Monkey (Don't) See, Monkey (Don't) Do

It was a bit sad leaving Thailand after three weeks and several special encounters there. I left Thailand by crossing the muddy, muddy Mekong in a canoe with an outboard motor and entered Laos at Huay Xai. A fellow traveller in Thailand told me that I had to do the Gibbon Experience when I arrived in Huay Xai. A Frenchman set up The Gibbons Experience (http://www.gibbonx.org/) two years ago to help preserve the Lao forests, in particular the Bokeo Forest Reserve. All profits help to employ local villagers, protect gibbons (a monkey species once thought to be extinct), sustain a ranger program to combat poachers, and prevent deforestation. The "experience" essentially consists of 8 tourists daily trekking through the muddy Lao jungle, flying across the jungle canopy on zip lines, and spending nights in a massive tree house 120 feet above the ground.

I was fortunate to have a great group of 6 Brits and a Canadian. We didn't have much of a choice but to bond over the three days: our sleeping quarters consisted of one open-air platform, our toilet was no more than a hole in the floor behind a curtain, we ate all our meals (sticky rice) together and we had no electricity/internet for a distraction. Though we didn't see gibbons--apparently nobody ever does--the trip was amazing. The zip lines were fast and long (one was 1/3 of a mile). The bamboo and surrounding jungle were picturesque. The leeches were violent but fortunately small. And the tree houses made you feel like a kid again.

I highly recommend the Gibbon Experience for anybody who might be traveling to Laos in the coming years (Jen/Iris?). One of the coolest things about the program is that the founder has refused all publicity--he has asked guidebooks not to list it, he has turned down requests for interviews, and the only reason he has a website is because his customers harassed him into making one. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures in the attached album. (I would post a YouTube video of a zip line ride, but the Lao goverment has banned YouTube.)

To see more pictures of the Gibbon Experience in Laos, click on the picture of me with a bear.

Gibbon Experience-Laos