On the morning of Tuesday, March 20th, Mark and I were signed up to head in to the Bokeo National Park in northwestern Laos for 3 days of ziplining, trekking, and sleeping in a treehouse. Also, in this protected natural area, gibbons make their home and bounce from tree to tree.

At 8am, we met at the head office in Houay Xai, and with the rest of our group watched the safety video instructing us how not to injure ourselves while zipping around the jungle canopy. Then, we loaded up (9 of us in all) in the back of a pickup truck and headed towards Bokeo. It was a 2+ hour trip, most of it on a paved highway, but the last 45 minutes all offroading to a small village on the edge of the thick Laotian jungle. It was in this village that we would begin our trek.

The hike into the zipping area took about 2 hours, but we did stop for a small lunch along the way. It was a pretty steady, uphill climb, and about halfway up, we met our 2 guides in the kitchen buildings and they geared us up with our harnesses. They told us we'd be staying in Treehouse #1, so we made our way there, alternating between hiking and zipping. The first zip was fairly long and definitely made my heart beat a bit faster! After 2 long zips and a 10 minute walk down a big hill, we found ourselves zipping into our home for the next 2 nights.

We definitely lucked out with being in Treehouse #1. It was newly built in November 2011 and was huge! It had 4 different levels - the landing and the bathroom, the kitchen and table, and two floors of sleeping platforms. I didn't know what to expect exactly, but the entire treehouse was open and we had sleeping mats under big, beautiful mosquito nets. The bathroom was definitely one of the highlights - it had the most amazing view, and one of the best showers of my life!

We were also lucky with the group we had, just such a great group of happy, fun-loving people! We had 4 of us Canucks (Mark and I, along with Ash and Chad from BC), 2 Kiwis (Nigel and Catherine), 1 from France (Bruno), 1 from England (Louise) and 1 from Australia (Josh).

After we excitedly inspected our treehouse and had a quick snack, we headed out again with Ya Tor, one of our guides, so he could show us where we could zip around for the rest of the afternoon. Up the hill from our treehouse and across a short line, there was a huge tree standing in a clearing and it had 4 ziplines attached to it. This allows you to zip across a huge valley from one giant hill to another, and back again. And again in the opposite direction, effectively sending you in a figure 8 around the main tree. Our guide stuck around with us for a bit to make sure we had the hang of it, and then he was off! We were out in the jungle, zipping around, and left to our own devices! And strangely enough, it was great! We had all been trained enough throughout the rest of the day to feel confident in our safety precautions and could simply clip onto the line, and go (with a moderate amount of double and triple checking, of course)!

It was so freeing and exhilarating to be zipping around along the treetops in the jungle; kind of like flying around as a superhero in a comic book would. As the sun started to set and our stomachs started growling, we eventually headed back to our treehouse, where dinner was already waiting for us. They had brought us loads of sticky rice and 4 different vegetable or meat dishes to pair up with it. So tasty. Oh, and a bottle of local wine. It was a magnificent feast after a long day of activity, and after a few card games, we were off to bed quite early.

I thought sleeping 200m above the ground in a treehouse in the jungle would be difficult, but both Mark and I slept soundly. The nightly hum of the insects was soothing and the deluxe mosquito net was very comforting.

I woke up at 5:30am just before the forest started to wake up. It was so quiet and peaceful, and then all of a sudden, one bird started chirping and within 30 seconds, the forest was full of the songs of birds. At 6am, we were all up and getting ready as our other guide, Tu, zipped into the house to take us on a morning wildlife walk. This is the time of day when the gibbons wake up and start to goof around. We zipped out and followed Tu up the hill away from the treehouse to a big tree where he had seen some gibbons on his way in. As we approached this area, the call of the gibbon rang out and became louder and louder. For anyone who hasn't heard this sound before, I don't know that I'll ever be able to describe it properly; it is out of this world. It honestly doesn't sound like anything else on this planet, except maybe the tuning in of an old radio. That doesn't really help describe it, does it? We'll, I guess you'll just have to check out our video clips for the real thing.

Unfortunately, because we were such a large group, by the time we were near enough to this tree, we had made enough noise that the gibbons had grown silent and moved on.

We headed back to the treehouse for some tea and coffee and were sitting around the table chatting when a lady from the kitchen clipped on and zipped into our treehouse holding a giant bag of food! What a way to serve breakfast! Again, we were treated to sticky rice and a bunch of different sides to go along with it. Mark was able to spot Gibbons in 3 different places by keeping an eye on the trees off in the distance.

Just after 9am, we got into our harnesses and again zipped away from the house. We left for a tour of the rest of the park, to experience all the other zip lines, and to visit the other treehouses. It was a long day of trekking, but the intermittent zips were great to break it up. We got to enjoy the 2 longest lines in the park, both over 400 metres long!! It is definitely a leap of faith to clip onto a line and send yourself zipping through the jungle when you can't even see the other side! These long lines would usually start in the trees and fly you through a big open valley as you soar to the hill/mountain across the way. It was spectacular and heart-pumping every time.

Visiting the 3 other tree houses was really interesting, as they were all quite different from ours. We easily had the biggest treehouse, with the most space, but each one had unique features and definite benefits. The furthest from our house was Treehouse #5, which stood in a tree in the middle of a mountain valley, the tallest tree around standing alone. The zip into that house was the longest and the view from the house was incredible.

We hiked back to our own house in the afternoon in time for a late lunch. After lunch, the others went out to zip around some more, but I stayed back to relax in the the quiet treehouse and got to meet people from other houses as they came to check out our place. Everyone returned as the sun was setting and again, our dinner was zipped in by one of the kitchen staff. We had another night of wine, games around the kitchen table, and early sleep.

Again the next morning, we were up at 5:30am as the forest started to wake up. As the group went on another wildlife walk with Tu, Mark and I hung back at the tree house, hoping to experience some gibbons without the loud group around us. Mark did see some gibbons from the treehouse, swinging among the trees, but I missed them. However, it would've been hard to miss the call of the gibbons that morning; as we sat in the treehouse, they called out all around us for almost an hour. It was amazing.

When the group returned, and breakfast had been zipped in and eaten, we packed up our stuff, put on our harnesses and left the treehouse for the last time. Ya Tor took us a little early so we could do a few extra ziplines before we had to head back down the mountain. Around 10am we started our trek back to the village and left the Bokeo park. We said goodbye to some of our group who were heading East and headed back to the city of Houay Xai. The rest of us had celebratory beer and pizza back in the city before saying goodbye.