Day 58 - Somewhere in the jungle
Dawn is breaking and I am peering into the canopy 40 metres above me. Bec, Lieke, Csilla, Sil and Liset are peering too but nothing is happening. But then a low howl. And a response. 'Howl' may be a poor description because as our guide, Champy, tells us, the gibbons hidden in the treetops are singing. As the whole family joins in though it becomes an other-worldly electronic noise like nothing else I've ever heard. It vibrates through the foliage breaking the new day's stillness. We all sit unmoving but moved by the intensity of the sound. We can't see them but such is the volume they could be metres away. Laying eyes on the gibbons has become increasingly difficult. There is now only one family in this area, down from three. When COVID hit and tourism in the area disappeared desperation drove local villagers to hunt the gibbons to sell to the Chinese. Truly, greviously depressing. Fuck traditional medicine and the ignorant, world-eating scum that buys it. There aren't many people I'd actually like to relieve of their oxygen-stealing lives but they would be amongst them. The gibbon's songs were the climax of three days of trekking, zip-lining and sleeping in a treehouse in the Laotian jungle. It was as cool as it sounds. And I'm only here on a whim. During the bus ride to Laos I'd been checking the price of a tuk-tuk to the border crossing. The website I found told me but also made a passing reference to 'The Gibbon Experience'. With time to kill I'd looked into it. Glowing reviews got me interested and when I checked the booking site they had availability for the next day and then nothing for a week. I don't believe in fate or that things are 'meant to be'. That thinking is driven by a desperation to understand the vagaries of the universe without a deistic overlay but it makes no more sense simply because you extract gods and probably less. It was simply an unlikely opportunity for a wonderful diversion.
I don't like heights. I sometimes torment myself by imagining I'm on a ledge at some fatal altitude or hanging from a crane hook.
I should talk to someone about that probably. But I found myself fearless in the trees. Happily launching myself onto 240 metre zip-lines, 120 metres in the air. Starting on small wooden platforms amongst the trees the ground falls away and the jungle landscape opens up on both sides with incredible views over valleys and hills swathed in lush vegetation. My determination to attain the highest speed and arrive at the opposite platform at maximum velocity meant that the guides were repeatedly pointing out how to use the brake. If you don't maintain good speed you stop short of the platform and have to turn and pull yourself hand over hand along the zip-line so I stick with my method. Perhaps it's too improbable being up here flying through the trees for me to be scared. Whatever the case my decision is rewarded again and again. The enjoyment is helped in no small part by a great group of people to do it with. One English (me), three Dutch, an Australian and a Hungarian. And local guides with varying degrees of verbosity from Atit's competent English through Champy's halting but game efforts to Bounmi's brooding silence.
They all took great care of us and were clearly invested in the work they were doing. They would arrive at the treehouse in which we slept with coffee and breakfast in the morning, happy water (local spirit) and dinner in the evening. They'd then take themselves back, having cleared up, to the hut in which they slept at the other end of the zip-line. Outstanding and ungrudging service.
Flashback to the first night and a flash in the sky. It's just before bedtime and the forest is saturated in darkness. Until for a second it isn't. We'd been told of the chance of thunderstorms during our initial brief. We'd been told of the risk to tall trees if one passed over, tall trees like the one we were about to sleep in. We'd been told of the treehouse that was hit by lightning last year. We'd been told that electrocuted tourists were bad for business and to be prepared to evacuate should it be needed. Another flash and the sharp outline of the trees all around us is suddenly visible. A deep and guttural rumble followed and then the whirring sound of people on zip-lines. Champy and Bounmi landed and within seconds we were strapping out harnesses on. Thankfully none of us were down to our nightgowns so the evacuation had some dignity to it. I don't know the wisdom of hanging from long metal wires in a thunderstorm but it seemed preferable to waiting for our wooden house to burst into flames. We were all out within a minute, a respectable time we were told. Sat outside the guide's hut we watched one of nature's best shows as rain pattered down. The next day we trekked to a cluster of houses where some locals lived and Lieke taught us to make birds from palm leaves. We chewed on a local plant that helps with diahorrea though the taste was so bad that I would choose arse-splattering mayhem every time. Tastier were the yellow leaf-cutter ants with their lemony flavour.
The rest of the day was spent zip-lining. In the evening we watched forest fires from the treehouse. About 1km away they floated black ashes through the air around us like we were in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have retreated to the treetops. By the morning whole patches of forest were just blackened stumps. These man-made fires were despite the fact we were in a national park. Until you can remove the need for people to exploit the forest just to live then nothing will change. 
The evening finished with drinking games and the forfeit of imbibing copious amounts of happy water. Atit was more than happy to get us plastered at a lethal height, and himself as well given how bad he was at the games. After having our gibbon experience on the morning of day three we packed and reluctantly left our treehouse. Back at basecamp we enthused to the new group that was to take our place about what lay ahead for them. And we necked beer, our first cold drink in three days. And, more than anything else, we revelled in the majesty of travel where plans can turn on a pinhead, new friendships are seemlessly made and you can crouch in the jungle as dawn breaks and hear nature in all its unforgettable wonder.
Dawn is breaking and I am peering into the canopy 40 metres above me. Bec, Lieke, Csilla, Sil and Liset are peering too but nothing is happening. But then a low howl. And a response. 'Howl' may be a poor description because as our guide, Champy, tells us, the gibbons hidden in the treetops are singing. As the whole family joins in though it becomes an other-worldly electronic noise like nothing else I've ever heard. It vibrates through the foliage breaking the new day's stillness. We all sit unmoving but moved by the intensity of the sound. We can't see them but such is the volume they could be metres away. Laying eyes on the gibbons has become increasingly difficult. There is now only one family in this area, down from three. When COVID hit and tourism in the area disappeared desperation drove local villagers to hunt the gibbons to sell to the Chinese. Truly, greviously depressing. Fuck traditional medicine and the ignorant, world-eating scum that buys it. There aren't many people I'd actually like to relieve of their oxygen-stealing lives but they would be amongst them. The gibbon's songs were the climax of three days of trekking, zip-lining and sleeping in a treehouse in the Laotian jungle. It was as cool as it sounds. And I'm only here on a whim. During the bus ride to Laos I'd been checking the price of a tuk-tuk to the border crossing. The website I found told me but also made a passing reference to 'The Gibbon Experience'. With time to kill I'd looked into it. Glowing reviews got me interested and when I checked the booking site they had availability for the next day and then nothing for a week. I don't believe in fate or that things are 'meant to be'. That thinking is driven by a desperation to understand the vagaries of the universe without a deistic overlay but it makes no more sense simply because you extract gods and probably less. It was simply an unlikely opportunity for a wonderful diversion.
I don't like heights. I sometimes torment myself by imagining I'm on a ledge at some fatal altitude or hanging from a crane hook.
Flashback to the first night and a flash in the sky. It's just before bedtime and the forest is saturated in darkness. Until for a second it isn't. We'd been told of the chance of thunderstorms during our initial brief. We'd been told of the risk to tall trees if one passed over, tall trees like the one we were about to sleep in. We'd been told of the treehouse that was hit by lightning last year. We'd been told that electrocuted tourists were bad for business and to be prepared to evacuate should it be needed. Another flash and the sharp outline of the trees all around us is suddenly visible. A deep and guttural rumble followed and then the whirring sound of people on zip-lines. Champy and Bounmi landed and within seconds we were strapping out harnesses on. Thankfully none of us were down to our nightgowns so the evacuation had some dignity to it. I don't know the wisdom of hanging from long metal wires in a thunderstorm but it seemed preferable to waiting for our wooden house to burst into flames. We were all out within a minute, a respectable time we were told. Sat outside the guide's hut we watched one of nature's best shows as rain pattered down. The next day we trekked to a cluster of houses where some locals lived and Lieke taught us to make birds from palm leaves. We chewed on a local plant that helps with diahorrea though the taste was so bad that I would choose arse-splattering mayhem every time. Tastier were the yellow leaf-cutter ants with their lemony flavour.
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