Fly Like An Eagle

Hiking into the Experience
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By Grayson

After crossing the Mekong River into the town of Huay Xie, Laos, we headed on to the extraordinary Gibbon Experience. The Gibbon Experience is an eco-friendly tourism experience that combines conservation projects with helping local traditional village people. The name Gibbon Experience comes from a type of monkey that is hard to find anywhere else except for here at the Bokeo Nature Reserve where the Gibbon Experience is located. The highlights of the Gibbon Experience are that you get to sleep in tree houses which are connected by a series of zip lines. Now, back home we have zip lines. But, zip lines now have a different meaning to me. These zip lines, the highest of which is 130 meters above the ground (that’s about 525 feet! – that’s tall), are spectacular.

Relaxing in our treehouse
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On the morning of March 18, we went down to the office in Huay Xie and learned the first safety rules. We met our fellow tourists, and got in a four wheel drive jeep and started the 3 hour drive to the Nature Reserve. Along the way we stopped at a road side convenience store for snacks and sodas. We thought we were going to continue the paved highway, but instead we did a swerve off the main road and started four wheel driving through rivers and up high into the jungle. Fortunately, it had rained, and so the roads were not dusty. The only bad part about the rains was that a lot of bamboo had fallen into the road, which we had to stop and hack away with our guide’s machete. Finally, we reached the village from which we continued our journey on foot.

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A one and a half hour hike through corn fields and over rivers led us to a giant hill. We started climbing, and by the time we got to the kitchen of the Gibbon Experience, we were pouring off sweat. Only later did we realize that it was 621 steps up the hill, not including regular slope. At the kitchen, we were briefed on the rest of the safety rules and regulations. We were fitted for our harness, and strapped ourselves in. It almost looked like a rock-climbing harness, if you know what looks like. We decided to stay at Tree house #3, which held four people. Unfortunately, we didn’t know that it was the longest hike from the kitchen. We walked about five minutes, to the first zip line. We strapped ourselves in, and pushed off. Even though it is the shortest, it is still scary because you are just beginning. After that, I sort of got into a mode. We pushed off, and onto the next cable to a ridge. We hiked another two minutes or so, when finally we reached the second scariest zip line. Unfortunately for her, Abby had been going with our guide, and so it was her first time by herself. She decided it was very fun. From the ridge, there is a giant tree that sticks out in the middle of the canopy. The one after that is the scariest cable (even though I don’t think any are scary – I’m talking about Mom and Dad). I looked down, and felt like a monkey on top of a tree.

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From there, we walked twenty minutes through a valley, to our tree house. A cable connects the ridge to the tree house, and we took it to our home. The rest of the evening, we didn’t do much. Just hung out and read. Every once in a while, I had to keep glancing up and looking over the edge, looking at the bottom. I kept whispering to myself, “OK, I’m not going to fall over, I’m not going to fall over!”

Our tree house looked like a regular tree house, except for much higher and bigger. On one side, there was a bathroom, covered by a curtain. The toilet was a squatter, in which your fecal matter dropped about 12 stories down onto the ground. Fortunately, I never had to see what it looked like. We read in a Comment Book that one prior lady had pooped on a monkey! I did see what it looked like, though, for my pee to go whizzing down. It was not exciting. I was amazed that they could get running water up there, and it was drinkable. You could drink the tap water! Our beds were laid out on the floor, with a mosquito curtain over them. Not a net, a curtain. At dinner time, our guide would come zipping on the line, with a bowl of rice and some stir fried veggies or something. I only had the rice for three meals.

On the trail
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In the morning, I was very excited and got up early. That was a good thing, though, because we got to hear gibbon monkeys singing. They literally, actually, sing – they’re called soprano gibbons. The bad thing though, was that we didn’t see any on our walk that morning. We walked through the underbrush and I think we were too loud and that’s why we didn’t see any gibbons. It was fun, but Abby didn’t like it.

After breakfast, we had decided to spend the rest of the day zip lining. We zipped out of our Tree house, and started the 20 minute hike to Tree house 2. Coming around a bend, I spotted a snake on the trail (I was first in line). Since my family likes snakes (except for Dad), I ran back to tell them. The last thing I saw was the back of the snake disappearing into the jungle. I was a little scared, so I let the guide go first after that. Ten minutes later, we saw another animal. This was a giant squirrel. They’re really called giant squirrels, because they are about two meters long from nose to tail. Now, I see a lot of squirrels at home, but none of them are two meters long.

Our treehouse from below
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When we got to Tree house 2, we started zipping. Abby and I decided to go back and forth at the same time on the parallel lines. (For safety reasons, all of the zip lines are one-way, so there is usually a parallel zip line that goes back from where you came.) It was sort of funny to be passing Abby in mid-air, but it was not always fun since I had to hike back up the hill to get to the start of the parallel line. After a while, we zipped to the tree in the middle of the valley, and then on to Tree house 1 for lunch. For lunch, I ate rice. (Mom and Dad ate other stuff and Abby had some sausages.) While we were eating lunch, an Aussie group came through. Their guide had been trained at spotting gibbons, and he quickly spotted some. It was sort of funny how he said, like “Oh, there are some gibbons in the distance.” We didn’t have binoculars, though, and they were so far away, that I’m not sure that they really were gibbons.

Swiss Family Robinson?
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After lunch, we decided we would go back to our Tree house and hang out. But, first, we did some more zipping. Mom was getting a little tired, so we started the hike back. When we got there, the Aussies were in our Tree house. They were there for 10 minutes or so, and then left. Before leaving, their guide again pointed out some gibbons. This time, in our area. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t see them and neither could Mom or Dad, so I’m not sure they were actually there.

Ten minutes later, we had some more guests. This time, it was a French film crew doing a documentary on the Gibbon Experience. They zipped into our Tree house and started filming. They interviewed us for half an hour, and then asked if we would do our passing-back-and-forth zipping at our Tree house’s zip lines. We did that for another half an hour, then we said “au revoir” and they left. The film crew was sort of weird because I’m not into acting all that much and it felt like I was in a movie or something. It was pretty strange. I didn’t care about them filming us in the tree house or on the zip lines, but I didn’t like the questions that much, especially because Dad was asking some of them. The rest of the night, we didn’t do anything except read our final pages of our books. Dad even had to start reading the book that Abby had just finished because he finished the book he brought.

Abby makes like a monkey
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The next morning, we got up again for another walk in the jungle. This time it was just Dad and me, because Abby was still sleeping and Mom wanted to stay with her. We hiked down into the valley, and looked around for any animals. We didn’t see any animals, but we did see a very cool hornbill bird. It looked like a toucan almost. We had to be back to Tree house 1 for breakfast at 9, so we packed our bags and left our 12 story high tree house. We hiked and zip lined to Tree house 1, and had breakfast with the rest of our group. It was time to go back to Huay Xie, and our last zip line was a short one. We hiked back down to the village, and got in a jeep after a two hour wait. The driver I think didn’t want to leave, and so Dad got into the jeep, started the engine, and honked the horn twice. That brought the guy over! He ran up to the driver’s window, and said, “Yes, we’re leaving now!”

I had finished my book, so it was a very boring drive back to Huay Xie. Our last hotel had been a rip-off, so we checked into our new hotel and spent the rest of the day on the internet surfing.

The Gibbon Experience was, I think, the best thing that we have done on this trip. If you ever go to Laos or Thailand, you for sure have to go there. It was a blast!