The Gibbon Experience was one of the first things we heard about when we found out that we would be living in Laos. It took us nearly 18 months but we finally had our "experience" last month. In theory, the Gibbon Experience sounds wonderful: hiking through protected forest, observing gibbons and other rare animals in their native habitat, zip-lining across valleys, sleeping in tree houses. What's not to love, right? Well, we quickly discovered the reality would be quite different from what we had imagined. First, we would be spending several hours each day hiking. We don't mean hiking through the woods; we mean hiking up steep mountainsides while carrying your belongings and wearing a harness. Looking at the picture below we can't help but think, "So excited, so full of energy, so clean." Soon we would become tired and dirty.
There were moments of unbridled glee but they were few and far between. We both had our moments of sheer terror as we zipped scores of meters above the jungle floor.
The views were spectacular, which made it easy to forget a lot of the less enjoyable parts of the trip. This scene was actually what we saw from the bathroom of the tree house we stayed in. Yes, to get views like this you have sleep in a tree house with the only exit being a zip line. There were warning signs in all of the houses about candles and even one horror story of a tree house catching on fire. This was enough to give both of us nightmares about various tree house tragedies.
You'll notice there are not any pictures of any gibbons or any animals in this blog. Why? Because we did not see anything bigger than a gigantic spider and a few butterflies. Actually the guides told us that the tour we had chosen never sees any gibbons. We were a little surprised at this admission since we had chosen the tour that went deeper into the forest and, from what we could tell, went closer to the areas where the gibbons stayed. So while others were able to see gibbons from their tree houses, we walked further, had less time to play on the zip lines, and didn't see any gibbons. There was one animal that we did see a lot of though. Leeches! They were everywhere. We actually became quite good at distinguishing between a leech, a leaf, or an itch. Picking leeches off each other was certainly a new step in our marriage. As my wife said at one point after picking a leech off of the bottom of my foot, "This is love." It was hard to capture a picture of a leech because your primary goal after discovering one was to get it off as quickly as possible. However, one of us bravely held on long enough for this picture to be taken.
There were moments of unbridled glee but they were few and far between. We both had our moments of sheer terror as we zipped scores of meters above the jungle floor.
The views were spectacular, which made it easy to forget a lot of the less enjoyable parts of the trip. This scene was actually what we saw from the bathroom of the tree house we stayed in. Yes, to get views like this you have sleep in a tree house with the only exit being a zip line. There were warning signs in all of the houses about candles and even one horror story of a tree house catching on fire. This was enough to give both of us nightmares about various tree house tragedies.
The view in the morning.
Crossing a stream
You'll notice there are not any pictures of any gibbons or any animals in this blog. Why? Because we did not see anything bigger than a gigantic spider and a few butterflies. Actually the guides told us that the tour we had chosen never sees any gibbons. We were a little surprised at this admission since we had chosen the tour that went deeper into the forest and, from what we could tell, went closer to the areas where the gibbons stayed. So while others were able to see gibbons from their tree houses, we walked further, had less time to play on the zip lines, and didn't see any gibbons. There was one animal that we did see a lot of though. Leeches! They were everywhere. We actually became quite good at distinguishing between a leech, a leaf, or an itch. Picking leeches off each other was certainly a new step in our marriage. As my wife said at one point after picking a leech off of the bottom of my foot, "This is love." It was hard to capture a picture of a leech because your primary goal after discovering one was to get it off as quickly as possible. However, one of us bravely held on long enough for this picture to be taken.
Neal that is love :-)
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