Monkeying in the jungle

An early start, Laos baguettes for breakfast and a day on a bum-numbing boat took us to Ban Phe, which is something of a Mekong service station. We stayed for one night and ate the worst Indian meal of our entire trip, we made the mistake of thinking that the Indian owner would serve authentic cuisine. The next day, the motherly owner of the guesthouse where we stayed sent us off with a packed lunch for another full day's boat ride.

The scenery up river was beautiful and the grinding of the engine became quite relaxing as we powered up the Mekong with just enough speed not to be pushed backwards. We were pleased to have opted for the slow boat rather than the super high speed death boats we saw zooming past complete with crash helmets.

After a total of 19 hours sailing up the Mekong we arrived at our destination - Huay Xai. Why the laborious boat journey you may ask (and yes, we did travel almost entirely by boat in Laos - a fact that Olly is very proud of), well Huay Xai is the starting point of the Gibbon Experience. This is a once in a life time experience to live like a monkey for three days. It was expensive, but our final blow-out before ending our trip. And wow, was it worth it!

Day one: after watching a safety video on how to propel yourself through the canopy on a zip line and signing a less than reassuring legal agreement, dissolving the owners of all responsibility, we were loaded into the back of a 4x4 jeep. Why the off road tyres we wondered as we hurtled along the brand new Chinese trade road? The answer became abundantly clear as we bumped down a tiny mud track across a river and then deep into the jungle. Rather than the usual waving, someone had taught the local kids to trust their hips at passing tourists. Very amusing!

The dirt road took us past several villages employing slash and burn to clear forest for agriculture to maximum effect. The further we went from the main road the fewer the scars on the landscape however. We stopped in a small jungle village, the edge of civilisation for 3 days.

It was then a 1 hour trek and several zip lines to our tree house home. The Gibbon Experience has been built with local labour to provide employment to the jungle villages and protect the forest from poaching. There weren't any half measures. Tourists zip through the forest above the canopy on zip lines, some of which are 600m long. The views are amazing. It's also quite an adrenaline rush.

We stayed in tree house number 1, a three story palace in a giant tree right in the heart of gibbon land. It came with it's own resident cat called tiger who seemed to live mostly on giant june spiders. It was just Olly and I and another Londoner called Zen.

Our guides left us to our own devises and dinner arrived shortly after via zip line. The noises in the jungle were intense. And we were super lucky, seeing more than 5 gibbons that evening alone.

We slept under fabric mosquito nets, well tucked in against giant spiders, rats and all sorts of other insects. The jungle noises were quite unnerving as I tried to fall asleep.

Day 2: we awoke to jungle monsoon rain. Luckily however it cleared as we headed into the jungle for more ziplining and trekking through the jungle. Zipping down was great, walking up through muddy jungle was a bit more like hard work. I finished with a very muddy ass. We also had to fend of the leaches which appeared in abundance after the rain. However, worse was to come!

 That night we saw more gibbons, enjoyed our super out door shower and slept more soundly having acclimatised to the 'noise'.

Day 3: it rained and it rained. We'd already been warned that there may be a 14km walk out of the park should that river we crossed at the end of the jungle become too deep. Resigned to our fate of a day of walking, ourselves and our rather grumpy guide set off.

Soon we discovered that this trip would be as much wading as walking. The small streams that we passed on the way to the jungle had literally turned to rivers over night. At one point we were wading up to our wastes through muddy brown water. We didn't see any snakes, but the leaches enjoyed the mobile filling stations walking past.

After 3 hours of walking and miles and miles still to walk our guide stopped and sat down. What is it we asked. He replies smiling, "jeep coming" just as the wonderful sight of a 4x4 came around the corner. Luckily they'd had the foresight to keep a jeep on our side of the river.

Back at Huay Xai, filthy and knackered, we enjoyed a night of sharing our tales of the jungle with other travellers.

The next day we were off to Thailand, about 50 metres across the river.