after leaving Luang Nam Tha with a bunch of new experiences (and bruises), we sallied out directly to the most northwestern region of Laos, Bokeo, in order to immerse ourselves for three days in the Laotian Jungle.
The night before the trip started we had to stay in a tiny village called Ban Don Chai, to be picked up from there the next morning. What seemed to be a mere necessity shaped up as a wonderful possibility of authentic contact to the villagers. We even could help (or rather show some good will) at the emerging village support project.
The thing we were about to do was called the Gibbon Experience, not only a balancing act between adventure- and eco-tourism, but also literally: For three days you live on treehouses that can only be entered and left via zip lines stretched out up to 500m in length and 100m above the ground.
Treehouses in about 40m height.
We were told that the trip is all about the overwhelming flora and fauna of this out-in-the-sticks-region. But right from the beginning it came out in the wash that the main attraction were the zip lines, when the guides (according to www.gibbonx.org "eager to show you the forest and its inhabitants") handed us over the (Petzl-)ziplining gears and just told us to zip away and have fun without further explanations...
Yeah, baby!
Pez enjoying himself.
A few more words on how to use the gear would not have been amiss for some of the zippers...
Truth is, it actually WAS a great experience of nature and wildlife, although I wouldn't go as far as calling it the "Gibbon" Experience as we haven't seen or even heard a single gibbon these days. Our ideas for more appropriate names: The Zipping Experience, The Leech Experience or even The Rat Experience...
For us it was also The Dutch Experience, as we shared our treehouse with a bunch of lovely people from Holland. To kill our angst of spider- and rat-attacks we spent our guide-less evenings on the treehouses solving riddles and guessing movies. ;) Thanx for the good time, folks!
Especially Stevie seemed to have enjoyed himself, as the first thing we heard one morning coming out of Stevies and a Dutch fellows' mosquito net, was the following conversation:
Chris: "Aaaahh, that was a beautiful night."
Stevie: "Thank you, Chris"
All the other obscenities at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephan_mittas/sets/72157610309172072/
On Stevies demand: The spider in our toilet/shower:
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