Day 33 -36 "Rumble in the Jungle"

Well the day had arrived when we were to face the music of "The Gibbon Experience". Jo had been slowly starting to panic and Fred (my 9 year old) had suddenly seemed rather quite!! .................. what a result!
We grabbed breakfast at the cafe next door to the Gibbon office and then sat and watched our safety brief video, which was very short as we had already signed our lives away, absolving them of any responsibility whatsoever. It was starting to get hot already and we had a 2 hour trip in the back of a pick-up truck to get to our destination. Some of this was on road, although as to exactly who's road it was, was debatable, as on one occasion we were actually run off the road (fairly hairy actually!!) by a huge lorry coming round a sharp bend on our side of the road. The car in front of us braked heavily and we didn't have time to stop which caused our truck to veer off the road onto the gravel verge, just managing to stop before a huge drop!!! ..... without actually checking how many of us were still on the back of the truck our driver regained his position on the road and carried on. ........ reminiscent of the famous (Agatha Christie novel) Rene Clair movie (1945)... "and then there were None.........Four!!"

We soon left the road and hit dirt track, very bumpy dirt track and very long dirt track heading deep into the jungle, getting higher and higher. It was then we realised that actually this was going to be a very authentic experience. This really was deep South East Asian Jungle!! (complete with everything else that lived in here!!). We had been told that once we arrived at the village we had a 2 hour trek into the jungle before we reached our tree houses! With temperatures hitting 36 to 40 degrees and extremely humid, we were breaking out into a sweat just breathing! (Laos was experiencing a heat wave .... deep joy!), The trek was slow with plenty of steep climbs, but we had been assured by the pervious group back in the village who were just leaving, that it was worth it! .......... but be prepared to sweat! ............... really sweat!!

They weren't wrong, we were soon at the first zip wire of our trek to Treehouse number 3. This was the smallest Treehouse that slept 4 People, but was big enough for our family of 5 and the Treehouse with the most spectacular view. The other treehouses slept 8 people and our other groups divided up accordingly. I was quite woried about how the children would cope with the heights, as these zip wires were quite long (some nearly 1/2 mile! and several hundred feet up, crossing the valley, above the jungle canopy!!). I thought Imogen (our 7 year old) had better link up with our Laos guide, Simon, for the first run, which meant Fred (our 9 year old and a little less comfortable with heights) would have to go on his own!! ....... ok!! ........ first time for everything, and they all seemed up for it. .................... With a 3 minute talk from Simon, who spoke very little English, of always clip on safety cable first, then zip roller. To break, squeeze the tyre, on top of the roller, onto the cable (tyre being a section of bicycle tyre the you used to put your hand on top as you went along and squeeze the back of it on the cable if you needed to break) ............................ Robinson and Heath spring to mind!! There are 3 colours of tape on the cables; Yellow - safety cable on tree houses and launch areas; Green Tape: this is the zip wire run and Red Tape: dont use this one as it is a return zip wire! ............... "right .... lets go" ...... So with safety helmets distinctly absent! and wooly gardening gloves, purchsed from the local shop to protect your hands, on, we were off. ....................... well lets face it, this all added to the authenticity and freedom of the experience. After all, I hadn't seen Gibbons wearing safety helmets and they seemed to survive? ...................... whooooooooooooooohooooooooooooo!!! It can only be descibed as being unbelievably awesome! ................. the view was stunning!! .............. and you were hanging up there on your own on a zip wire, in the midle of nowhere, way above the jungle canopy, I would guess travelling at least 70km/h! ............. it was quite unbelievable! Harry and Imogen were ecstatic and even Fred was beside himself. The second zip wire we landed on a very small platform, at least 120' up a tree, with open timber floor and a small winding staircase to lead you to the next launch deck, curling around the trunk. ............................... to say this was high was an understatement and not really a lot of 'wood' to walk on, but with safety clip on yellow, if anything happened at least you wouldn't die!! ............ not sure Jo felt that way though! The 3rd zip wire took us straight into our treehouse, probably between 120 and 170' of the ground. The view from this treehouse was undescribable, looking over at least 15 small valleys of jungle, and as our tree house was on a high point the canopy of all these valleys was spread out way below us, making it even more impressive. This was to be our home for the next 3 days.

Can't remember hearing the safety briefing on what to do if you came across any of the many venomous snakes and other wierd and probably just as venomous creatures, that we were now living with .......................... but still at least we had the children for protection who would be any match for a mere Saw Scaled Viper, (on the list of top 10 deadliest snakes in SE Asia) or the Spectacled Cobra!!

These vipers are very quick tempered ............... a bit like somebody else I know!! ..... They are also very fast, their venom causing symptoms of swelling, bleeding gums, a drop in blood pressure and the heart rate falls. Vomiting and facial swelling occurs in about one third of cases and death or septacaemia, respiratory or cardiac failure may occur 1 to 14 days post bite, or even later!!! ................................. Fan..bl**dy .. tastic!! ...... Glad I didn't know about that before sleeping in a tree house in the jungle!!!! ..............................

We spent the afternoon trekking and running zip wires. It was exceptionally humid and hot, and never before have we all craved for the taste of water so much, but the zip wires made it worth while. We slowly worked our way over to treehouse 5, which was the furthest away from us, but allowed us to have fun on the longest zip wires on offer, between 500/600m in length. The height when half way across, hanging over the valley was quite surreal as the view was like looking out of an aeroplane! it was truley amazing! Walking through the Jungle would bring frequent stops to just catch our breath, drink more water, watch huge colourful butterflies dance around us as we walked, compare armies of small biting ants to their larger red cousins and even larger 'wooded' cousins; watch jumping white flower-like bugs that just looked stupid! and sucking the nectar out of red ground flowers that provided a nice sweet kick to keep us going.
Treehouse 5 was much larger than ours and getting out was probably the most daunting zip wire departure, as you had to hook up to the cable and sit on a single plank overhanging a 200' drop to the ground!! ............ then take a leap of faith!! The children were great, Imogen and Harry lapping it up and Fred, bless him, was also up for it, but did take a little time to adjust various pieces of equipment before convincing himself that he had to sit on the overhanging plank and trust his cable. ................... Once completed he was desperate to have another go!! ..... Jo also did fantastically well!

Treehouse 1 was like a 4 storey hotel!! Each of the upper floors were suspended in mid air by steel cables and the main house had a large open plan dining room complete with table and chairs. The cold water shower on the lower level was complete with a stunning jungle view.
It was a master piece of construction and apparently each house took 4 men almost a year to build. Each treehouse had a small kitchen sink with drinkable!! water, living area, sleeping area, and bathroom comprising sink, ceramic hole toilet and overhead cold shower, which in the heat was very refreshing. They even had solar powered electricity!!

Well ............. unfortunately, the Jungle wouldn't be complete without Leeches!! and although the children seemed to get away scott free, Jo and I managed to find a few bulbous friends hitching a ride while trekking, in particular to the farthest Treehouse. Once they had got their fangs into your veins, you didn't really notice anything until your blood stained socks or trousers resembled something out of 'the chain saw massacre'!! Even when you got them off, you seemed to be oozing unstoppable blood for the next two hours!

Fred taking a welcome cool head shower in the intense heat and humidity of the day


When we got back to our Treehouse, basic hot supper was provided by our guide, zip wired in from a kitchen hut on the ground, complete with Tea and hot chocolate and fresh lychees, which were wonderful to quench your thirst after a very hot day. The children couldn't eat enough of them, neither could Jo or I! Supper, not exactly 'corden blue' always included a bamboo case of 'sticky rice' .......... that is ..... 'sticky' in its most 'solid' form and nothing short of a hammer and chisel was going to free it from its case!!! Dusk came in very quickly and as the sun set the noise of the Jungle completely changed and became very loud! Wrapped up in dark mosquito nets, our Tree House was now Home to its night guests!! Freddie: "What was that noise ......... Dad?" ........ A. "Don't worry Fred ....... just a bug" ................... Freddie: "What was THAT noise ....... Dad?" .................... A. "Don't worry Fred .......... just a bigger bug" ................................................... ........................................................................ Freddie: "Dad ............. what was THAT noise!?" ................................ "uhhh ............... don't know Fred .......... just get to sleep and don't think about it!"
As soon as we were in our protective mosquito cocoons, all sorts of noises were going on. Ratty came out as soon as the lights and torches were off and we made a mistake of not throwing the 'sticky rice' out on the first night and ratty chewed through our bamboo basket only to be extremely dissapointed at the quality of food he was now faced with. After such an effort, he managed a small portion of the by now very sticky rice and moved on. The second night we got rid of the rice, but later that night cold hear him chewing through our day sacks ............... clearly smelling out one of the secret sweet stashes that Fred had manegd to keep as an emergency supply!! - I had to get up this time before he caused too much damage and found that he had chewed through the day sack pulling out my leech blood stained socks. ................ probably tasted better than the sticky rice!! The next morning we were awoken again by the sound of whooping Gibbons, 5.45am, which was a pretty impressive alarm call and the mornings saw plenty of zip wiring before basic breakfast. On the last morning we had a long hot and sticky walk back to the vilage for the bumpy and long ride home, but all in all an epic experience for all of us!!

An eyrie morning mist, viewed from our treehouse, with the sound of barking Gibbons in the distance.