The Long Awaited Gibbon Experience

The Gibbon Experience

I first came across the Gibbon Experience off a forum on asmallworld.net. I remember sneaking a peak on the web whilst sitting at my desk in London dreaming of the day. The girl said it was the best thing she'd ever done. I have to agree with her. It's pretty pricey when compared to the rest of the traveling in Laos at STG75 for a max of two nights but I tell you it's worth every penny. Try and do this soon, everyone now is talking about it in Northern Thailand and Laos and they plan to expand the cable area and build more tree houses, it may become a village soon (but actually more cables sounded just perfect to us when we were there!!!)

When a hoard of kids clad in hand me down clothes come running at you smiling and screaming Sabai Dii Falang, (Hello Foreigner) you know that you're in Laos! They are extremely friendly and very cute.

We were dropped off at this village where our one hour trek up the vertical hill into the rain forest began. The Bokeo region in the North East of Laos is a mixture of rain forest and jungle and it is where the Gibbons live. I've been told that there is more wildlife in Europe than in Laos due to the methods used by local farmers and hill tribes.

It is here that we learnt how to walk over bridges that were three lengths of bamboo tied together or even one at times. The bridge below was an easy one :)

We were given baguettes for lunch, and then we set off in earnest up the vertical slope.

This was the first cable we saw. We couldn't wait, we were all so excited.

The cables would either connect two hills so that one would fly over the valley below or provide access to the tree houses. The picture above was taken of Matt leaving Tree House 1.

'Take off' would involve running off the slope or sitting into your harness and letting gravity do the rest. Maya and Tom are watching one of the guides in the photo above.

Here's Matt getting to Tree House 5, our group's home and that is the scary moment. there were two particularly scary cables. This one above is a true example of a cable you had to pull yourself in on at the end and when you are hanging 40 metres above the forest floor it feels so odd, just don't look down, easier said then done! In the pic above you can't even see the forest floor, we were that high up.

Tree House 5 - Our home for two nights. We all wanted to stay there forever. This pic was taken on my first sighting of the tree house and I was hurtling through the air at speed so I'm really lucky to have captured anything at all!

There were three cables connected to Tree house 5. One from the main area of the project, one leading to it from the kitchen (on the hill) and one leading to the hill giving access to the kitchen and the start of the 5 hr trek we did on the last day through the jungle.

The Bathroom!!! Glorious! There were massive bees everywhere but as long as you didn't step on them you were ok. It meant looking out for them all the time though. The best thing about this was to watch the droplets of water fall to the forest whilst you showered.

The bedroom. Open air but not cold and under the cover of a huge mosquito net which made it feel more like a little tent in the air above the forest. We could hear the gibbons calling amongst the millions of other forest noises. Quite something.

This is a shot of one of our guides bringing in the salad. They delivered all the food over the cables.

'A Table!' - Dinner Served. The food was good.

Me, guide (i've forgotten his name), Cat, Tom and Maya. Oh and I think the person in front of me is Jon.

Sunrise

Sunrise through the mosquito net chez Maya & I (happy snapper or what!)

The forest

Crossing rivers on the trek out.

One of our guides

The water was refreshing

A jungle Bong found along the way!

The Jungle

Maya contemplating the view

Swimming before lunch mid 5hr trek to a village close to our final drop off where we all started in Huay Xai. They're small but if you see two black spots in the water on the left same height as the people's heads, there were two water buffalo taking a swim at the same time.

Matt being an Ozzie (hehe) and Jon looking uncomfortable.

The 18th hole. Finally made it to the truck pick up point! At this point the conversation was all about Beer Lao or G&T's by a pool!

Would I do it again? Boy someone try stop me! But if I did it again I'd take someone special, no Mum not you :)

I don't have any pics of me on the cables but I have been promised a few by Matt and Maya so maybe one day I'll add some more.