Gibbon Experience: The Saga

After passing a rather quiet night in Houay Xai, it was time for Day One of The Gibbon Experience! Or, as it will later become known, The Most Challenging Three Days of Valerie's Life Thus Far.

The Gibbon Experience itself is an eco-tourism forest convservation project, which funds forest protection and community projects in the Bokeo Nature Reserve in northern Laos. Guests stay in tree houses and use a cable network of zip-lines to scour the forest in search of the illusive Black Gibbon monkey. Tree houses? Ziplines?? Monkeys??? Count me in! I arrived 7:30AM sharp at the Gibbon Experience office, alongside a handful of similar worn-looking backpackers. After leaving our bags with the office and bringing only a day pack with the essentials, we piled into a dirt-caked truck and headed off to the Bokeo Nature Reserve for the village of the Lao Theung. After a quick round of introductions in our 8-person group, we headed off into the jungle.


Day 1: Not even five minutes after leaving the village, the path turned muddy and murderously steep. Still, I naively assumed that my previous Chiang Mai trek had prepared me adequately for the three-day jungle trek. How wrong I turned out to be. The trail continued up and up (and up and up and up), and soon we were drenched in sweat and attracting mosquitos like moths to a flame. Next came the leeches, and although our guide showed us how to remove them easily (a couple flicks of the finger and you're rid of them, if you move fast) they were still a hateful nuisance. Still, after an excruiating and exhausting three hours, we arrived at our first zipline and it's an exhilarating experience unlike any I've ever had. We suited up in our harnesses and, one by one, jumped off the platform and flew through the air across the jungle treetops. The sight was breathtaking and the flight intoxicating. It was the highest high of the trek, with an unfortunate return to the lowest low as we continued our trek toward the treehouse. Once there, the feeling of accomplishment and relief at being able to sit down was enough to rid us (mostly) of the memory of that grueling hike. I suspect it's something akin to childbirth. I've never been so happy for a cup of instant coffee and a hard wooden bench in my life. I feel like I've sent myself to Fat Camp.

Day 2: More of the same, except worse because of the rain that fell the previous night. I'm talking torrential jungle downpour. It made the going very, very difficult as it took all our energy simply to keep ourselves standing upright and not slip in the mud. Multiply that by incredibly steep hills, add a healthy dose of leeches, multiply again by four hours, and you have Day 2 of the Gibbon Experience trek. And yet anytime we reached a zipline, the exhaustion just seemed to disappear as we stepped out into nothingness, flying across the lush green jungle and rivers below. It was enchanting. As like the previous day, once we reached the treehouse we sat down to relax and wait for dinner to arrive with our guide -- rice and sauteed cabbage seems to be a staple of their diet, so that's a lot of what we got. The sky began to darken around 5:30 and by 6:30pm the only light we had was from one lone candle and our flashlights. Bedtime was soon to follow.

Day 3: And still more of the same. And yet, different. I felt stronger, and the steep hills seemed less daunting and more manageable. We awoke at 5am to make the trek down, and our first zipline took us across a large valley with hills of green trees, blanketed in a thick gray mist as far as the eye could see. The downward trek was difficult, and yet our moods improved with each step we took. We created a Hiking Playlist (see below) that would serve as the soundtrack to our endeavor, which lightened our mood substantially. Overall, it was an intense yet extremely rewarding experience, and I'm glad I lived to tell you all about it :) Oh yeah, and we saw one Gibbon monkey. from very far away.


Hike From Hell: the playlist
1. Guns 'N Roses - Welcome to the Jungle
2. Queen - Another One Bites The Dust
3. Journey - Don't Stop Believin'
4. Survivor - Eye of the Tiger
5. Europe - The Final Countdown
6. Britney Spears - Stronger
7. Queen - We Are the Champions