Gibbons & Tree-houses

One of the main things we wanted to do in Laos was the "Gibbon Experience." It's a 3-day, 2-night tour where you go into the jungle, sleep in tree-houses, zip-line through the jungle, and look for gibbons.

The brochure said "light" hiking, but there was absolutely NOTHING light about it. I brought horrible shoes, so I had a lot of problems. It was an hour & a half hike in to the main kitchen, then another hour hike to our tree-house (with some zip-lines along the way).

Here's our tree-house. We had to zip-line to it.And here's the line on the other end.And inside the tree-house.

You can see our "bathroom" in the back on the left...the only thing separating it from everything else was a sheet. And it was VERY windy!

The view from our tree-house...

And we even got all of our meals delivered.

Our 2nd day there, we went on a hike to some waterfalls. I had to turn back because I was having problems with my shoes (I basically brought flip-flops & was sliding out of my shoes...I ended up taking them off & hiking barefoot). I ended up turning back right before the leeches got REALLY bad, but I still got 4! Here are the photos from the rest of the hike...

The last day, the guides told us to be ready by 4:00 am to go look for the gibbons...of course they didn't show until 5:00. It was crazy, because it was all foggy...so we were riding zip-lines in this...We didn't get to see the gibbons, but we did hear them. On the hike back, we found these strange little bugs that looked like flowers...they really are bugs...seriously!"The Gibbon Experience" was awesome! If you'll be in Laos & are interested in doing it, here's their website: http://gibbonx.org/. And I should say, I am terrified of heights, but I loved doing this! I just wish I brought better shoes!

Songkran

I thought that this was going to have to be a boring post without pictures because we used Chad's camera during Songkran because it's waterproof...and we lost his camera on his birthday (story coming soon). Well, the camera has been found (again, story coming soon) so you will get to appreciate the chaos/fun of Songkran in Chaing Mai.

We flew from Burma to Chaing Mai (with a slight layover in Bangkok) on the 13th. We got into Chaing Mai at 5:00 & took a taxi from the airport with the thought that the taxi is closed so we wouldn't get wet. Well, we made it to the guesthouse just fine, but then we decided to walk to 7/11 for a beer...it's less than a block away so I was hoping that we would make it without getting wet. Wrong! I made it to the store & there were a bunch of guys with buckets of water & I ended up soaking wet! Of course Chad escaped completely dry.

The next day was the day we planned on "playing water" (as the Thais call it). And what fun!

Everyone was using moat-water & it was pretty gross. There were all sorts of floaty things in it...but all's fair during Songkran!
Do you see the lady sneaking up behind Chad?!?

This little girl had the glare down. Chad was trying to convince her that it was ok to splash him with water, but I think she was afraid of ruining the camera.

That is until Tess poured water on her.

And if the water-fighting wasn't enough to get you wet, you could always soak in a kiddie-pool...

Or a garbage can...
Or you could go swimming in the moat itself...(although, to give this guy credit, his friend pushed him into the moat & he couldn't even swim)

But he wasn't the only one...

We got SOAKED with the hose.


One day of this craziness is enough to tire you out. That night, we went out for a few drinks
then got on a bus headed for Laos the next morning.