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