When I first heard about the possibility of staying in Treehouses in Laos during our RTW trip, I thought it was just a hostel that had some out of the box places to stay. This was from James who just mentioned it casually, months prior to our actually being in Laos. He mentioned we would have to book early, but we both agreed it was on the list. Then I somehow learned (figured out?) that there were ziplines involved which of course made it even cooler of a lodging option. Then I learned that it was a Gibbons Protection program in a National Forest in Laos and you travel from tree house to tree house as your form of transport. I was totally on board when I heard about the idea months ago, now I was REALLY on board. After mentioning it to our friends Kyra and Matthijs it only seemed logical that they join us in the tree houses. I mean, the more friends you zip line with the better right? So we made our reservation and counted down the days.
Similar to most other experiences and places we have visited during our travels, I really don’t know much about where we go prior to arriving….Sad to admit, sometimes I don’t read up on the place until after we have left. The Gibbons Experience was no exception. I really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
The Gibbon Experience’s office was located just over the Thai border in a small Laos town called Huay Xai so it made perfect sense to cross from Chiang Mai and spend a night in the town before we departed on our waterfall experience. Yes, Gibbons, tree houses, ziplines AND waterfalls.
We were joined by a group of 4 others, a French woman, an Italian guy, a pseudo English woman and another proper English young woman and packed ourselves into a pick up truck in preparation for a 2 1/2 hour journey into the jungle. As is most cases in Laos, the village where we started our adventure wasn’t far away, but the road to get there was a windy dirt one, FULL of potholes, making it a slow creep the whole way.
The Gibbon Project is designed to protect Gibbons but more importantly protect their habitat from clear cut logging and slash and burn tactics employed by the locals to create farmland. I believe the project is about 10 or so years old and started by a French guy who wanted to save the Gibbons after realizing that in just a short period of time, their entire forest would be destroyed. He employs, or at least the project does, members of local villages in the jungle to serve as zip guides, cooks and housekeeping in the tree houses. While you can see much evidence of previous clear cutting and slash and burning, there is still much jungle to feast your eyes upon.
We began with a couple hour trek into the jungle, picking up a harness along the way. Soon enough we arrived at a zipline and without much further ado, we were attached one by one and zipped off into the canopy.
As I had done ziplining in Costa Rica, there was a big difference to instruction given and safety precautions explained between that experience and the one we had last week in Laos. Simply put, Laos didn’t give any. Perhaps it was the language barrier of our guides. Perhaps not. Either way, before we knew it, we were attached, backpacks double checked to be strapped on tight and we were off! Travel by zipline is definitely the way to go. Not much of a carbon footprint and the view is to die for. Not to mention it cuts down on many hours of trekking!
The remainder of the afternoon was spent zipping around to end up at our tree house for the night. A true, legit tree house, about 100 feet in the air. It was circular in shape and about 20 feet in diameter. There was even a shower in the “bathroom!” 4 mattresses, a table and chairs and we soon called it home. 2 ziplines were entrance points into the tree house and only one way out as each line is one way..for obvious reasons! After checking out our new digs, we put down our stuff and proceeded to zip around in a circuit for the rest of the afternoon until dinner.
Our meals were zipped in each morning and evening while we had lunch “on the road” as we moved from tree house to tree house. I think they did a good job with the resources at hand, but to be honest, it was rice for every single meal for 3 straight days. I know we are in Asia and it’s rice and noodles all the time, but I am cool if I don’t eat rice for a bit.
While we didn’t see any Gibbons, although I am sure they saw us, one of the more entertaining experiences for me was watching other people’s reactions (note:outside our group of 4) to the wildlife. Call me crazy, but I would make the leap of faith that if you are going to spend a night in the jungle, in a tree house, that it goes without saying you will see spiders and snakes and lizards and other fun creepy crawlies. Seems not everyone was of that school of thought. At night, the roof of our tree house was pretty much lined with spiders, whose eyes reflected in the beam of our headlamps. I happened to miss it, but at one point, a spider decided to descend from above and visit our group, a la Charlotte visiting Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web. What I didn’t miss (while in the bathroom) were the screams. I was checking out the spiders in the bathroom, debating mentioning their presence and then deciding not to and just tell James. I wasn’t sure how people would react. Clearly I made the right choice. Turns out people were freaked out by everything.
During our second night at a different tree house, we had the company of a cat. What’s a cat doing in a tree house you ask? Why, to keep away the rats of course! While he was a tiny little cat, more kitten than cat I would say, he did a fine job of killing a rat (we heard the fight, and the scuffle across the floor during the night.) As I am not a big fan of cats, I didn’t spend much time with him. But even if I had wanted to, Kyra had sorta commandeered him, scratching him all night long much to his delight. So the next morning, before we got out of our tents (we had mosquito nets over our mattresses) I was thinking to myself, I wonder if the cat actually killed the rat and if so, did he leave it for Kyra as cats tend to do?
I didn’t have to wonder long. Pulling up our mosquito net and preparing to step foot outside, guess what was waiting for me? A rat, not much smaller than our cat. Well done kitty!
In hindsight, the Program would probably be better marketed as a Tree House Experience vs Gibbon Experience because I get the feeling a majority of people don’t actually see any Gibbons—although we did hear one in the morning which was pretty amazing. That being said, our whole group left very pleased with their time in the trees. We zipped to our hearts content and spent a couple nights among the trees, getting up early to zip thru the morning fog and sunrise which was truly breathtaking.
And now we can add zipline to the growing list of different forms of transport used on this trip!
