The Gibbon Experience

The combined effects of illegal logging, commercial cropping, excessive slash-and-burn practices, and overall land pressure, compounded by mismanagement, are rapidly depleting tropical forests, particularly in Laos, where the smoke-filled air and smouldering bare hillsides at this time of year particularly, was evidence of the decimation.

We nearly walked into this giant spider.

Recognising this urgent issue, the Gibbon Experience was initiated with a mandate to adopt a unique and innovative approach to protecting the forest and its inhabitants.

The jungle floor is alive with insects.

Since its inception in 1996, they have been committed to ensuring a sustainable future for the Bokeo forest, which has since become the 136.000 hectare Nam Kan National Park (in 2008.)

Today, the Gibbon Experience works in partnership with the National Park and provides full-time employment to over 80 people, contributing to both environmental conservation and local economic development.

Edible fungi

It is also home to the highest treehouses in the world, 30 – 40 metres (100+ ft), so we could observe the forest canopy from our living room/bed.

One of the bigger treehouses.

Only Irian Jaya Papoo natives build that high up in the trees, but these tree huts are luxurious by comparison being fully plumbed with a kitchen, shower and flushing toilet.

Sambar deer, barking deer, loris, civets, leopard golden/clouded cats, wild pigs, over 100 species of birds, giant squirrels, Asian Black bears, langurs, macaques, snakes, lizards, etc inhabit the park, but we saw none of these (except for some birds, bats, lizards and ants) due to their low numbers and shyness.

The three-day-two-night bird serenaded us a lot. As did the woodpecker.

We did hear the Gibbons very close by, but sadly they were too elusive for us to catch a glimpse.

The Zippers on our Classic Tour.

After a wee practice with harnesses, we moved onto the beginner zipline, only 50mts long and not the huge clearance from the forest below that we would experience later.

Zip line lengths ranged between.

Shortest : 50 m

Average : 235 m

Longest : 570 m

Once familiar, we hiked to the zip line crossroads, where, after another supervised round of zip line runs ( across and back a few times), we were left to zip supervision free.

The honeymoon tree house was the first sighted and was ours for the 3 days, but access in or out, was only by zipline.

We settled into our house with glorious views over the tree canopy as the rest of the crew hiked the 30 minutes more to their home in the trees.

The guides were keen to celebrate our arrival and welcome us to the honeymoon suite with a few shots of home made “happy water” whiskey. Certainly warming.

Our 3 course dinner was zip lined in and served and after a while we were left to enjoy the tranquility of the evening forest sounds, while they zipped back to ground level, a hut and a fire.

Until….the wind picked up, and started to toss the trees around. Zipping hurriedly back to ensure our safety, the guides arrived, just in case we had to evacuate. ( the previous guests had had to do so during an electrical storm)

To fill in time while waiting for the storm to abate, we taught the guides A dice game, with mandatory shots of whisky…or gin.

After an hour or so they considered it safe for us to be left alone and we prepared for a night of fantastic jungle noises, insects and bats.

It was a glorious dawn, and our breakfast was zipped in by our lovely chef,

another feast, and then we headed off for a day of stepping off precipitous ledges, exploring and zipping across incredible valleys, checking out the many different tree houses

and having a lot of laughs and a fabulous time with our new multinational zip line compatriots from Austria, Switzerland and the USA.

Lunch at their house a few more zips then it was back home to honeymoon heaven in the trees.

All in all we did well over 20 zips in a day and zipped back to our home in the trees completely exhilarated.

The rain came down through the night, lovely to listen too in our lofty mosquito net and the temperature had dropped so sleeping was easier and the rain was lovely to listen to.

The plan was to head to the look out in search of Gibbons at 6.00am but at 5.30 we heard rumbling on the zip lines as the guides excitedly arrived to tell us that the gibbons were only a few trees away. Listen!

We listened and recorded their chattering but couldn’t see them. So…we zipped out of the perfect view point and crashed on foot cross country through the forest , thinking that we’d get a glimpse that way. Lol! 😂

They took off. The Gibbons that is!

Breakfast was zipped in and then came the rain again. It was now too wet for zip lining as braking is impossible on the wet cables.

Luckily our guides arrived to take care of us and help us fill in the time playing Whiskey Jenga. 🤪

A bit rough at that time of the morning.

One of the guides was disadvantaged by dropping the blocks a few too many times, so Andrew kindly took his shots for our safety. 🤣

Beautiful forest

In no time the rain stopped, and we were packed up and off to play on the ziplines with our multinational friends once more before putting out backpacks on and zipping and hiking the last kilometres back to the village to have our farewell lunch.