Wow, wicked, awesome! Just three words to describe the last week or so. I spent three days and two nights in the jungle. It was so cool. There were ten people in our group. We slept in tree houses. Six of us slept in tree house one and four in tree house three. The six of us that were in tree house one were all traveling on our own. So that was pretty neat and we got along so well. My stomach hurt have laughing so much. We entertained each other so well.
We started the adventure (The Gibbon Experience) off with a two or three hour ride out of town to the jungle. We went on an amazing road they are constructing and we were the only vehicle on it. I wonder if it is being made for trade with China? (Future research). Anyway. Then we got to a river and drove through it. The four wheel drive was switched on the land cruiser and we set off on the terribly rough, washed out dirt road into the jungle. I must tell you that we held our breath and did not cheer until we were out of the jungle on day three. We were warned that we may have to walk into the jungle and that it is a seven hour walk in. It poured rain the whole night before we went so we were holding our breath and praying we would not have to walk. Luckly we did not have to walk and the land cruiser made it in and out. The land cruiser only goes so far though and then you must hike for one and a half hours into the jungle. Talk about remote. There were no lights, no nothing. Once making it to the tree houses the views were spectacular and the sounds amazing. The hiking was involved, muddy and yes I was exposed to leeches. It is weird when pulling leeches off your shoes becomes second nature. Luckly I was spared from their sucking. Some of the others were not so lucky.
The hike was beautiful. We arrived at our tree house and were greated by the guides and a bear. Yes a bear cub. The Gibbon experience was created to stop poaching and our monies from paying for the experience goes to paying guards to protect the forest. So the guards caught a poacher who killed the bear’s mother and the cub is now living with the workers. They had one last year and after a year if took off and went back to the wild. This one too is free to go. When we were leaving it trekked out the hour and a half with us.
The zip lines! Between the tree houses there are zip lines. We would hook ourselves up and zip through the jungle. It was spectacular. There were about 20 different cables. Some were linked together by platforms on trees and others you have to again trek through the jungle to get to. One day we went to tree house five and it was a two hour trek through the jungle with a few zip lines in between to get there. One of the zip lines was 160 m high and 460 m long. It was so cool.
Our food was even brought in on zip lines. All of a sudden the tree would shake and incoming, food would arrive with a worker. The views on the zip lines were spectacular. It was so cool to look down and backwards. I recommend this to everyone. We entertained ourselves all day by swinging in the trees and trekking through the jungle.
One night we made fondue. We used one of the metal dishes over candle light to heat chocolate powder and condensed milk, which we then dipped our fruit in. We found the receipe in the guestbook of tree house one and we improvised with some lanterns and metal and made a stand for it to sit above the flame on. We were mighty proud of ourselves. There was running water in the tree houses from a natural spring that we could drink, but no electricity.
Laos is amazing and so beautiful. I would say it is the most beautiful country in South East Asia.
We took a slow boat down the river. It took two days, around eight hours each day on very erect wood seats with no leg room. Nicole (from Calgary) and I sat in the front seat both days so we had the most leg room. It was beautiful, so beautiful I only cracked out my book during a bit of rain when the tarps were down on the boat and we could not see out. We stopped the one night and stayed on the mainland. The town would be a ghost town if the boats didn’t stop there. It had electricity that came from individual generators and ours was shut off at midnight and started up at 6am, so no fan for sleeping. Between the initial starting point and the end result on the slow boat we only passed through maybe 12 villages that consisted of maybe 10 bamboo houses each. So there was a lot of trees and mountains to check out.
On day two we picked up a minority women with her 4 kids and young baby. One of the kids had a baby chicken in her hand for the journey. Can you say bird flu, again? We picked up so many locals on day two, all with young babies that sat in front of us, so we had to witness a lot of nursing for 8 hours.
Luang Prabang is a great town. With tons of French influence. The streets and buildings are lovely. A very quant little town with great food, service and excellent massages. Laos is gorgeous. The jungles, vegetation, rivers and views are all spectacular.
Check out the photos at the following link
http://picasaweb.google.com/sarahemoloney/GibbonExperienceAndLaos
Check out a video of me on the zip line by clicking the next link. Here's hoping you can view it. The quality is not great, but hopefully you get the idea.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6305227057839096726
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