The Gibbon Experience

Day 1: We met our group which consisted of us and 6 Dutch people. We spent 4 hours traveling to Nam Kan National Park by foot, taxi, and off road vehicle. We got given our harnesses and roller equipment. The roller goes on top of the zip line and a safety attached to the cable in front of the roller. Then you just sit back and zoom across.

We had to hike around an hour and a half to reach the start of the gibbon experience. We had a trial zip line before heading to base camp. This had a map of the treehouses and lookouts throughout the national park. We learnt that we were to be staying in number 4, a newer treehouse. The first was number 7 built in 2004 but it is not operational anymore. The biggest is number 1 built in 2009 and we would be visiting it later.

Cicadas, termites, and various birds lay amongst the trails. Trees and bamboo bordered us as we walked through the jungle. The zip lines were between 100ft and 1,200ft. We raced through the trees soaring high above the canopy watching the views blur past.

We had to zip to and from the lookouts and tree houses. Once we got to treehouse 4 we showered and had food before settling down for a game of cards. Our guide gave us some of the rice whisky his village made.

At 9pm we thought it best to go to bed with a 7am zip start time. Robin and I turned on torches and head towards the bathroom. Once we got there we saw a spider the size of our hand. Robin peed but I was not going there. I squatted over the sink to go to the bathroom. Another girl needed to go and asked someone to come watch the spider for her, the watcher replied ‘don’t worry I am a nurse I have seen many vagina!’

After that spider scare we went to bed. The treehouse had fabric covers on top of mattresses which were held by hooks in the middle and each corner. Following advice Robin and I had tucked in the covering under the mattresses. From another tent we heard ‘ah fuck a spin’. For those unfamiliar with Dutch a ‘spin’ is a spider. They had a huge spider the size of two hands in their bed tent. After a huge project removing the spider we all settled down once more. A few minutes later we heard ‘SPIN SPIN’. Another spider was in their bed tent. Just as big.

After removing all the spider. We all got to sleep.

Day 2: Up at 7am from a very light spidery disturbed sleep. We spent the morning zipping through the trees from various lookouts, houses, and ledges. We visited treehouse 5, the world record breaker, at 150m high. The view was amazing.

Our guide introduced us to jungle food such as pomelo, rattan cane, rattan fruits, and these leaves which tasted like lemon. We also learnt the Lao word for spider: meng moo. Meng means insect and the ‘moo’ classified the insect as spider. I think the name is too cute for spider. Same with spin. Makes them cute.

The afternoon was more zipping. We visited treehouse 1, the largest treehouse. This one had a tin roof rather than the leave woven one we had. That means less to no spiders. So annoyed we didn’t get treehouse 1 as our home base.

The evening was more chill with more rice whisky. After a few cups we all became pro spin/meng moo/spider disposers. We would go around with a straw mop and scrape them off the roof onto the jungle floor below. Robin got 2 in one swoop! Spiders the size of two hands had become the new normal.

After a light conversation on what comes after death and how big is the universe with the Dutch, we got into bed and went to sleep.

Day 3: Up at 4:20am for gibbon hunting; hunting in the finding sense not the skin and make gibbon-lined ugg boots. They sound warm though. We zipped to a viewpoint and patiently waited for gibbons. We saw black giant squirrels, flying squirrels, Asian hornets, and a lot of mosquitos but no gibbons :(.

Unfortunately this is when I started to feel really ill with full body aches, sore throat, temperature, headache, ear and eye ache. I powered through and zipped a few more times with the others.

After a solid 2 hours of just zipping we hiked back to the base camp and completed the arriving journey in reverse.

I guess we will just have to come back again to find the gibbons. This time requesting a treehouse with a tin roof!

Tomorrow we take the slow boat to Luang Prabang. It’s 7pm and bed time. Hopefully I feel better tomorrow.

Some photos posted below. More to appear in Laos gallery once received from our new Dutch friends.

-M