It wouldn't let me set the location as Huay Xai for this as I'm trying to post off my mobile since there are no computers in Laos so ignore the location set.

Monday

We were awoken by the sounds of Gibbon monkeys calling out in the jungle which was incredible to sit and look over the mist trying to spot any of them. Sadly, we didn't see any and continued to open up the breakfast pack where we were pleased to see some bread (instead of sticky rice), jam and egg.

We packed all our stuff up and exhaustively trekked and zip lined back into the jungle where we reached a centre stand which various zip lines were coming off into different directions of the jungle. I'll admit I was in a bit of a bad mood even as we left the treehouse in feeling tired and achy, so when it became apparent I had picked up Becky's slow harness (which Jay had said the day before it was a newer one which hadn't yet been properly worn in), my mood rapidly got worse. In comparison to the two days before when I was flying straight to the end of the line, it kept stopping three quarters of the way along. This was the best chance yet we'd had to do loads of zip lining so it was really frustrating. I went straight into diva-mode and was refusing to carry on doing it (which since the event tribe beasty hearts admitted to have found hilarious and Lauren admitted her and Ben were cackling about it behind my back at the time - this was totally unsurprising to me and I don't blame them). Anyway as I'm hung in the air demanding keung to try and pull me in moaning my abs and arms hurt, I dragged myself back to the centre and then sat out for a bit with Lauren 2 and Katie chatting. Keung eventually offered to swap his harness with mine claiming there was nothing wrong with mine as he was sat around not using his anyway, so the next zip line I did of course go from one extreme to another and nearly went crashing into the treehouse screaming 'it won't stoppppp!!!' as I came bashing in. When Keung tried to zip line, as I expected he was stopping most of the way out and having to pull himself in so I was glad to have made my point - at the end of the day they do need to manage these things as otherwise it ruins the experience.

More and more walking and we made it back to the village. I thanked Keung for swapping harnesses with me, was pleased to see the rabid dog wasn't around and had the tuk tuk pick us up to take us back to a place just outside the jungle. We went in here for some lunch and filled in our feedback forms (the crappy harness was mentioned again). I complimented most other things including our lovely treehouse number 7 (also coincidentally my fave number) and everyone gave a generous tip to be split between Jay and Keung.

We made it back to the gibbon reception area by around 3pm and said good bye to the others who we knew we would meet back up with in Luang Prabang in a few days. I had a shower and then casually had a bit of a breakdown on the phone to Nick. I think it was a mixture of things really, exhaustion from the trip, feeling like is kind of been at boot camp and missing those at home, I just really needed a hug. Nick found it slightly funny the jungle had broken me and I think I just needed a good cry. I even had the guy from the reception desk asking if I was ok I was sobbing so much when I got off the phone!

I sorted myself out and Lauren was giggling at me and hoping my chicken burger would make me happy (which it did) then we headed off onto the 12 hour overnight bus trip back to Luang Prabang.

Xxx