Close Calls & Cabling (Pai, TH)

What a week!

First off, there were a few close calls in various areas. A day of a temperature and inability to move turned out not to be Dengue Fever after all, even though that was clearly the calm and obvious diagnosis to assume. Then there was the overcrowded bus ride where I shared a supplemental folding seat in the aisle with my Dutch friend Rosha for 4 hours and fell asleep on the shoulder of the less than pleased Lao man next to me while we drove through minor landslides. I woke up to bits of dirt and rocks from the steep hillside next to the road hitting the windows and wheels. And best of all there was the moment when 4 plus hours into a 6 hour boat ride in the freezing cold the engine blew in middle of a deserted section of fast moving water (rapids is a strong word, but it was no lazy river). Once we were definitively stranded on a river island, the boat driver told us to sleep on the beach. We were talking sleeping bags and water rations when just as it started getting dark a passing boat of local men grudgingly collected us for a significant fee. Oh the unplanned Asian adventure!

On the more intentional end of the spectrum there was great independent cave exploration in Nong Khiaw with some fun Australians, a long walk to the Chinese border, and strolling through various Akha and Yao villages playing with kids and watching old ladies needlepoint.

Then came the Gibbon Experience. My English vocabulary is far too pathetic to describe the last 3 days of my life, but I'll give it a shot for your benefit. In a very small nutshell, Bokeo is a reserve in Laos, close to the Thai border that historically has been hard to protect from poaching. This French guy decided to try to tackle the environmental issues without having a negative impact on local villages within and around the reserve. The genius result is a series of treehouses in the middle of the jungle connected by a series of cables. It's an entirely word of mouth ecotourism destination and possibly the most amazing place on the planet. The money brought in by visitors goes to the local staff and to the training and education of Forest Guards, essentially park rangers who patrol for poachers. Wildlife numbers are up, poaching numbers are down, and the villages couldn't be more enthusiastic.

Most people who do the Gibbon Experience start from the office in the border town of Huay Xai and head north together, but I was coming from Luang Nam Tha to the north already so instead Sunday I took a bus to a village called Ban Donchai and spent the night. The bus driver yelled when we were passing through and I got off thinking I had to walk to the town because all I could see was a roadside shop and two or three other grass huts. Turns out that was Ban Donchai.

Someone threw a delicious Beer Lao in my hands and said "treehouse, treehouse" and that was about the extent of the English. I bathed in the river, learned to count to 10 in Lao, slept in a bungalow next to the roadside shop/gas station/restaurant, and had to climb over a huge pig to get to the bathroom. It was great. In the morning a truck picked me up with 7 other people - 2 Canadian guys, an American girl, a Dutch couple, an Indian/Australian dude, and my long lost English friend Rich. We drove a bit further, through a river and up a rough road, and got dropped in a tiny village. Then we hiked into the jungle for a bit over an hour and arrived at the Gibbon Experience kitchen - a hut with some fires and women hard at work. We got harnesses and carabiners and climbed a bit further up the hill to a platform for the first cable. One at a time we hooked on to it and zipped into Treehouse 1, a 3 story treehouse hundreds of feet over the ground. We ate delicious Lao food, hung out with the pet baby monkey, and zipped about on an entire series of cables through the jungle for 3 days. The first night I slept in Treehouse 3 which is about 45 minutes of cabling and walking away from Treehouse 1. There's running water, the best shower I've used in months, you can drink the tap water, and everything organic you just toss over the railing to the pigs below for composting. Looking down on the canopy you can see animals there don't even seem to be words for in English. The second day I did an optional insanely difficult 8 hour hike to an incredible swimming hole. I got leeches along the way and tons of scratches and bruises and it was totally great. We ate lunch in an unfinished treehouse that will eventually connect with cables all the way back to the first and third ones. By the time we left the forest yesterday it was the last thing on earth any of us wanted and I for one was pretty damn sure I could live in a treehouse forever.


If you don't have plans to visit Laos, I suggest you make some. Crossing the border was gutting. Now I'm back in Thailand. Hippy Pai to be exact. More like touristy wannabe hippy Pai really. But cute enough. I ate a bagel this morning. A decent bagel. Not just for Thailand decent, but an actual decent bagel. That's how touristy we're talking. Tomorrow I move on, hopefully to do some trekking, then to Chiang Mai, and in a week, to the beach!

I'm sorry I didn't get to wish anyone a Merry Christmukah. I hope you all had fabulous holiday seasons. Here's to a phenomenal 2006. Happy New Year!