Now’s as Good a Time as Any

Watch Out For That Tree!

July 26th, 2007 by Greg

There are long, uncomfortable journeys, and then there was the first boat ride I took from Luang Prabang to Pakbeng, on my way to Houayxai. I made the mistake of going out a little too long and late the night before, and was already starting the trip tired and somewhat hungover. But my biggest mistake was not bringing food. Every other long trip I have been on has either offered food for sale or stopped somewhere along the way, but not this one. I wasn’t the only one unpleasantly surprised by this.

The choice of seats was between a hard, wooden bench, and a small car seat backseat that had been removed and placed in the back. I chose one of the car seats, as at least they were padded. Being so tired I did manage to drift in and out of a restless sleep along the way. I did meet a Canadian girl (Kelly) who was doing the same days at the Gibbon Experience as me, and funnily enough she was feeling about the same level of misery as well, and because of that we didn’t talk much that day. When we arrived in Pakbeng, we went and found a guest house and had a much appreciated dinner together, but were both so exhausted that we went to bed almost immediately after.

The next day brought another long boat trip, taking us the rest of the way to Houayxai and again about 9 hours. The night’s sleep helped immensely, as well as the many snacks and large lunch I packed this time. When buying food in the morning, I had about 5000 kip in change left over (US $0.50) and wanted to buy a snack with it. I stopped at a little food stand, and tried to buy chips, some crackers, and a candy bar, but all were too much. About to leave, I noticed the stack of bananas and asked how many I could get for 5000. The woman handed me about 2 dozen. I had to laugh.

We finally arrived, got a hotel room for the night, and found the office for the Gibbon Experience to check in. This was the 3 day tour I had come to Houayxai specifically for, after hearing so many great things from other travelers going all the way back to the well-traveled British girl I had met in Korea. We’d be staying in tree-houses inside the Bokeo Nature Preserve for 2 nights, using ziplines high over the canopy to get between the houses. They went over the basics of what we’d need to bring and what to expect, and asked us to kindly pay our money. Once that was taken care of, we went back to the room and got to bed, as we had an early start the next morning.

In the middle of the night, it started to rain. Hard. When we got up around 6:30, it was still raining hard. This was a bad sign, as there is a river to cross in order to get to the starting point, and though the Land Cruiser that was to take us in was fully equipped to drive through the river with a snorkel intake and massive tires, if the river gets too high even that can’t get through and instead of a 1-2 hour walk we end up with around an 8 hour one. And that’s exactly what happened. In addition, the river still has to be crossed, and though the path we were on comes to a point where it is significantly lower, there’s no bridge.

We began already somewhat wet from the rain, which had finally lightened up a bit. After a half an hour, we reached the river and wadded through the waist-deep water, now thoroughly soaked, including inside our shoes, with 8 or so hours of hiking ahead. The trek was long and mostly uphill, the ground a sticky, clay-based mud that clumped onto shoes and added several pounds of weight to each step. We kept up a steady pace the whole time, and eventually 7 or so hours later, reached a village at the start of the thicker jungle. This was the spot at which the truck would have dropped us off, had it made it through. We waded across another stream, and now the real trek began.

While before we’d been on what was effectively a mud road, now we were on a narrow jungle trail, winding its way uphill. The mud was usually ankle-deep, and the parts going downhill were slippery enough to cause more than a few spills. An hour and a half later, we finally arrived at the the base house. We were each given a harness and shown the basics of how to use it, and then we divided up into two groups, one for each of the treehouses we’d be sleeping in. Treehouse 1, the closer and larger option, held 6, and into this went the 3 couples in the group, one American, one Scottish, and one Dutch. Treehouse 3 took the 4 singles, a Portuguese guy (Marcelo), British woman (Tanya), and Kelly, as well as myself. We didn’t realize when we decided to take this option how much further it was to Treehouse 3.

We walked a bit further up and took our first ride on a zipline to Treehouse 1. It was short and not very high up, and a good introduction to the grounds. We left the couples to get settled in, and immediately caught another zipline to continue on. We hiked a bit up a hill and then clipped onto the “long zip”. We got up to the platform and I saw what he meant: I couldn’t even see where it ended. Clipping onto this metal wire hundreds of feet above the ground and coasting out like that was scary and amazing and fantastic at the same time. It took nearly an entire minute to cover the length of the wire, and as I went I had a fantastic view of the surrounding jungle lit by dwindling twilight.

Unfortunately after this zip we had to walk about another 45 minutes to get to Treehouse 3, which by this point in the day wasn’t something any of us were looking forward to. When we finally arrived, the luxury of our accommodation was a pleasant surprise. Our treehouse had two very soft mattresses with thick mosquito nets, running, drinkable water, a shower (cold of course) and plenty of food for the night. We all had quick, refreshing showers and settled down to eat a hearty meal of meats and various vegetables prepared in Lao style. In the shower I found a nice big bloody spot on my leg where a leech had gorged itself, but I was too tired and hungry to care. Finishing dinner saw us all ready for a long sleep, and I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next morning we woke to the unfortunate realization that it had been raining quite hard all night, and our early morning breakfast delivery was unable to be made. The guide who had stayed with us took off to go back to Treehouse 1 and get us food, and told us to wait. After almost 2 hours passed without word, we were all starving and not sure what to do. I decided to go look for the guide, and got harnessed up and set off to find him. As soon as my feet touched down on the platform at the end of the zip away from our house, a I heard a “Hello!”, and looked to my right just in time to see our guide zip off towards the house with a pack full of food on his back. Needless to say, I quickly followed him.

After breakfast, Marcelo and I set off to explore the grounds. While set up as an eco-tourism project to encourage awareness of the endangered gibbons that live in the area, what everyone comes away from the Gibbon Experience talking about are the ziplines. We spent most of the day just trekking around and doing the various zips over and over, making videos and taking pictures. Each line only goes one way, so all the lines we had done the day before had return lines we had not yet done. The return line for the long zip was particularly cool, as it was a good 30 feet higher than the one we had done, and a bit longer as well.

Eventually our day of playing in the trees like a bunch of kids came to a close, and we all gathered at Treehouse 1 for dinner. The food was once again excellent, some of the best I had in Laos funnily enough. After dinner we set off on the zips and long trek back to Treehouse 3, and settled in for the night. Again, 2 leeches decided that my feet were an excellent feeding spot. No one else seemed to get any either, though I did manage to avoid getting the blisters and scores of mosquito bites that most others were suffering from, so I’ll call it even.

The next morning we awoke, gathered our things, and set off back to Treehouse 1 for our final breakfast. Our time in the trees seemed to have passed too quickly, and I would really like to go back one day, though maybe in a dryer time of year! Following breakfast we set off for the potentially long hike back to the car, not knowing if it had crossed the river and would be waiting for us or not. None of us were looking forward to another 8 hour hike, albeit mostly downhill this time. Fortunately, about 2 hours into the hike, the car came rumbling around a bend full of new guests, greeted by our shouts of joy. It passed by, dropped them off, and returned, covering the distance we had done in 2 hours in about 15 minutes. We piled in and set off, and in another 45 minutes were driving through the river (which came up to the windows on the Land Cruiser, that was pretty rad) and onto the paved road, on our way back.

We arrived back in Houayxai tired and filthy, but everyone was still reveling in how much fun we’d had. Marcelo and I were both heading to Thailand on the next leg of our journey, and decided to cross the river into Chiang Kong, as Houayxai sits right on the Thai border. Facilities in Thailand are a bit more modern and comfortable than Laos, and we were happy to stay dirty a bit longer to get across. We bid the others farewell, caught a small ferry across the river, and were in Chiang Kong in a clean little bungalow guest house before I knew it.

The next morning Marcelo caught a bus all the way down to Bangkok on his way to the Full Moon Party in Koh Pha Ngan, while I was off to Chiang Mai.

Photos
The Gibbon Experience, Laos