips over with me in it) to go out to Buddha park, and chill the rest of the night by the river. A perfect way to spend a chill day.
The next day I wake up early (as usual now), get a long awaited good cappuccino on a riverside cafe and watch the day pass me by until my flight into Bangkok.
Next stop, chilling here in Bangkok for 3 days and then off to China!
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Isaac
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I feel like I am there!
Love the pictures, but love the videos even more. That zipline video was awesome. I feel like I was the one riding it. Sa-weet deal-e-o!.