The Gibbon Experience

The Black Gibbon is one of the world's most endangered primates. These monkeys spend their days in the jungle, high up in the trees, swinging from branch to branch and hanging upside down. Sounds like a pretty good life, eh? Well, we had the opportunity to spend three days living a similar life to the Gibbons - high up in the trees in a tree-house like every child dreams of, sleeping out in the middle of the jungle, eating (yeah sticky rice every meal!) and hanging upside down, 'flying' through the jungle.  Okay, the 'flying' bit was on ziplines, but probably the closest we'll ever get to swinging among the trees like our primate friends!

The Crew

We met up with our buddies Matan and Andrea from NZ. Matan was the genius who originally suggested the idea to us - nice one BigCat! Andrea added the comic relief with her not-so-surefooted hiking. On the slow-boat from Laos we met Jason and Jenny and the day of Chris picked up a fellow Kiwi, Daniel, and his missus Lucy. I think people have different experiences on this 3-day adventure based on the people they're spending their nights with, and we lucked out big time with a kick-ass crew! Thanks guys!

The line-up: Jason, Jenny, Chris, Lucy, Matan, Andrea, Me and Danny!

Before our first ZIP!

Tree-House Living

We came flying into the front porch of our new home, a three-level tree-house perched high above the ground.  You have to zip in and out of every tree-house on the Gibbons as they are all high up and isolated. The first floor featured hands-down the most amazing bathroom I have ever seen!  The shower has a slatted floor so you can look down past your feet to see the water droplets free-falling 30m down to the already rain-soaked forest floor. As you stand under the rain-shower head washing away the sweat and grime from the grueling trek in, you look out to an expansive view of rainforest as far as you can see- nothing but lush green trees and the occasional misty cloud floating by. Heaven! Anyway, continuing on, we go up the stairs to the main floor, lit by solar-operated lights and kitted out with a fridge and bedding for 8. The main floor wraps in a circle around the tree trunk that has shelving wedged in between its thick branches and a kitchen in the middle.  A 360-degree view reveals more of the amazing jungle views and a great spot for sunset. Finally, a winding staircase takes you up to the top level, a small romantic space for two (though Jenny might describe it otherwise)!

The downside to living in a tree-house is that although the noises are beautiful and you can feel how alive the jungle is at night, there are some noises that are less desirable than others. For example, the sounds of rats squeaking and searching through your bags, and bees humming under your behind when you're trying to use the toilet. We girls (Lucy, Me, Jenny and Matan) had our concentration thrown in the late-night Yanno game because we kept hearing the unwanted rodent visitors (ironic, the rats probably feel the same) and having a little freak-out while the men pretended not to be phased and searched around for our sneaky little guests. Before bed we took all precautions putting away any food that might be a temptation, even storing the garbage in the cooler, and then we tucked ourselves into bed with the mosquito nets right under our mattresses so nothing unwanted could get into our beds. Well, this worked until about 3am when Danny awoke from a deep slumber to a rat on top of his feet! He had to dance around long enough to un-tuck the mosquito net to let it out. This led to quite the sleepless night for many, for fear of another rat-sighting! On night two we signed up for Tiger- a tiny cat with a big appetite for rats.  She got brought over in a big bag and once released (I now see where "the cat's out of the bag" comes from!), did a sweep of the whole house and spent a lot of time up in the roof, likely disturbing the rat nests. Although some of our crew would've rather had rats than a cat (crazy!), Tiger did her job beautifully and we had a quiet sleep on night 2 - rat free!

Our guide, Pomoua, after dropping off dinner :)

Dinner at sunset, before another few rounds of Yanno!

Hard to fully capture the feeling - but best shower ever!

Tree-house two - the 'honeymoon suite'!

This is only a small portion of Tree-House 1 - the biggest tree-house of the whole lot!

Flight of the Gibbons

Many people go on the Gibbon Experience in hopes of hearing and seeing the monkeys but leave without having been lucky enough to experience either. We were therefore extremely lucky! On both mornings we woke up to the eerie and beautiful sounds of the Gibbon call. Lying in bed at 6am their mating calls would drown out all the other sounds of the jungle and have you stumbling out of bed to try and catch a glimpse, even after having barely slept the night before! With 360 degrees of jungle views, we had to work a bit to pinpoint their location, but we were soon able to make out black blobs in the trees, and soon swinging black blobs which convinced us it must be the Gibbons! We found Gibbons leaping from tree to tree on both mornings of our stay.  There is nothing cooler than seeing monkeys in their natural habitat, not tamed at all and going about their daily business. We spent a good couple of hours watching them each morning, quietly engrossed in the jungle life. Awesome!

Okay, so it's a lot cooler on video or in person, but you get the idea!

The Art of Ziplining

We'll never be able to zipline the same way again.  Never in the Western world would we have access to ziplines in the same way.  A network of 20 different cables leading to tree-houses and platforms zig-zagging through the jungle and the freedom to jump on any one you like at any time.  We spent hours perfecting the art of zipping and then the following day went on a tour of all the different tree-houses and ziplines, and zipped to our heart's content.  We couldn't get enough!! It was absolutely awesome :)
Over our three days in the jungle we spent a significant amount of time perfecting the Art of Ziplining.  We worked on the upside-down V, the superman, and all of us at some point adopted Andrea's "I'm flying!" pose.  Unfortunately this wasn't the most aerodynamic of styles and there was rarely a zip where Andrea didn't come up short and have to tow herself in.  Those of us not wanting to do the hand-over-hand thing worked to perfect the 'tuck': two hands on the clip, leaning back as far as you can, knees tucked up under the chin with feet close together, flying human bullet! Danny and Chris loved this technique so much that they used it every time, even when sometimes it meant coming in so hot that they'd crash into the trees at the end and give us all a scare. Good times all around!

Ah the happy couple! Me and Chris demonstrating the double flying-V!

Attempted Superman!

Andrea's signature flying star and a Running Man

I have to thank Matan, for this occurence. He thought it would be a neat idea to change in his two-sizes-too-small speedo and the others got jealous and wanted to join.  Here are the men of Tree-House 7, in all their glory!

Headed home for the evening!

Chris demonstrating the tuck - he's a blur because it's hard to capture a flying human bullet on camera!

Though expensive, the Gibbon Experience is an unforgettable 3-day event and we'd do it again in a heartbeat! The proceeds go towards protecting the National Park and the habitat of the gibbons.  Also, the guides employed by the company are ex-poachers who have been (somewhat) educated and are now being better paid to share that education with tourists. Knowing that the cost is at least partially going towards a good cause makes it a bit more justifiable. We couldn't imagine a better way to spend the last few days we had in Laos. We have never eaten so many carbs and specifically sticky rice before! Still, it was well worth braving the leeches, rats, cockroaches and other creepers to live among the Gibbons! Now we say goodbye to Laos and hello to Northern Thailand!

Team High-fives! Check out the multi-zip platform in the background - 6 ziplines going in and out of it!

Reunited with our buds from NZ - see you guys again somewhere random in the future!

We fly to Egypt on June 20th and then are off to Amsterdam on Canada Day! Time is starting to fly by, yet the adventures continue...

Lauren and Chris xo

Land of a Million Elephants

Our welcome into Laos- my kind of place!

Though the bus situation was the worst we've have yet, coming to Laos after having been in Vietnam for three weeks was a breath of fresh air.  Vietnam is fascinating in culture, beautiful in scenery and has some of the cheapest yet cleanest accommodation we've had on our trip so far; however, it is also definitely the most exhausting place we have traveled. It took us a while to realize that in Laos every person you talked to wasn't actually trying to rip you off, but just genuinely trying to help. The first meal we had was thrilling because it wasn't Pho and it was delicious (the food, especially in Northern Vietnam, left us a bit underwhelmed)! Our first impressions of Lao were nothing less than fantastic!

We made our way to Luang Prabang on an alternate route to what most tourists do - the 24-hour bus ride sounded like our worst nightmare! So we bussed across the border to Muang Khua, and then took a 7-hour long boat trip down the river to Nong Khiaw, a beautiful little town cozied up along the river and looking up at the mountains that surround it. We had a great night with the Lao people in Muang Khua, playing petanque (french word for our beloved Bocce!) and taking turns drinking small glasses of Beer Lao, handed out by the locals. We partied also with Pierre and Lucie, a french-canadian couple from Quebec (obviously) who we continued to hang with in Luang Prabang. In Nong Khiaw we stayed in another place with an incredible view along the river, for $8 a night! Crazy. We spent a couple of nights here to give us the chance to explore the area, just long enough for Chris to one-up me when it comes to bicycle crashes. You'd think we were both 8 again, falling off our bikes! Well, his was pretty intense as he was caning it down a hill after a steep climb and just as he was reaching the flat again he went to pedal and the chain snapped out of place.  This jolted him out of his seat and resulted in his feet coming off the pedals and his nutting himself on the bar -ouch! At this point he tried to gain control but was in serious pain and came crashing and skidding onto the pavement. Brutal! Luckily this local woman came running over- well, actually it was more of a Lao run, meaning a marginally quicker walk- and pulled some leaves off of a nearby tree, shoved them in her mouth and then spat out a chewed up green mush that she smacked onto Chris' largest wound. The other villagers looked on and another came with a more pharmacy-style treatment. This would never have happened in Vietnam! Anyway, the woman got up and kept going on her way after we thanked her profusely and now here we are, with another story to tell! The Lao people have been awesome like that!

Photographic evidence of the event!

Nice view - of the mountains and rice paddies I mean ;)

Our balcony looking out over the river.

  The rest of our time in Lao was a bit rushed as we were headed to the Gibbon Experience for a set date.  At this point we got tired of long winding bus rides and moving around, so Chris and I decided to stay in Luang Prabang until we headed west to the Thai border and the Gibbons. What a chilled out city to hang around in! We spent pretty much every night wandering aimlessly around the night market and days doing little trips here and there or waiting out a rainstorm while reading in a cafe. It was so nice to not be on the move for a while! All of the Lao towns and cities we've been to have been on the river and there is something to be said about having a slow-flowing river, water drifting constantly but lazily by, that seems to be almost infectious in the dispositions of the people that live alongside it. We have loved and embraced this chilled out, go with the flow kind of attitude.

There are monks all over the place in Luang Prabang. In the morning they pass around the city at 5:30am for alms, when local people and tourists will give offerings of food to them.

Chose the pic for two reasons - 1, a nice view of Luang Prabang outskirts and 2, to show that yes, even in rainy season, we continue to get ridiculously sweaty!

Chris catching up on some sleep with his favorite Buddha!

One of the popular attractions in Laos for good reason- the beautiful Kuang Si waterfall!

Hanging at Utopia with our new travel buds - Nico, Ketty, Pierre and Lucie.  Everything closes by 11:30 latest in Lao, so the night life is pretty chilled out (hence the cards!)

The night market in Luang Prabang - extremely frustrating for tall people because of all the tents that are not quite high enough to walk through without ducking.  Worthwhile for the cheap finds though!

The highlight of Luang Prabang was hands down the Elephant Village, a sanctuary for female elephants rescued from the brutally hard job of working in logging camps in the Lao country. Lao used to be called the "Land of a Million Elephants", but numbers have decreased significantly since then. Now its "Land of a Million Elephant Souvenirs"! Ha ha, anyone who has been to the Night Market in Luang Prabang will get what I mean. Anyways, many of the elephants at the Elephant Village had sustained injuries or lost vision due to work in the logging camps, so a German expat created this program to not only rescue the elephants, but to provide work to nearby villages and awareness to the people of the animal cruelty that exists in the area. We spent a day with these impressive, beautiful animals, getting to ride on their necks, feed and bathe them.  The elephants seemed happy and loyal to their Mahouts (elephant trainer/rider), a testament to the program. The trunk of an elephant when searching for food was the coolest! I knew it would feel and sound like a vaccuum hose which was awesome enough. It was amazing how you could see this trunk waving around in the air, like a hand, smelling for its food! Then it would find the delicious banana I was holding and it has a muscle like a finger that is strong enough to grasp the banana and throw it into the mouth.  It was fascinating to see up close and personal.

Chris getting cheeky with the elephants!

We spent three of our days in Laos on boats for 7+ hours at a time, floating down the river carved out of the mountains and passing by tiny villages and not-so tiny water buffaloes. We indulged in delicious Lao foods such as Lap, a minced meat of your choice mixed with the perfect combination of spice and herbs and served with sticky rice. We loved absolutely everything about Lao- wait, actually I need to be fair. You know a country must be awesome if you can overlook the fact that you were robbed twice there! Lao is another poor country, and we are (to them) wealthy Westerners.  We had money taken from our hotel room twice (don't ask how this happened twice- we were embracing the laid-back mentality of Lao perhaps?).  Moral of the story- use the safe, and carry all your money with you! It's the one big downer we had during our travels here. It felt like we weren't in the country for very long and both Chris and I felt a bit disconnected, not because we didn't like everything we saw in the country but maybe because Vietnam left us with such strong impressions about the culture, the people and the history. It's like going to a party where you meet two people: a gentle, quiet person who is probably really nice, and an outspoken, opinionated guy who demands a bit more of your attention.  The quieter one is hard to get the chance to know better when they're standing side-by-side. Still, we'd love to come back and get lost in calm, chilled out Laos anytime!

On the boat to Houay Xai, where we would do the Gibbon Experience!! And the beginning of our Yanno addiction...

One of the many small villages we passed along the muddy Mekong.

Our last night in Laos! Sidenote: Chris' t-shirt is a universal pleaser, no language required!

 We've already done the Gibbon Experience and it is really hard to write about the rest of Laos when those 3 days were the highlight of our entire Southeast Asia experience so far.  Stay tuned for a run-down of exactly how awesome it was!

Missing the comforts of home, but we still have so much to look forward to ahead of us!

Love to all,

Lauren and Chris xo