Ziplining in Laos

Our stay in Laos was dedicated almost exclusively to the Gibbon Experience, a tour of sorts organized by a non-profit we’d heard about upon arrival in Thailand. The profits from this treehouse-ziplining adventure go to preserving the Bokeo Nature Reserve and the wildlife (including the Gibbon monkeys) that reside there.

The escapade began with a two-hour truck ride on a rough “road,” road being a loose term. In spite of my pot-hole induced nausea, I enjoyed watching Laotian children waving as we passed, with vigor exceeding that of even Thai children. On the journey we met two sweet Dutch girls named Naomi and Dare, who would soon become our treehouse-mates. We arrived at the border of the nature reserve in the afternoon, and began our uphill hike to our new home for the next few days: Treehouse Mak Hai. How did we enter our treehouse sweet treehouse? Ziplining, of course!


Our guide, Jeerjen (my spelling here is questionable), gave us a brief demonstration, showed us a small ziplining loop between our treehouse and another, then disappeared. This is something I love about Asia: things are hands off enough for me to zipline alone in a jungle, to pet a tiger, to do things on my own accord and at my own risk. Granted, some things are just plain dangerous, but in America we’ve swung to the other radical end of the safety spectrum, where people can’t do anything because of an over-obsessive fear of lawsuits.


Mak Hai treehouse was pretty cozy, and came with a cat we nicknamed Mao. He elevated himself to “good kitty” status the moment he started attacking bugs, but his forces weren’t strong enough for the insects that emerged at night. We were attacked by all sorts of blood suckers, but the worst were the bees. There were four large bee hives on our tree, and at night the sheer number of bees forced us to huddle under our mosquito nets, where we spent plenty of time talking and making up games. I love the moments when I remember how easy it is to have fun with nothing but other people.



We spent two mornings searching for Gibbon monkeys at 6am. Gibbons sang a tune every morning before commencing a search for food (our goal was to catch them while they were still singing). We got close enough to hear their strangely mesmerizing incantations and even saw some tree branches rustle, but we never actually spotted a gibbon clearly. Ultimately I didn’t mind, the thrill of ziplining made up for this small failure. Here’s a video I took while zipping:


I’m hoping to return to Laos to catch several things I missed, and to enjoy another glass of Beer Laos. Next stop on our journey was the most popular city in Thailand besides Bangkok: Chiang Mai.