To finish off our time in goregous Laos we headed up and over to the Laos/Thailand border of Huay Xai (after the few interesting bus rides) to go The Gibbon Experience. Not advertised anywhere the only way to find about this amazing adventure is by word of mouth. Bascially it is 3 days spent in the jungle, staying in treehouses accesssed only by very high zip lines, with the hope of hearing and spotting some gibbons!

Day 1 started early at 7.30am at the office where we watched a safety video on how to attach yourself to the zip lines and use them. 9 of us plus the driver, plus 2 locals who were just getting a lift, crammed into a small Land Rover for a 3 hour drive to the village at the base of the jungle. The drive was a smooth tarmac road until one point where we crossed a fast following river and then began a very bumpy, steep ascent up a hill to reach the remote village! After arriving at the village we met 2 guides who walked us upto a camp before we entered the jungle canopy! The walk nearly killed me!!! 3 river crossings and a huge up hill climb to reach the camp in midday heat was enough for me a I was soooo glad to the huts of the camp when we got there! To our surprise there was a semi wild monkey & bear there waiting for us, exploring the camp, us and our bags if they managed to get in them!

We set off into the jungle canopy on a 10 min walk to reach Treehouse number 1. This is where the guides showed us the first of 9 zip lines we would encounter in the 3 days. The zip line took you stright into the treehouse and this is where me, Ian, Voz, Dean (who was strangely enough from Padiham!!!!) and Anton would stay and the other 4 people went off to another treehouse! The treehouse was 30m avbove the ground and had the most spectacular views across the jungle. We soon realised how good of a deal we had got staying in this treehouse as it was the closest to main run of zip lines. We spent all of the afternoon zip lining across the jungle canopy, the highest and longest being 150m high and 1000m long!!! As you can imagine the views were mind blowing as you looked down and around at the trees below and to the side of you. All this was done mind you with no guides, just you and your harrness so every time you jumped out over the jungle canopy you prayed you had attached yourself properly or it would have been a very long fall back down to earth!!! As night came we sat and had dinner by candle light and listened to the amazing sounds of the jungle! Me and Ian had the top floor of the treehouse and spent all night with a rat who was dragging a bottle of water in a plastic bag across the wooden floor. Every time we would try and catch it, it would scuttle off up the tree!

After not much sleep listening to the rat and the all the other animals we were up at 5.30am to listen to the gibbons sing (for territorial and mating purposes) and to set off at 6am into the jungle to see if could spot any. Dawn was beautiful from the house as mist covered the jungle and trees popped up out of nowhere! The sound of the gibbons was strange a bit like a siron going off and they sung for around 20 mins everyday. As we set off folling the singing our guides soon realised we had missed the gibbons and they had moved too far away to catch a glimpse so we went back for breakfast. Whilst waiting for breakfast to arrrive Ian and Dean went off zipping and invented the art of naked zip lining to everyones amusement, espeacially the local guides!!! We managed to spot a giant squirrel that is just as rare as a gibbon and after a feed we continued the zip fun and messed around on them all day!!! Just before night fall we had a visit from an Ozzy guide who spotted two sleeping gibbons in a tree across the canopy from us through Dean's binoculars! As you can imagine we all were well chuffed as spotting these things is VERY rare!!!

Knowing the gibbons were close and after the Ozzy guide told us he spotted most of the ones he's seen were on a platform that jooned 4 zip lines we all got up early at 5am. The lads went off first in the dawn light and mist that came half way across the zip lines so you coulodn't see the end and across to the other side! Me, Ian, Voz & Dean sat on the platform and listened to the gibbons signing while the sun came up and created a perfect sunrise surrounded by all the mist. If the mist wasn't there we think we might of be able to spot of a few gibbons as they sounded so close but the view, the singing and the sunrise made it just as an amzing experience anyway. Time to go came and we all made our way back to the village where the Land Rover picked us up and we headed back to Huay Xai.

Next we head back into Thailand into Chang Mai then its the count down till we fly home!!!!!!