The Gibbon Experience: Huay Xai and Nam Kan National Park, Laos

The gibbon is a small ape that lives in the tropical jungle. All its species are listed as either endangered or even critically endangered, largely due to hunting and the loss or degradation of their forest habitats. Given this fact, we should have known that wild gibbon sightings would be rare, if not impossible, in the jungles of northern Laos. But there we were—going back to Laos less than three years after we first visited and venturing north this time to hit up the highly-regarded Gibbon Experience.

The Gibbon Experience is a social enterprise and tour company that looks to reverse the damage of decades of illegal logging, commercial cropping, and unsustainable slash-and-burn practices in the Bokeo forest of Laos, through conservation efforts to preserve and rebuild the gibbon’s natural habitat while providing jobs to the local community and bringing tourists on a unique adventure. One can only enter this part of the forest on tours that take visitors through the jungle, ziplining, hiking, and spending their nights up in astounding treehouses built into the forest treetops, all while trying to get a glimpse of the endangered gibbons.

We had actually heard of the Gibbon Experience ten years ago in late 2009—we didn’t have time back then to veer off from Chiang Mai, Thailand, to go into Laos, so we put it on our mental list, hoping to return one day. Then, in 2017, we had the good fortune of visiting Laos, but again did not have time to experience the gibbons, since it is located a bit out of the way in the northern forests along Laos’ border with Thailand. The third time’s a charm: we weren’t going to let this opportunity go by again while we were in the region this time, so we left Chiang Rai on a bus headed directly for Huay Xai, the tiny border town in the Bokeo Province of Laos where the Gibbon Experience takes off.

The bus ride and border crossing from Chiang Rai to Huay Xai were a representative welcome into Laos— easy-going, low-key, and sparsely populated. We crossed one of the four Friendship Bridges between the two countries, and then entered the Laos border control, where we were immediately reminded of why we love Laos so much: no one else was around except for the handful of us on our bus; we had to include an extra $1 for “overtime fees” on top of the $35 processing fee for our visa-on-arrival, since it was a Saturday afternoon and we guess they don’t appreciate needing to man the border on weekends; one guy who was with us didn’t have enough cash for his visa, so they instructed him to just go past immigration for an ATM—even though he didn’t have his visa yet. Laos, so chill.

So when we say Huay Xai is a tiny border town, we mean it. Sitting alongside the Mekong River with good views of the sun setting over Thailand on the other side, Huay Xai has one main strip of a few restaurants and guesthouses that’s walkable in about ten minutes. A pretty Buddhist temple sits up on a small hill, and when they ring their evening gong for daily chanting, the whole town can hear it. Practically every foreigner in Huay Xai is there to either go on the Gibbon Experience or to take the slow boat to Luang Prabang, or both (like us). And the main hostel in town, managed on a daily basis by two European volunteers, is called The Little Hostel because it only has eight beds; we can vouch that it’s indeed very little and very cute. It’s also a two minute walk from the Gibbon Experience office.

On the morning of our three-day, two-night Gibbon Experience tour in Nam Kan National Park, we joined a group of about 25 other visitors in that office to get our briefing before the tour. In between interesting facts we learned about the company’s community efforts and treehouses that morning (e.g. thirty of the company’s guides are recruited from the local village inside the national park, with more working as cooks and other positions; there are eight guest treehouses in the park, the tallest one sitting 140 feet up), we also learned one critical piece of information that we had somehow overlooked when we booked the tour: we would be hooking ourselves in and out of long zipline cables flying high over the jungle valleys and mountains. Wait, what?? It was not until that moment that we learned we would mostly be relying on ourselves to ensure that our carabiners are in place and that we would not fall to our deaths while ziplining; we had thought that professional, well-trained guides would be in charge of our lives, the way Michael was when he was a zipline guide back with Princeville Ranch Adventures in Kauai (many, many years ago). Better yet, the briefing video highlighted all sorts of ziplining tips and tricks that Michael had deliberately taught his guests not to do (such as grabbing the cable and “monkeying” our way to the end of a zipline with our hands if we didn’t make it all the way to the end). Apparently, we were one of the few guests who had not yet watched the YouTube videos online about the Gibbon Experience, which showed people clipping themselves in.

The large group of mostly Dutch travelers was quickly divided into the two-day “express tour” folks and the three-day “classics tour” folks, and then halved again after about a mile into our jungle hike, as we split into groups that would share the same treehouse together over the next two nights. We ended up in the lovable “Treehouse 1” in a group of eight, comprised of a French couple and six Americans (including us)— which was rare, both because there were no Dutch in our group, and because up until then, we had not yet met that many other Americans on our trip.

As it turned out, we did not end up seeing any gibbons during our tour over the next three days, even though we woke up at sunrise each morning to try to catch them at the most opportune time, high up in our treehouse. (Well, one guy from our group did see one for a few seconds on the first day, when he was up on a ziplining platform with a guide, but the rest of us did not see it before it scampered away.) However, as we soon learned, with this group, it didn’t matter; we all had an amazing time anyway, appreciating the rest of the secrets that the Lao jungle had to offer. You know what they say: when life doesn’t give you gibbons, you make your own gibbons. And so we did.

Interestingly, unlike most of the great apes (orangutans, chimpanzees), gibbons frequently form long-term pair bonds, often staying with the same mate for life.[1] In the same fashion, our group of eight were four long-bonded couples in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties. One had been together for over ten years, also having met in college like us; another was twelve years apart in age, but never felt closer after having worked together and been together for over five years; and the last one continues to work together now as they take a joint sabbatical together for their current adventure. All are similarly traveling for awhile—anywhere from six to twelve months—which immediately put us all on the same page, pace, and mindset.

Like all primates, gibbons are also incredibly social animals. The eight of us were no different, and it didn’t take long for us to get quite comfortable with each other. The standard pleasantries were exchanged within the first couple hours—where everyone was from, what their travel plans were, and what kind of work they did before they quit to embark on said travel plans (except the French, because they get things like sabbaticals). Before long, we were squealing with glee (or fear, or both) and cheering each other on as we all jumped off cliffs to glide over the vibrant lush valleys.

Gibbons are also among nature’s best brachiators, which means that they are extremely talented at swinging from tree to tree using only their arms. This makes them the fastest and most agile of all tree-dwelling, non-flying mammals. While our group had to use a bit more than just our arms, all of us quickly went from taking minutes at the beginning of each zipline—making sure our harness was on correctly, clipping on our two carabiners, and triple-checking the direction of our cable rollers—to needing just seconds before take-off, GoPros and phone selfies in one hand and rubber brake gripped by the other hand. Embodying the gibbons, we covered a lot of ground flying from treetop treetop. By the end, we think we went on over fifty ziplines over three days (we lost count, since we went on many of them twice, and multiple times on some of our favorite routes). Our longest zipline spanned almost 400 meters, or 1,300 feet, which is long enough to allow for quiet breaths of awe and appreciation as we dangled up there, over a hundred feet above the jungle floor, taking in the untouched scenery all around and below us.

At one juncture, they set us free to go round and round on a course of six ziplines as many times as we wanted, like kids on a playground. Many of us zipped till sunset, as twilight blanketed the forest canopy with its soft glow of pinks and golds, gleaming off of large palm fronds and broad trunks. We soared above it all, enjoying our view of the mountains in the distance and the lushness below us; for a moment, we could imagine what a gibbon (or a drone) must see on a daily basis from their unique vantage points.

The best part, though, was ziplining in and out of the treehouses themselves, both our own home and on a tour of the other treehouses throughout the national park. Each is different and unique, built high up into the tallest trees in its area, with small kitchens, bathrooms, showers, comfortable beds, and amazing views. We appreciated how each treehouse was designed to fit into the branches and crevices of each tree (or trees) that cradle it, blending into the natural surroundings and usually featuring some unique architectural asset, such as a second-floor watchtower, a zipline entry with a landing pad directly into the treehouse kitchen, or a zipline exit that required a steep leap off the side of the house. There is even a cute little treehouse luxuriously outfitted for honeymooners. Our group simultaneously admired all the other treehouses, while recognizing that ours was the best of the bunch; this makes sense, as gibbons are strongly territorial, and defend their boundaries with vigorous visual and vocal displays. We were certainly vocal about it, and our territorial displays may have included siphoning extra “Lao Lao,” or locally-made moonshine whiskey, from each of the other houses, since our own stash had run out after the first night. The gibbons would have done the same.

To be fair, our treehouse really was the best. Sporting four different levels and many viewing decks, Treehouse 1B is the largest one (Treehouse 1A apparently burned down in a fire in 2011). Flying in and out of it every single day (including multiple repetitions during “practice evacuation drills;” see Treehouse 1A) put an immediate smile on our faces and made us feel like we were part of the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. It embodied all of our childhood treehouse dreams come true. Even the cold showers were great because they were outdoors and opened up to beautiful views of the jungle’s green palate (and we could watch the shower’s water fall directly below our feet, through the wooden slats, and down one hundred feet to the steamy jungle ground below us). And yes, even going to the bathroom up in the treehouse was fun—or at least funny. Fortunately, unlike the shower water, our pee and poop did not fly off the high treehouse platforms; there was a pipe running up the length of the tree trunk that led to some sort of septic system down below (this is a luxury tour, after all!). But, the bathroom was still open air, so we were staring out at leafy treetops and giant black squirrels as we pooped. (We often mistook sightings of giant black squirrels for gibbons, until our zipline guide told us we were wrong, since gibbons do not have tails.) And, with just a curtain separating the bathroom from the rest of the treehouse, everyone could hear each other; we got to know the cold water tolerance and bowel movement patterns of our new friends really quickly. We told you we all got quite comfortable with each other; poop talk happened early and often.

At night, the crickets were loud and the darkness was thick; we could barely see the outlines of the trees that surrounded us. Dim lights, powered by a small car battery, highlighted the treehouse stairs and pathways, but no other electricity, internet, or phone service existed. After finishing the delicious traditional Lao dinners shortly after sunset, we filled the dark nighttime hours with cards, conversation, and Lao Lao. We taught the other couples how to play Spades, made up our own versions of some Lao games that our guide taught us, and generally got to know each other, both as fellow travelers offering travel tips, and as friends. It was actually astonishing how much basic groundwork is already laid upon meeting fellow Americans, something we had forgotten as we had not hung out with any Americans for months. The same cultural references—of the same sports athletes, memorable commercials, or hit songs from our youth—led to a unique bonding amongst the group.

Or maybe it was because we conquered the meng mooms together.

Almost two hours into playing cards on the first night, a spider—or a “meng moom” in Lao—dropped down on a single thread of web, right into the center of our card table. First, there was just one scream from the guy who first saw it. Then, we all glanced up at the ceiling where the spider came from, which quickly elicited eight screams: two additional giant spiders hovered above us, likely having eyed us for hours already and waiting for the right moment to pounce. Eight adults who had just fearlessly zipped around the jungle all day, defying heights and personal safety standards, were suddenly cowed down by three—albeit fairly large—spiders. After screaming and cursing, we debated whether to evacuate the treehouse using our prior evacuation training. We wondered how we would call our guide, who had left us hours ago, if we really needed help or got bit by a poisonous meng moom (if eight westerners scream in the forest and no one was around to hear it, did they really scream at all?). We searched the treehouse for more meng mooms, and found them. We started drawing up a timetable of one-hour shifts for all of us to rotate as “watchmen” throughout the night, keeping an eye on the meng mooms while everyone else slept.

And then, after much commotion and hilarity, we decided there was nothing we could do, and went to bed. The meng mooms were there in Treehouse 1 before us, and they would be there after us. On our second night, we saw them there again, hanging out in their usual corners, watching over us as we named our new game after them. So now, if you ever learn to play Meng Moom, the Laotian spoon-card game, you’ll know it came from us.

Whether it may have been more aptly named as the Giant Black Squirrel Experience or the Meng Moom Experience, we ultimately understood why the Gibbon Experience is so named—not because one actually sees any gibbons, but because one becomes like a gibbon, flying through the jungle and forming long-lasting social bonds throughout Southeast Asia.

Karen & Michael

Huay Xai and Nam Kan National Park, Laos, November 30-December 3, 2019

[1] Thanks to Wikipedia for its information on gibbons, and thanks to Treehouse 1 for embodying said gibbons.

Scroll and click through below for videos of us ziplining