Gibbon Experience

After our hazardeous travel to Huay Xai we were all very excited to start the Gibbon Experience. The Gibbon experience ( www.gibbonx.org) is a conservation project started by a French guy named Jeff. The goal of the project is to stop the so-called slash and burn techniques used by farmers in Laos as well as protect wildlife from poachers. In order to do this, Jeff built 5 tree houses in the jungle, which are "rented out" to tourist. The houses are connected through zip lines through the jungle. Since the staff, food and a lot of other services are hired from local villagers, the farmers and villagers not only get educated in conservation, but they are also given financial aid in terms of increased tourism. It's actually a really well thought-out project.

However, we had all signed up for this Gibbon Experience and were all really excited when we finally got to leave. All in all, there were 10 of us going out into the jungle. One couple from Germany, one girl from New Zealand, a dude from Toronto, a British couple and the four of us. The first part of the journey was to get to the jungle through the use of an old pickup truck with benches in the back. The drive was supposed to take about 3 hours or just over 80 km. That is, the road we were taking was not an autobahn by any means. We drove on a super muddy road with half a metre of mud at times. Man was it ever fun. That is, it was fun until the first truck got stuck.. he he. The truck got stuck in about 75 metres of mud and would not move.

Eventually, after much laughter and poking fun, we managed to pull him out using the other truck. Side note: A group of about 6 cars were camping right were we got stuck as they couldn't go any further. They had been waiting for 3 days for the road to get better!!! For the next 30 mintues, we were thrown around by huge ruts, but we eventually got to our destination. Once there, we had to walk for 20 minutes in order to get to the second leg of the transport. Due to heavy rain the past 5 days, the typical bridge had been washed away, and we got our first encounter with the difficulties this trip was to bring. We had to walk accross a river (reaching up to Mahta's waist) with the bags on our heads in order to get to the other side. Fun stuff. We finally make it to the next "road" and sit down to wait for our next ride. After about 45 minutes, it finally appears. This time it was a proper off-road car. A Toyota Land Cruiser with chimney and winch. And were we ever going to need it. The road was in horrible condition. I don't even know if I would call it a road; it was more like a dirt path.

For the next 2 hours, we spun, winched, dug and walked our way to the jungle village. It was by far the most extreme thing we've ever seen someone do with a vehicle. With 10 people in the back, this off-road machine powered its way through 40 cm deep ruts and 30 degree inclines. Amazing!!!

Once at the local village, we knew that we had a 90 minute walk ahead of us, so we set off right away. One guy made friends with the local monkey, so he decided to bring it along. It was really cute and spent the next hour or so sitting on this guys head. he he. The walk took us on a steep and windy jungle path into deeper and deeper into the forest. It was really cool to actually get to spend some time in a proper tropical jungle. We walked for about an hour and a half before we reached a small hut. This was the kitchen for the treehouses and also the place where we were given our harnesses. The people living there also had a live bear and baby gibbon roaming around. They were so cute!!! The bear was about 5 months old and was really friendly. She'd come up to you and wanting to play, she would wrap her paws around your legs. Unfortunately she was also really strong, so we couldn't really roll around on the ground with her.

After putting our harnesses on, the real thrill of the trip began. We strapped onto a zip line and jumped of the edge of the plateau. WOW. We basically flew from the hill side to the nearest tree house (about 80 metres away) at a height of 40 metres above ground. Our blood was pumping, adrenaline flowing and we were really pumped when we finally got to put our bags down. Let me decribe to you how impressive this treehouse was. First of all, as mentioned above, the whole house was built in a massive jungle tree 40 metres above ground. It had three floors, running water, a shower and of course a toilet (the toilet was a porcelain squater that had no plumming, meaning your poo dropped 40 metres down.... he he.. they had a bunch of pigs on the ground ready to eat anything, so it was nice and clean). It was unreal. It was more like a open hotel than anything. Also, leading away from the tree was a number of zip lines. Once there, we were served fresh nuts, fruits and drinks, while the few of us that had gotten bitten by leechs was picking them off. Yes, Haakon was bitten, while Mahta tasted too bad and got away unharmed.

This is where the fun really started. For the next 2 hours we were shown around the zip line system and got to try all the good lines. The longest one is almost half a kilometre long and you are flying VERY high off the ground. It was awesome. We were zipping back and forth on these lines in the middle of the jungle. It was like the childhood dream of being able to fly finally came true.

After a few hours of flying, we finally came back to the first treehouse to have dniner. Our group of ten had split up, and six of us were to spend the night in this treehouse, while the other four had already left for a second treehouse. We were given an odd mix of vegetables, rice, omelette and potatoes for dinner, which really didn't have much taste, but due to the incredible atmosphere, we all enjoyed it. After the guides all left and we had the whole tree house to ourselves, everyone's childhood dreams were coming true. Soon, the moonshine was brought out (which Haakon and Paul had cleverly acquired the day before) and we spent the evening talking crap, having shots of lao lao, and playing Uno.

We were woken at 6:30 the next morning to the sound of rain and our breakfast being zipped in. Surprise surprise, we got rice, vegetables and some meat. Wait a minute... we get a vegetarian meal for dinner with an omelette and then no omlette and pork for breakfast? It just didn't make sense and we only ate what we could force down. It didn't matter though, we were going to trek to a waterfall and spend the night there. We sat around for 2 hours waiting for a guide to take us and were disappointed when they finally arrived. Apparently heavy rains made it extremely dangerous to go to the waterfall as the river we were to zip across was flooded. This meant that we would have to zip right through a strong current and it was not recommended. No problem though! We had the opportunity to zip back and forth all day long! Weeeeeeeeeee.

We spent the rest of the day doing just that. We zipped, we ate, we swapped treehouses and had a bug-killing competition at night (Haakon was the big winner with over 30 kills!).

We were scheduled to leave the next morning and head back to Huay Xai. Heavy rain made for both an adventurous (and leech-infested) walk into the village and drive into the city. Our driver made it to the half way point gracefully, we give him props for his imaculate driving which is quite a novelty in Laos (as our second driver proved true). He brought us to our lunch destination where everyone was overjoyed to have their first Beer Lao in 3 days! What a feeling, a cold refreshing beer after being thrown around in the back of a truck for 2 hours... well deserved! Our second driver didn't seem to be quite as talented in his driving, but we still made it back alive (muddy, but alive!)