Michelle and Brent

Thursday, February 28, 2008 - 430
So here I will attempt to describe how incredible this experience actually was. Although words will not do this trip justice, I will try. The Gibbons Experience takes place in a nature reserve in the effort of promoting conservation and giving jobs to local villagers in Laos.
We arrived at the office in Huay Xai at 8am for a brief movie on safety during the experience. We then got in a truck and drove for about 1.5 hours on a newly paved, but very winding road. After that was a dirt road for another half an hour. This brought us to a small village at the base of some very large hills (I won't call them mountains exactly, but they were close) within the Bokeo Nature Reserve. At this point we still did not really know what was in store for us. We had an idea of some hiking, and some zip lining, but nothing compared to what was actually in store. We left in a group of 8 people, plus 2 guides. The initial hike took about 2-3 hours, mostly on an incline as we needed to be high enough to access the canopy. During that 2-3 hours, we stopped to get our harnesses and another briefing about safety and what actually to expect. Shortly after the break, we reached the first zip line, and off we went, one at a time across the gully to the other side. We were 30-50 metres above the ground, clearing trees, flying ABOVE the canopy to another platform on the other side. The feeling is indescribable. The views were amazing and we couldn't help but let out a huge WEEEEEE (or in Michelle's case a giggle) on each zip. After a few more zips and some more uphill trekking we reached the first treehouse, where we were to spend the first night. Ziiip, in we went to a wooden treehouse (essentially a grown up tree fort) about 35 metres above the ground. The only way in and out was through the use of the zip wires, so needless to say we spent considerable time going in and out, getting familiarized with the system. After the first zip, the guides basically let us go on our own and gave no more help. It was very liberating, but a little scary.
Nighttime in a treehouse in the middle of the jungle is not all that exciting, but enjoyable a we had a good group of people (all about our age). We played cards all night, and went to bed around 10. The treehouse was equipped with a toilet (that simply drained below into the trees), running water (suitable for drinking, from a natural spring), and food and snacks that seemed endless (coming from the "kitchen" which was down on the ground, a short zip away). The next morning we got up early to go "animal watching", which turned out to be almost a jog through the jungle in which we didn't see any animals. Then after breakfast we packed up and headed out in search of our next destination, another treehouse with a waterfall nearby. It was another long hike (2-3 hours), but was broken up by several amazing zips! The longest of which was about 500 metres. This translates into about 1 full minute of flying. It was the slightly shorter 400 metre zip which took the cake as the most exhilerating experience of the trip. It was extremely high up, with views of the entire gully below. A river down to the right, trees as far as the eye can see, and a view of one of the treehouses from above down to the left...INCREDIBLE. We then took a swim in the waterfall ponds (quite cold, but nice) and had some lunch. After settling in to our second treehouse, we took advantage of some free time and zipped around for about 2 hours with a couple other tourists, but no guides. This was the best part of the experience by far. So much freedom, and excitement, and above all pure fun! At night we had some dinner, hot drinks and chatted with the others by candlelight. There was no running water in this treehouse, but there will be in the next few days as the project is growing.
During the night I (Brent) became quite ill for a still unknown reason and vomitted numerous times over the side of the treehouse. I had the shakes, a serious pain in my stomach and was generally unwell. Nobody else in our group of 8 was affected. This made the morning a little more difficult for me, but Michelle took good care of me, and it turned out to be ok. We had a nice slow, downward hike in the rain for 2-3 hours again, which brought us back to the village to wait for the trucks.

Overall, the zipping was one of the coolest things I have ever done, and although we did not manage to see any Gibbons Monkeys (hence the name, Gibbons Experience), this was a fantastic time for both of us. As far as conservation efforts goes, this is a good program as it gives jobs to otherwise jobless Lao people, and provides some support for a nature reserve that is threatened by logging and poor agricultural practices.

It is doubtful that anything else we do on this trip will be as enjoyable as this, but thats ok because these memories and experiences will fulfill us for a long time to come.

From here we are travelling through Laos a little bit (locations T.B.D.) before heading back to Bangkok for our flight to New Delhi, India on March 5.

-Brent

Thursday February 28, 2008, 4 pm
Greetings!!
Have we ever done alot since our last post. We left Bangkok, as we intended on the overnight train. It took about 14.5 hours. It left at 10pm and arrived at 12:30 the next day. Our cabin was open (not airconditioned) which ment that I had the window open almost all night blowing on me while I slept. Very breezy and pleasant. When we arrived we checked into a nice place called S.D. Guesthouse and after a shower we booked a trekking overnight up to a hill tribe complete with elephant riding and rafting. Here on this side of the world they call hiking trekking. So, we booked an over night hike up to a hilltribe. Hilltribe peoples are a group of people still living in a very rural and traditional way up in the northern hills of Thailand. That evening unbelievably we ran into our English friends who we last saw in Krabi (Thailand) and who we had met in Singapore.
The Trekk was really good fun. We spend the first day hiking straight up a mountain for about 1.5 hours and then, sadly, back down, and along to a rural farming village. We were with a group of 8 people and 2 guides. We had some challenges with an older, crazy man from Japan who had minimal english skills and was very eccentric. By eccentric I mean whenever we stopped anywhere, the first thing he would do was to chug a can of beer, he downed a bottle of whisky in one evening sitting, and would make everyone shot glasses of bamboo leaves and force you to drink. He also had a huge knife which he liked to chop things with and during the rafting, had no interest in paddling when the guide would yell "paddle hard." That night we all slept in a bamboo and palmtree hut after watching a traditional Karen tribe dance performed by some of the women.
The next day we hiked some more, rode elephants, which was the highlight of the whole trip and rafted down a river. It was a pretty good break in trip for the Gibbon Experience we were preparing to do in Laos.
After Chiang Mai, we took a bus to Chiang Rai, about 4 hours further north and en route to Laos. Chiang Rai had a wonderful evening market, with traditional dancers and musicians playing on 2 different stages and vendors and food stall all in the middle. I bought myself a necklace. We spent one evening in Chiang Rai and the moved on into Laos the next day. We crossed from Thailand to Laos at Chiang Khong to the town of Houay Xai. We arrived one day early for our Gibbons Trip which was OK as we both had some laundry to do and enjoyed the day of relaxing and catching up on the world news with the BBC on one of our first TVs. We also found out upon enterring that Canadians have to pay the most of any other country in the world to get a visa to Laos. We asked the reason for this, and found out that it was because for Lao people to come to Canada, it was the same.

Hope everyone is well back at home.
Lots of Love
Michelle