It was 5:40am when my alarm went off, a stupidly early time and normally the realm of shift workers or the perverse. We were due at the Gibbon Experience office for 7am, but following advice we were going to take a trip to the early morning market to purchase ourselves some "mud shoes". We were told the market was about a 10 minute walk, so at around 6 we set off in search of the market. Twenty minutes later the market was still hiding itself, we weren't sure how as Huai Xai is a small border town. No locals we came in to contact with had the first clue about English and try as we might with waiving arms they couldn't quite grasp our feeble attempts at gesticulating a market. After 30 minutes of wandering around we spotted a tuk-tuk who spoke enough English and elected to take us to the market. 100 metres down the road we arrived at the market. At first glance it appeared as though the whole market was geared towards food and our endeavors had been in vain, but after a few broken conversations with any local that could speak English we made our way to the right area. 10 minutes of wandering around failed to find us any mud shoes (or what we thought mud shoes might look like), the nearest thing we found were something resembling football boots. Running out of time we took our trip to the market as a loss and got a tuk-tuk back to the hotel to grab our bags and make our way to the Gibbon Experience.
Getting there around 7:15 we were some of the last to arrive. We were slightly put back to find that the mud shoes we had failed to track down on our earlier market trip were in actual fact the football boot type things we'd been looking at. Doh! It was too late to go back to the market now, but seeing as the guys at the Gibbon Experience saw mud shoes as almost mandatory they agreed to get our driver to stop off somewhere on the way so we could buy some. There were two 4WD trucks taking us on the 3 hour journey to the Jungle, the first only had room for 4 in the cab, with the rear taken up with locals hitching a ride and sacks of rice. Our truck managed to squash 8 in the back (Me, Pete, James, Gary, Paul, Angelina, Josh and a Dutch girl hitching a ride half way) with the 4 Tally Ho guys (Natalie, Alex, Jon and Adam ) James and I had been sitting next to in the café the day before enjoying the luxury of the cab.
We loaded some gear on to the roof and set off, it was a little cramped in the back, but the roads were good it was sunny and a nice breeze was blowing through the back. After about an hour of making some good progress the roads started to weave up the sides of some steep hills and simultaneously the road quality started to drop. It wasn't long before we were climbing some pretty steep and muddy roads, the driver had to stop to manually engage the 4 wheel drive system. The roads may have been nothing to shout home about, but it was obvious from the huge amount of construction machinery around something was being done about the situation. Someone added that we actually in the process of driving along the first inklings of a super highway that was to link most of South East Asia to China, being funded by the Chinese. It would go along way to explaining all the brand new Caterpillar bulldozers and diggers hanging around.
After slipping, sliding, bumping and banging our way around some pretty precarious mountain it wasn't long before we came across our first obstacle. Coming the opposite way, up the hill we were descending, was one of Laos infamous commuter buses. It was trying to plough it's way through a stretch of churned up mud that had yet to have any form of bulldozers sort it out. Ahead of it was a brand new 4WD SUV also struggling to make any headway against the quagmire before it. Seeing the plight of the vehicles in distress a nearby earth mover came to the rescue. Attaching first the SUV then the Bus to its digging claw it easily pulled them out of the stretch of offending mud, leaving the way for us to proceed; going down hill was after all far easier. It was at this point or at least I think at this point, as all the banging my head was receiving from the roof of the truck has slightly blurred my memory, that something of great amusement crossed my field of vision. Whilst navigating down the side of a particular nasty hill what should we spot coming up the other way, but a group of 3 Japanese mountain bikers who appeared to be on a cycling tour of Laos. Heaven knows how they had got as far as they had with their expensive bikes and equipment through all the knee deep mud, but by the looks of it much of it was on foot. However the champions they were, they were ploughing on heedlessly.
Our second obstacle came in a location unfortunately lacking in any helpful diggers. The road had narrowed to pretty much 2 lanes and coming up the hill 2 trucks had managed to get them selves well and truly stuck in the mud. The result was the slow build up of what for Laos could be called a traffic Jam. Something had to be done to resolve the situation; they had already tried a number of tricks and failed to get the truck out. Seeing 2 trucks full of big westerners turn up they decided to try a bit of muscle power. Pretty much everyone was roped in to try and pull the truck out of the mud. What they had neglected to tell anyone before hand was the truck was sporting a full supply of large log beams that must have weighed many tons. Despite our best efforts we couldn't budge the truck an inch. After 20 or so minutes sitting around whilst the drivers tried to come up with a plan we finally gave up. Some guy in an SUV behind us decided to squeeze his way through the mud pile separating the two trucks and succeeded, both our drivers closely followed suit. From there onwards things were pretty easy and we arrived at the small collection of huts and shops that was to be our real start point on the Gibbon Experience.
Having arrived at our destination the first point of order was for those of us without mud shoes to acquire ourselves some. As luck would have it the shop we had been dropped off at had an ample supply of mud shoes. As luck would not have it, they were all built for Laos people and the biggest size they had was about an 8. Way too small for those of us who had not already purchased any from the market back in Huai Xai. We were stuck with what we had. I wasn't too put out though as I thought my Merrill walking shoes should do me reasonably well. They were after all walking shoes, right?!
Literally just as we had got ourselves together and kitted out then who should come dragging their mud splattered selves in the opposite but the previous Gibbon Experience crowd. They spent a while regaling us with tales of zipping through forests 150 metres above ground, trudging through mud and being attacked by leeches; all in a very excitable manner. They assured us we were going to have loads of fun. We set off with a spring in our step.
A short flight over a wooden suspension bridge three at a time, a plod through some rice paddy fields, a wade across a stream put us on the track to the G.E. and somewhat unexpectedly a chariot to carry us there. We'd been led to believe that all the rain that we'd been having had pretty much made the road to the start village un-drivable. The lack of rain for the last day or so had fortunately dried out the road enough that a trusty Toyota Land Cruiser was now in a position to carry us most of the way. Not being particularly designed to carry 15 people + driver + guide + sacks of rice and other food, things were a little cramped. It ended up with Gary, James and John sitting on the roof, It must be said that this is something that they actually jumped at when given the opportunity, and our guide Song standing on the spare tyre that was attached to the back door..
The road may have dried, but it was still in a pretty bad way. Our first major hill saw us all being thrown out of the back to give the jeep a little extra clearance. More than once we had to use the winch to pull ourselves out of a sticky situation. Once John jumped from the roof, slipped and landed arse down in a large pile of mud; much to my amusement. The journey took us about 2 hours and was a good chance to get to know the guys we'd not met before, two Dutch girls Djoeke and Ganna and two from Hong Kong, Theodora and Claudia.
Our hike up to the guest house started from a small village of around 40 people. The sun was shining and everyone was pretty excited now that we were so close. Leaving the village we waded through a small river thigh deep and trekked through a few very muddy fields. At first everyone was making attempts to avoid getting covered in mud, hopping, skipping and jumping around mud puddles. It soon became evident that we were fighting a losing battle. 30 minutes later we'd cleared the fields and were starting to enter jungle territory. The path we took was a small windy affair trailing along the side of a hill for the most part on an upward incline. The jungle canopy provided some good shade from the sun, but it was still hot and the uphill climb was tough going. Taking the mindset of just wanting to get there, James, Pete and I started to pull away from the rest of the group with our guide Song leading us on. About an hour into our uphill trek all 3 of us had aching legs, all the while Sung had a big smile on his face and didn't seem to be in the slightest bit affected; I guess that is what you get for doing the same thing day after day. At one point Song stopped indicated we should be quiet and pointed up to the tree canopy, we just about made out something big and black jumping between the trees. A Gibbon, Song told us! An hour into our trek and we'd already spotted, if only briefly, our first gibbon. We'd been very lucky, from what we'd heard, despite being called the Gibbon Experience, it was pretty rare to actually see any Gibbons. 20 minutes further up the path we came across a largish hut enclosed on all sides with chicken wire. This was the Kitchen and meant we had arrived. The kitchen doubled not only as a cooking area, but also as living quarters for the various people helping out on the Gibbon Experience. Reaching for the door to let ourselves in we were suddenly set upon by a bunch of small playful macaque (monkeys). Pete took the brunt of the 'attack' as one dropped onto his head from atop the kitchen roof, it nearly made off with his glasses, but they were caught just in time. We were told by our guide that the reason for the chicken wire was to keep the monkeys out of the kitchen. When they got inside they had a habit of causing havoc.
 Me meeting Jack for the first time in th... |
After 15 minutes of rest and recuperation our guides kitted us all our with our zip line harnesses. The harnesses we used were taken from the standard rock climbing harness with the addition of a safety line and runner. Once harnessed up we were given an explanation of how to use the harnesses. First you clipped on your safety line to the cable then you clipped on your runner, placed your hand on the head of the runner then pushed off, your other hand you could use as a break by pulling on the safety line. The term 'safety first' was one much loved by the guides and often used, you could almost say it was their motto. With the knowledge of how to use the zip lines under our belts we set off on a short hike to find the zip line that would take us in to tree house 1, the main tree house. Along the way we encountered our friendly bear blocking the path. The sight of the bear gave some people pause for thought. Rather foolishly I volunteered to go first along the path and nudge my way past the bear. As I got within 2 metres of the bear it decided that it was going to make a run for me. Now I know everyone says you shouldn't run from bears and just to stand still, but I wasn't having any of that, I made a quick retreat down the path I'd walked along. The problem with this strategy was that there were a number of people behind me blocking my retreat. With no where left to go I stopped and turned to face the bear. The bear reached me, stopped, reared up on its hind legs to a height of about 1.5 metres and made to take a swipe at me. I wasn't having any of it and scrambled off the trail. Fortunately the bear didn't follow me, but proceeded to the next 'victim' in line who proceeded to follow exactly the same method of escape as me. Eventually we were saved by our friendly monkey chums. It turned out that the bear's favourite hobby was chasing the monkeys and it soon set off in pursuit leaving us free to continue up the zip line. We weren't spared from the bear for too long mind, as we reached the take off platform those treacherous monkeys brought it right back up to us, where deciding it couldn't catch the monkeys it took to chewing on peoples legs. We were saved by the guide who came along and pushed the bear back down the hill; it didn't take it long to return though and its ankle chewing continued. The person whose ankle it decided to have a chew upon on its return was Alex. She didn't take to it too kindly and promptly told the guide to "kick the fucking bear down the bloody hill", a rather inappropriate statement I thought given we were out in the jungle on a conservationist trek.
Finally the time came to use the zip wires. I was the third to hook on and everyone before me had made it look simple enough. Clip on your safety line, clip on the runner and then push yourself off into a space 50 metres or more above the ground. It was great fun, whizzing along watching the ground pass below and 30 metre stretch I was at the landing platform for tree house one. I shouted back to let them know I was clear, so the next zipper could shove off and made my way down into the tree house. A few minutes later and we were all crowded into the common area of the tree house.
Tree house 1 is the biggest of the tree houses sleeping about 8 people. It stands about 50 metres up a rather large tree and has 3 main floors and a couple of sub floors. There are no walls to speak of apart from around the bathroom, just waist high rails and in parts netting to stop objects falling over the edge. Water is pumped in from a fresh spring, but there is no electricity to speak of. You sleep in tent like mosquito nets made from white sheeting resembling something you might have constructed as a child. Inside the nets, which slept 2-4 people, were laid out mattresses to sleep on. The bathroom was simply a wooden dividing wall, and a sheet for a door, the floor consisted of slatted wooden boards to allow for water to fall through. There was a simple sink and a cold shower. The toilet was a standard thai squat toiled with a hole that fell straight to the ground below. Surrounding the base of the tree were a bunch of penned in pigs that ate any 'organic' waste thrown down.
 The toilet! a 50 metre drop to pigs belo... |
Ready and waiting in the tree house for us was one of the Gibbon Experience volunteers a Dutch girl called Marion. She'd been working with the G.E. for a couple of years now and gave us a more detailed explanation of what the whole experience was about. Not only was the G.E. about living in tree houses and using zip lines to get around the place trying to catch the glimpse of the odd gibbon, or in fact purely the conservation of the gibbons, the conservation effort extended to the entire forest and involved the hiring of numerous rangers to protect the animals from poachers; many of the rangers themselves were former poachers so were well versed in the techniques adopted by the poachers. The money we were paying for our trip went in to help paying for rangers as well as numerous other initiatives.
The views from Tree house 1 were staggering and afforded some great views of jungle ebbing away into the distance, hugging the sides of valleys and hills as it went. However the setting sun also meant we had to decide who was staying where. There were 4 tree houses in total. Tree house 4 was unavailable as the rain meant the trek to get their was going to be too tough, so we div id up amongst the remaining tree houses. Tree house 2 was only designed for two people so that went to Paul and Angelina, being the only couple in the group. Tree house 3 held 5 people, involved a few zip lines and a Trek of about 45-60 minutes to get there and was taken by Alex, Natalie, Adam and John, no one was really given an say in the matter, they just declared that that was what they were doing. A fifth person needed to go with them, so Gary Volunteered. The rest of us sat and watched them go as they zipped out of the tree house to find their respective homes for the next 2 days.
Not too much time passed and darkness fell. Not having access to electricity our only means of lighting was by candle or torch. Those of us that were staying in Tree House 1 set up a few candles around the common area and tucked in to a few cups of tea and coffee that had been brought over for us in kettles from the kitchen. Unlike the other two tree houses, Tree House 1 didn't have access to anything that would allow for the heating of its own water, so we relied entirely on the kitchen for any of our needs. We would just shout out our requests, then about 5 minutes later someone would coming zipping in with hot water or the likes. With total darkness setting in around us the tree house took on a eerie aspect, you were aware that you were sitting 50 metres above the ground in the middle of the jungle, but you couldn't see anything beyond the light thrown forth from the candle. The noises of the jungle were intensified by the utter dark, for the most part you could make out the sounds of frogs on insects, occasionally a totally unrecognisable sound was heard that you just couldn't make out at all. To celebrate the first night of our little adventure Claudia broke out a small bottle of something resembling Champagne and a pack of digestives! We gratefully dug in as we chatted and got to know each other. A few times during the night we could see fire flies, glowing with a green luminescence, dancing in the darkness just outside the light from our candles. The absence of any real light though and the long day soon wore us down and we hopped off to bed. Ganna and Dejoke took the room upstairs, Claudia and Theodora took the lowest section of the tree house (an area about 2 foot lower than the main lower floor) and Pete, James, Josh and I clambered in to our sleeping area on the lowest floor. It wasn't long before we were sound asleep.
Day 2
The best time to catch a glimpse of a Gibbon is first thing in the morning, between 6-8am, when you can hear the Gibbon's call reverberate through tout the jungle. To this end we'd agreed with one of our guides the night before to go Gibbon hunting nice and early. We'd set our alarm for 5:30 and were ready and waiting when our guide "Big Song" came whizzing in to the tree house. Unfortunately with the morning also came rain! We were very disappointed to learn that when it rained the gibbons wouldn't sing, in turn this meant our guide couldn't track them down. We had to resign ourselves that we would probably miss the gibbons today. Big Song did however offer to take us out on a hike into the jungle to explore some of the zip line routes. It wasn't raining too hard, so we jumped at the opportunity to go zipping through the jungle. First we tucked into what we thought was breakfast, a selection of fruit, nuts, peanut bars, tea and of all things popcorn. The girls in the tree house were also up about, but the thought of wandering around in the rain put them off going for a random trek. Eager to get going we made light work of our breakfast, strapped on our harnesses, grabbed our zipping gloves (those that had them! they helped protect your hands from getting caught in runner) and launched off from the tree house on our exploratory journey.
For obvious reasons the start of each zip line must be higher than the finish, so after each zip it is often necessary to carry out a short climbing trek through the jungle to reach the next jump point. The trek was usually somewhere in the region of 20-50 metres up steep, muddy, slippery terrain, made worse by the rain and our own use of the trails. Suffice to say I was really starting to regret not having a pair of mud shoes. The soles on my walking shoes soon clogged up with mud and at times walking was not too much different from ice skating in slippers (not that I have ever tried ice skating in slippers). Despite this short coming all the slipping and sliding was more than worth it. We made our way to the first of the big zip lines, standing on a small wooden platform high up on the side of a small valley we could just about make out the jungle canopy about 20 metres below us. The constant drizzle and fog that had settled on the valleys prevented us from seeing the far side. The fog prevented us from gaining any sense of how long the line was and the old saying of "look before you leap" sprang to mind, just this time we couldn't look. Now the zipping itself should have been safe as houses, a system had been set up of Go and Not Go lines, indicated by pieces of red or green tape. Pretty self explanatory really, green indicated a launch point, where you would push off, red indicated a landing line. Therefore there should never be an incident where two people could feasibly meet(crash) in the middle. The cables themselves were some high grade steel affairs that could probably lift several trucks if need be. Big Song launched himself first and was soon lost in the mist, about a minute or so later we heard his cry of "READY" emanate from somewhere in the fog, it was now our turn. One by one we clipped ourselves in and pushed off into oblivion and one by one the cries of ready came floating back through the mist. It's hardly to explain the combination of freedom and adrenaline that pumps through your body as you sail through the air 80 metres above the ground. On the one hand the only thing that is stopping your from falling to your death now appears to be a flimsy piece of wire and at the same time you feel like a bird soaring through the sky. All of a sudden quicker than your realise you are approaching the landing platform, more often than not at speeds greater than you would have liked and a quick pull on the safety line is needed to slow you down. The landing platform we'd hit this time wasn't on the far side of the valley as first expected, well it was, just not on the ground, it was actually half way up a tree. It turns out our first zip across the valley was just the first part in a two part zip, the next zip would take us across another valley. Fortunately(maybe) the fog had cleared a little and we could see the far side, it made the first part of the zip look short and stubby. This zip was perhaps twice as far, several hundred metres, and about 80 metres above the jungle canopy, so a whopping total of 130 metres or so above floor level; a long way down indeed! Following the standard procedure of SAFETY FIRST, runner then push off we all catapulted our way into the sky. If I likened the first zip line to flying this really was soaring, it took several minutes to reach the far side, plenty of time to peer away into the mist hidden valleys and come to terms with just how high you were, truly exhilarating! We landed and were all super hyped up by our experiences, we couldn't wait to go exploring more zip lines. We trekked up yet another muddy and slippery path to make our next jump. It turned out that the next jump was right beneath tree house 2 where Angelina and Paul were staying. They heard us coming and shouted down for us to come up and join them for a hot drink, curious to know what there little tree house was like we gladly accepted the offer. A short trek a little further up the hills put us in line with the zip for Tree House 2.
Tree House 2 was no where near as big as Tree House 1, it was split between two levels, with the upper level consisting of a cosy living/sleeping area, complete with hammock and Bean Bags (luxury!) and a lower level where the bathroom was located. Quite a nice setup for 2 really! one of the other guides was already there (he'd come through earlier with some popcorn and stuff for them!). Having there own kettle they treated us to a cup of tea and we sat chatting for a while about how exciting the whole experience was. It turns out that some of the jumps they had had to make the previous evening to get to Tree House 2 (TH2) had been pretty much in the dark, exciting stuff! After about 15 minutes, around 8am, Big Song said it was time to go Back to Tree House 1 (TH1) for breakfast. "Breakfast?" we all said, "didn't we already have breakfast?", "no, that was just a pre breakfast" was the reply. We all began to wish we hadn't eaten quite as much of our 'pre breakfast' as what we had. So we headed back to TH1, first zipping down from TH2, then back to the zip lines that went out over the valleys we'd crossed earlier. The zip lines we were taking back again ran to the landing pad that was half way up the tree in the middle of the valley, however the zip going needed more height in order to reach the platform in the middle. The zip back basically ran the same route as the big zip we had taken coming in, just another 20 or so metres higher! We really were up there with the eagles!
We reached TH1 just as our breakfast was coming in from the kitchen. We couldn't wait to tell the girls how much fun zipping was. Their first reaction to us was one of "what have you been doing?!" in the, 'look at the state of you sense'. Partially unnoticed by us it turns out that zipping in wet conditions is a rather dirty affair. As you fly along the lines the runners spray up all sorts of oily dirty water that covers your clothes, hair and face. The result gives you the look of having worked under a car for the best part of a day. However our stories of how much fun the zipping was and the freedom that it gives soon convinced them that the dirt was worth it, besides the rain had stopped and the skies were starting to clear, soon they couldn't wait to get zipping themselves. First it was breakfast. It turned out that every meal we ate whilst on the G.E. consisted of pretty much the same thing whether it be breakfast, lunch or dinner. It didn't bother us though as the food was always good stuff. It consisted of boiled rice and five different dishes for you to pick and chose as you sore fit. They were mostly vegetable based and contained lots of bamboo, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, beans and other good wholesome foods, occasionally you'd would have meat.
As soon as breakfast was over we were re-harnessing ourselves and setting off for a bit more trekking and hopefully a lot of zipping. The girls we coming along behind us (they had their own guide). We made our way back over to TH2 where we met up with Angelina and Paul, from TH2 we were going to head down to Tree House 3(TH3), where the posh guys and Gary had been staying. Just as we were setting off the guys from TH3 came plodding along the path. With them they had their day sacks with all their gear in. Upon seeing us they inquired how our night had been, we'd said great and told them how we'd been up since 6 exploring the zip lines and the jungle. They then informed us how they were moving into TH1 and that someone else would have to move into TH3. It turned out that they didn't really like TH3 as it was too far away and that Natalie had woken to find Ants crawling over her face, so they wanted to move. In turn we were expected to move. Now this really put our backs up, firstly because we quite liked TH1 and had no intention of leaving it, secondly because we were being told to move and thirdly the reason why those guys were in TH3 was because they had claimed it with no one else getting a word in edge ways. A potential rift in our group of Gibboneers was forming. We watched them zip off without saying a thing, after all half of TH1 (the girls) were not with us and this sounded like it would need all of us to resolve the issue.
We carried on trekking to TH3. It turned out to be quite about a further 45 minutes trek through some tough terrain; well only tough because of the rains we'd been having, during the drier winter months I can imagine it being quite a pleasant walk. As it was we were spending most of our time checking where we placing our feet and not really getting the chance to admire the jungle - those damned mud shoes would have come in handy again! I started to feel a bit of sympathy for the posh crew for TH3, they would have had to have done the same trek the night before in dark and back again when we bumped into them that morning. Eventually we arrived at TH3, here our group of 7 split. Big Song offered to take us on a trek further into the jungle. James and I, the only ones without mud shoes elected to stay behind and go chill out in TH3, the others opted to carry on with the walk. It was only a short walk, but James and I both concurred that all the slipping and sliding we'd been doing was taking the edge off our jungle trek!
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TBC in the Gibbon Experience Part 2.
