The Gibbon Experience

After leaving Vang Vieng I headed north to a city called Luang Prabang. It was the old capital before the French colonized Laos and then became one of the cities with the most colonial architecture. I stayed there for a couple of days wandering around the cobblestone roads, visiting temples, kayaking, taking a cooking course and hiding from the rain in cafes with delicious lao coffee.

Then I took a two day boat ride along the Mekong river heading northwest towards Thailand. We spent 10 hours on the boat each day. Overnight we stopped in a town that was made specifically for stopping of these slow boats. The boat was relatively comfortable, but incredibly noisy. The engine was almost deafening even with ear plugs in.

All of this travel was to arrive at a town to catch a pick up ride north. I had arranged to do The Gibbon Experience. There really isnt another way to call it because it is an experience, not just a tour or a hotel.

The pick up truck drove us 3.5 hours north through really muddy roads, we even had to clear a land slide to keep going on the road. After the pick up truck dropped us off we sat in a wagon that was pulled by a tractor for 3 more hours. Then we walked for an hour crossing a couple of waist high rivers. Then we almost made it. We had to put a harness around our waist, connect it to a cable and glide into our new home a tree house.

The Gibbon Experience is a project that is working to conserve an area of forest where 85 gibbons live. They are the only ones of this species of gibbon in the world. Gibbons are actually the most endangered ape in the world. To help to conserve them they have been working with the local villages to cut down poaching. By creating a network of tree houses connected by zip-lines, it is possible to have a birds eye view of the forest and see poachers and protect the forest.

The project only began 15 months ago and currently has 3 tree houses built and one in construction. The tree houses are built around (not killing) banyon trees that are over 100 feet tall. The guides are locals plus one Dutch woman who translates when necessary.

It is amazing to see what these people have created from a simple dream. The man who started it had been dreaming about it for a long time and just did it, and did it right. The proceeds from the tourists ($125 all inclusive for 3 days) goes to building more thus creating more jobs and to a bank for the villages to build schools. They have a minimal budget for publicizing because they rely on word of mouth. They also can never take more than 10 people at a time so the impact is small.

Most of the people who work there were poachers. This is giving them an alternative to use their knowledge about the forest to protect it instead of destroy it. When they do catch poachers, instead of fining them or sending them to jail, they educate them. They teach them alternatives to poaching and about the how unique their forest actually is. This is done by the local chief, not by a foreigner. The locals are also part of a minority group called the Hmong.

So for two mornings I woke up in a tree house to the sounds of the Gibbons singing. They mate for life and the pairs sing every morning to show their strength to the surrounding Gibbons. We flew through the forest like monkeys hanging from cables. We were even lucky enough to see a family of Gibbons playing in the trees.

I was really inspired by knowing that building tree houses in remote forests is possible, that foreigners and locals can work together, and that there are positive projects out there protecting forests instead of using them just to make money.