We arrived via our slow boat in the tiny border town of Huay Xai, Laos ready for one of my most-anticipated adventures of the trip – The Gibbons Experience. After a couple friends had done it a few years ago, I knew that if I ever made it to Laos this would have to be on my list. [Editor’s note: I do most/all of the travel planning for us, which means I research all our countries, identify what we’re going to do and then get Jess’s (mostly) rubber stamp for us to proceed. With that said, The Gibbon’s Experience was one of the handful of attractions/destinations that she has always insisted on us doing during this trip. Thus, while I really loved the experience and consider it a true highlight, this is her baby.] It’s a 3-day, 2-night excursion through the jungle with treehouses to stay in that can only be accessed via ziplines, along with various other ziplines strewn throughout the jungle. Think of it like camping, but way more fun and unique. These treehouses are the highest in the world (the brochure claims, “except for maybe some indigenous tribes somewhere”) at heights ranging from 100-130 feet up in the trees, and the jungle is a newly protected area as of the last decade. [Editor’s note: They specifically ensure that the treehouses are each elevated high enough so that you can look out over the jungle canopy below. While the quality of views vary between each of the treehouses, there is definitely no such thing as a “bad view” in this process.] The company that runs Gibbons contributes a ton to local conservation in the area, employing exclusively locals and educating about the value of protecting the forest for the benefits of tourism in the area. It’s a wonderful mix of fantastic adventure and scenery coupled with a good cause. Sign us up!
We arrived at the office in town and watched a safety video that very carefully showed us how to use all the zipline harnesses and equipment. Immediately after it was over, an employee informed us that the actual harnesses we’d be using in the forest were new and different, so we’d learn how to use them once we got there. So much for the video! After a couple of hours of bouncing around in the back of a tuk tuk, we arrived in a small village deep in the forest and set off on foot. We brought only day packs with just what we needed for the two nights and left the rest of our bags at the office, which was a good thing because it turned out we needed to zipline with all our stuff to get to our treehouse! When we stopped to get our harnesses partway through the hike, we split up into groups based on how many people each treehouse could hold. We ended up joining a group of five friends we’d met in the tuk tuk ride to the forest. It turned out to be an amazing group of people, coincidentally all from a variety of English-speaking countries: we represented USA, Canada, England, Australia, and New Zealand within just seven of us! This group made our entire experience awesome and really added to the enjoyment of the activity. [Editor’s note: The awesomeness of our group (super social, gregarious and bantery, which is delightful cocktail of traits) became all the more apparent when we got to know the other groups a little better. They were so damn boring and awkward, it caused us to profusely thank our group for adopting us and them thanking us for joining along.]
Enthusiastically hiking into the jungle with my trusty bamboo stick and a beer handed to me at the beginning.
An example of some of the interesting bamboo that we hiked through in the jungle.
Being instructed on proper harness usage at our first zipline.
The path through the jungle consisted of muddy, steep trails through dense bamboo forest, punctuated every 10-20 minutes with a thrilling zipline. [Editor’s note: The sporadic rainfall in the region meant that the paths were brutally muddy and slippery. Given my highly deficient balance/coordination, I fell often and hard while hiking through the jungle (surprise, surprise – my makeshift bamboo walking stick barely helped). That was a suboptimal component of this otherwise glorious experience.] Some were shorter runs, but some were insanely high up and zipped us out across valleys with vistas over the treetops as far as you could see. [Editor’s note: Some of the ziplines went to very large and comfortable platforms, while others went to tiny, sloped ones dangling off a tree in a manner that felt sketchy no matter how many safety harnesses we were wearing.] I felt like I was in the nature documentary Planet Earth – it really felt like an untouched wilderness that had barely been explored (and in fact, that’s probably not too far off).
The first afternoon we zipped and hiked our way to our treehouse, which vastly exceeded my expectations. We had a triple-level treehouse with a common hangout/eating area, a small kitchen with sink and camping stove, and even a bathroom with rainwater plumbing (and an amazing view!). We slept on foam mattresses with a sheet strung up around us as a combination privacy screen/mosquito net, all of which gave the impression of being in a really cool fort with absolutely insane views out over the side. Because there is no way into the treehouse other than ziplining, our meals were also delivered via zipline by local women who cooked the food at a separate kitchen building, then slung a tote bag over their shoulders and casually zipped in to deliver them to us. It was fantastic. [Editor’s note: We lacked “adult supervision” in the treehouse (nobody from the agency stayed with us at night), so we ate whenever we pleased and generally had our rule of the roost.] Because there’s not much to do after dark (the treehouses, mercifully, do not have WiFi), we hung out with our new friends, played cards, had drinks and chatted into the evening. Besides being pretty cold once the sun went down, it was really fun.
View of a treehouse from the other end of the zipline.
A screenshot of one of the other treehouses, which was extracted from a mid-zipline video taken with my GoPro.
Our “bedroom” in the treehouse (note that this is without our cloth “fort”).
Resting and enjoying the view from one of the treehouses.
Chatting and munching on snacks with some of the rest of our group in the living room/dining room/kitchen of our treehouse. (Large men + tiny stools/table = bad/amusing)
Unfortunately, it was raining the morning of the second day when we awoke. The plan had been to visit the other treehouses before lunch by hiking and ziplining our way through the jungle, but we persuaded our guide to let us wait until the afternoon to see if the rain would let up. It did, and we had a great afternoon exploring the rest of the Gibbons Experience trails and ziplines (doing roughly 35+ over the course of our 3 days if you include ones that we rode multiple times), including their longest one that was over 500 meters long (1600 feet) and 150 meters high (500 feet)! (We did that one twice.) We also got to see the other treehouses, which were all unique – some with better views, and some bigger or smaller – but we were convinced we had the best one out of all of them. [Editor’s note: Having three separate levels to our treehouse made a huge difference. We were able to have a dedicated common area on the main level, along with our bedroom. Then a second level with another small bedroom and, finally, the top level with a larger space for several people. It was large enough that the 7 of us never really felt cramped.] After another evening of cards, snacks, and chatting, we spent our second night in the trees before finishing the trip on the third day reluctantly saying goodbye to our home in the treetops with still more ziplining and hiking back out to civilization. [Editor’s note: This was the only time when anyone dropped anything from the treehouses or the ziplines. One of our friends, Callum, dropped his flashlight over the edge at one point. Otherwise, everyone emerged with their lives and possessions intact. Pretty solid success rate if you ask me.]
Look at that platform and those views as Jess is in midair! Amazing ziplining!
Rorie utilizing the ziplining form (legs and booty as far up as possible) in order to maximize speed on the lines.
Look at how long that zipline is as Jess flies along!
View from the balcony of a treehouse of Jess ziplining.
Jungle trekking/ziplining selfie!
Overall, I absolutely loved the Gibbons Experience. The only downsides were that we did not, sadly, see any wild gibbons, although we did hear them one morning in the distance! (Apparently sightings are really rare, so this wasn’t too much of a surprise.) It was also really cold at night, and the trails were pretty muddy – but other than that, the whole experience exceeded my expectations. The ziplines were higher, longer, and more beautiful and thrilling, and the treehouses were just incredible. After a few experiences we’d been looking forward to that weren’t as awesome as we had hoped (e.g. Halong Bay), I was prepared for this to be similar. Thankfully, that was not the case! [Editor’s note: I agree with Jess’s opinion here. We had an amazing time with this experience and couldn’t possibly be any more enthusiastic in recommending it to others. With that said, it’s important to note that while the treehouses/ziplining/jungle was exemplary, much of this praise is due to the awesome group of people we shared it with. That’s truly the tiebreaker that put this over the top, but you can’t really count on this happening all the time – sometimes you just get lucky, which we clearly did.]
From Gibbons, we caught a tuk-tuk to the border, crossed on foot into Thailand and caught a bus to Chiang Mai. Next we’ll head to Pai, Thailand for some relaxation after our last few adventures!
Jess’s view mid-zipline with the GoPro (you can’t even see the end of the line!).
Mid-zipline selfie with the GoPro!
Awesome action shot captured with Jess’s fancy camera.
