This morning we got up grabbed breakfast then were picked up by a mini-bus for the Flight of the Gibbon. It picked up another 7 people after us, then drove for around an hour until we arrived at the centre. They explained to us that a few weeks ago there normal centre was destroyed by a landslide, so we were actually in a school they were borrowing, which also had cliffs around it, this immediately filled us with confidence on the safety of the place. We then got taken to a waterfall where we got a nice local fruit drink and then climbed up the waterfall for half an hour before returning to the centre.

They kited us out with safety harnesses and a helmet, then we got weighed to check we hadn't eaten too much and were gonna break the wire, then climbed back in the mini van with 2 instructors to be taken to the start of the zip line course. On the way to the start the main instructor (called Cash) asked Rachel if she could tell him how he was supposed to put his harness on. He then explained it was his first day on the job but not to worry as we all had insurance included in the price we had paid. I asked him if that included death insurance and he said we had fantastic death insurance cover, so that was nice to know.

We then arrived at the start and Cash introduced his partner who was called King and didn't speak any English. So there was no point in bothering to tell him that your harness wasn't strapped on before he pushed you over the 200-foot drop, as he would just smile and laugh and push you anyway. He then went through 3 safety rules, 1- always have 1 safety catch on at a time (which I found them undoing both of mine at the same time on more then 1 occasion, 2-never take your own safety latch off always let them do it (which was broken many times), and 3-……..I cant remember what this one was but I'm pretty sure they broke it too.

So it comes to the first victim…I mean volunteer, to be flung out and pray that the zip line doesn't snap and they've done the harness up front, thank goodness I'm not front of the queue….. or wait a minute its Rachel and she's explaining to the instructor that I should go first……c**p.

So I get strapped on and then pushed over, then the guy grabs my harness and starts shouting "NO NO NO, NOT YET AHHH" then lets go of me. I go flying across almost to the other side ready to lift my legs up so I don't smash them into the landing platform. He then decides it would be a good idea to swing up and down on the line like a monkey sending ripples all the way down to me spinning me all over the place till I'm backwards and can't see the platform. Guess what….. yes my legs smack into the platform, surprise, surprise. I finally get to my feet slightly disorientated……..very disorientated and watch Mr King undo both my safety harnesses, before clipping me back on to the tree one.

I spend the next five minutes re-composing myself and dreaming I was back doing the safe version of this in Canada, while hearing screams in the background from new victims. I finally come back to me senses in time to see that Mr Cash is back and I'm being strapped on again and thrown over the edge once more, once again to the scream "NO, NO, NO, NOT YET" and to even more violent swinging this time.

After a few more of these we get the end of one and get unclipped completely and pointed towards a pathway through the forest to walk along. We walk along the top of this cliff being careful not to trip to our doom on the tree roots sticking up and finally see the next zip line and wait. Then we hear a voice from up above saying; "you've gone the wrong way it's this way, that ones weak it's not safe". Which filled us with even more confidence - and you guessed right, the weak one that's apparently not safe we end up going back to about an hour later, they must have done some quick repair work. We walk back the way we have come and find the little pathway taking us higher to where the instructors are.

We finally come to a another one (the big one 800 meters long) and theirs fresh water and a family of gibbons in a near by tree, (Father, Mother and Baby). We learn that the females are white and the males are black, and then they instructors get bored and tell us to strap up for the next zip line, nice long nature talk there. We fly over the 800 meter long gap between the canopy which has amazing views all over the forest and well worth seeing.

We do a few more seeing spectacular sights before we are unattached again and have to walk along the cliff face for a bit. We get to the next zip line and Mr Cash thinks it's a jolly funny idea to lean around me and push Rachel in the back towards the cliff, then hid backwards pretending it was me not him. Yes very funny but please don't do it again I only have one girlfriend. We then have a few double zip lines where we get to zip side by side which was pretty cool. Until on one of them they decide to bounce on the line again and we end up spinning round and there is a cable connecting us which gets wrapped round both our necks, thankfully not to tight. Another one they tell us is a fight to see who can get to the finish the quickest, so I hold Rachel back and easily get to the end the quickest. Then we watch a Father and Daughter from Oz do the same with the Dad kicking her to keep her back. Guess there's no laws about beating children here, Oz does seem a bit violent after seeing that and we are re-considering our visit now.

We then have one where Mr Cash thinks it's a good idea to hang us out then him to swing us to the side before pushing us of to see if he can get us to collide with one of the trees down the line. I guess this is a competition the instructors play each day to see who can knock out the most amount of tourists. Mr Cash thankfully didn't manage to knock any of us out. But then the next one is a drop where we plummet 100 feet down from a platform with Mr Cash holding the cable at the top to stop us going splat…..great and he's in a bad mood now as he didn't manage to knock any of us out. He gives us 3 options for the speed to be lowered at; "fast, faster or fastest", unfortunately his English mustn't have been that great as he thought we all wanted the fastest option. Thankfully we all made it to the bottom without going splat. At this point he explains there's still a few more to go and we end with a 300 foot drop…. Great maybe he is leaving the splating till then to make it look more like an accident.

After a few more zip lines we then get to drop at great speeds down the 300 foot drop along side each other as they have two cables, allowing us to knock into each other as well as the tree branches on the way down. We finally get to the end stagger over to a table with fresh water on it and relax for a bit. We then get taken back to the main site to have curry for lunch at which point they give us a form to fill out how the days been. One of the question being 'Please rate our level of safety', ha ha ha they still even joke after we have finish the zip lining. We then got back on the mini bus and headed back to Chiang Mai. Apart from them trying to kill us it was a really exciting adventure with spectacular sights and well worth doing.