Hot Monkey Love

The Gibbons Experience: We had high expectations before going on this trip for good reasons, anyone and everyone who has done it really praised it. The thought of being dissapointed ran through our heads for the entire 2 hour truck ride into the national forest where our journey was to begin. There was five of us in our group, a couple from Chicago (husband was an Aussie, wife is an American of Latin decent), and a single Singaporean woman in her late 20's.

Once we got to the village/national forest, we had 30 seconds to get out of the truck and start hiking. Amy almost got left behind since she was trying to close her $5 backpack we purchased for the trek from a "Chinese Market" since we couldn't bring along our big bags. The zipper was about to break and the buckles were falling apart (the biggest piece of shit bag in the world, a plastic Wal-Mart bag would hold up better). The guide spoke some eng-ish and once again thought I was from another planet let alone the same country he's from. He hurried us across a little stream and up into the forest. They definitely don't mess around when it comes to trekking, especially since they do it in flip flops 2 sizes too small. Their pace made us look silly and I was beginning to wonder where the fire was. We stopped about 30 min into the hike to eat lunch consisting of premade samich's from headquaters. Curry chicken samich, MMMMMM. I spoke laotion to the guides and it shocked the hell out of them. How did this laotion guy get so big they thought. Finally they got up the courage to ask how many siblings I had and if I ate my family members to get so fat. Assholes!

The rest of the hike was pretty hard, straight up hill for about an hour and my legs were burning. The other couple was kicking our asses pretty bad since they just arrived from a few months of trekking in Nepal and Tibet. Man did I feel out of shape, luckily the singaporean was slower than us ;-)





Once we reached our first zipline, our guide gave us a quick safety check and instructions on how not to die. Off he went, zzzzzsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss across and out of site. "OKAY" was shouted across the canyon and it was my turn. Shit! I dont want to die but it looked so fun. Will the harness hold up my fat ass or should I kiss Amy and tell her how much I love her and to take good care of Louie, say "Hi and Bye" to all my friends and family for me etc. What the hell, WOOOHOOOOooooooooooo and off I went. WHAT A RUSH! I cant describe it any better than the fact that our skydiving excursion a few months ago seems like kindergarten play compared to this rush. Now Amy will tell you her version about pooping and peeing herself on the first zip.

Whatever, I wasn't that scared. The harness and roller looked fairly trustworthy, and the brake made of a bicycle tire...well ok I was a little scared. But the ride was awesome, and so were the next few. It was like the most amazing video game ever, zipping way above the jungle, the shortests zips were like the longest zipline ride you could find in the states. Just the first day was worth the 160 euros each!

After a little more hiking, we took a long zip ride into a huge tree way out on its own in the middle of the jungle. It had a two story treehouse on it about 100 m up, with gravity fed sink and shower (I guess piped all the way from a spring way up in the jungle.) And, most importantly, the best squat toilet in the entire world. I mean, you might actually linger on this squat toilet, yes linger on a squat toilet, to admire the view! Fruits and dinner arrived shortly by zipline (veggies, rice, and some of the pork from the cute little piggies back at the village.) The guides came to hang out (no pun intended) with Sam. They'd never had a tourist that spoke fluent Laotian before and though they spoke enough English to communicate safety instructions ("ored - return - no go!"), they couldn't really converse with the tourists. They were eager to learn about America and all kinds of other things - like the earth going around the sun, not the sun going around the earth. I hate to think what else they learned from Sam's scientific instruction, but at least they got the basics!

The next day one of the guides woke us up early to trek out and surprise some gibbons in their sleeping tree before they woke up. Unfortunately the gibbons seem to be on to them by now and were already gone, doubtless muttering "damn those tourists they get up so early we have to get up at 5 to avoid them!" in gibbonese. We had more rice and veggies for lunch and every meal thereafter, then headed out to the waterfall. Dropping right out of that treehouse in the morning was pretty scary all over again, but zipping through the fog was pretty fun (though wet.)

The next day we trekked to the "waterfall" (a nice cold pool with about a 2 foot waterfall above it.) Somehow we managed to get collectively only one leech; the other group's leech score was much higher so we lost that contest. The zip network around the waterfall blew away the first day's lines. We went around the loop there 3 times for fun, zipping over the river, through the valley, and around again, as fast as we could go. The longest zip is supposedly 1km long and took about 10 guys almost a month to put up! The treehouse that night was not quite as amazing, but did have quite a bit more wildlife. As in, tons of very, very large noisy rats. We devised a variety of clever rat traps involving buckets of rice precariously set on ledges, but the rats were smarter than us and instead ate the food on the dirty dishes and held kung fu rat fights with each other all night, on the floor, the thatch roof, our beds....

The last day we trekked out a different way, showing a different side of the jungle, i.e. clearcut farmlands. It was very beautiful, sunny, and Hobbiton-like though. Then it was another crazy truck ride and back to Houayxai. We were sad to leave and tempted to sneak back in, but in the end decided to head acroos the Mekhong and take the local bus to Chiang Rai in Thailand.

Northern Laos by Local Bus

In Laos, there are two kinds of buses: "VIP" buses which make rest stops, have large, comfortable seats and follow a set itinerary, and local buses, which are basically, well, SF MUNI. You can flag one down anywhere, get off anywhere, bring your chickens, etc. However the local bus won't leave the starting point until there are 2-3 people on every tiny seat, and the aisles are full of people sitting on stools. Only then is it time to go start picking more people up. Or 50 kg bags of rice, concrete mix, propane tanks, etc (the top of the bus already being full of bags.) VIP buses are definitely the best way to go, but require reservations and some basic organizational/planning skills which we unfortunately lack.

We did manage to get at least the minibus (like a small VIP bus) up to Luang Prabang, but with our usual luck, we managed to get the one ancient minibus in a fleet of new Honda minivans. When the driver actually got the bus moving at a good clip downhill, he refused to stop for anything - instead using the horn to warn everyone out of his way. Somehow we managed to just barely avoid an entire family of pigs and a two year old human child, and nothing (that we know of) was killed on the trip.

We stayed for a day in Luang Prabang where we mainly relaxed around town and ate at "The Pizza Luang Prabang" over and over. This place is far and away the best pizza in Southeast Asia. The town was absolutely packed with Thai tourists; later we learned that this was due to a national holiday in Thailand. We only got a hotel due to Sam speaking Laotian. The lady at the hotel literally grabbed him and dragged him to the front of the line in front of all the other tourists!

For fun we rented bicycles and rode around town, where we saw some real working elephants being used as pack animals cruising down the street. Then we paid $2 each to climb the hill up to the stupa and see the view. To get our $2 worth, we ran up and down the 250 steps 3 times with Thai tourists egging us on all the while (in retrospect, a mistake, at least in flip flops.) We also couldn't resist buying some of the sparrows in cages from some old ladies and setting the sparrows free at the top, which is supposed to be good luck. Maybe it was bad to support this industry since we usually are all for cage-free sparrows! Oh well. For additional fun we tried to get our cell phone cracked to accept Asian SIM cards, but failed miserably. Sam also tortured the "smoke weed?" guy that popped out of the shadows at night by telling him in Laotian "you're going to get arrested!" I've never seen a guy disappear so fast!



Next we decided to go visit Sam's uncle in Nambok. The problem with visiting family is there is often no VIP bus or even local bus to get there. We caught a 2 way (i.e. the back of a pickup truck with bench seats.) The capacity is supposedly 12 people (or at least 12 Laotians.) Once we had 17 people, a baby, and four 50 kg bags of concrete mix we were finally able to leave the bus station and start the usual rounds of picking up people to hang onto the back. For people who are jealous of our travels, just try to picture this and you will feel better. Also it was about 50 degrees F outside and quite windy in the truck!

Anyway we survived the trip to Nambok. Sam's uncle and aunt and cousin were very happy to see us. It was a bit of a sobering visit, most of the family up there doesn't have much money. Sam helped them build a very barebones concrete house to replace their old thatch house, but there is not much inside - no ceiling or paint to cheer it up, and just a few mats for the floor. It was very cold - similar temperatures to Northern California in the winter, with a very cold fog that often lasted most of the day. It seemed colder because none of the houses or restaurants have any sort of insulation at all and are often half open to the air. Sam's family is so cheerful and grateful for what they have; it really made us think how lucky we are back home. Sam's cousin was in a bad motorbike wreck last year but is able to walk with crutches now and get around on her own. Soon she will be able to return to school. She was very nice and helped me practice my Laotian.



The next day we travelled with uncle and auntie via local bus to Oudomxai, where their son has a successful hot pot restaurant (why is hot pot so expensive everywhere? It's a mystery to me.) At the restaurant we met a very nice doctor from Atlanta, recently from San Francisco, working for the CDC on a program to help the health department there set up immunization programs for children. He was happy to chat with us for awhile and tell us about his recent trip to Mongolia which sounded amazing (living in yurts and all the rest!)

Now we had to say goodbye to the family and take two more bus trips to go before reaching Houayxai where we planned to do the Gibbon Experience. The road between Oudomxai and Luang Namtha was terrible due to the floods and mudslides last year - completely unpaved rather than the usual 50-80% paved. Imagine Tassajara road by bus! After Luang Namtha the roads improved, but were still quite steep. With our usual luck we got a bus with no brakes (or at least the driver did not trust the brakes.) Whenever we got to the top before a steep (10% plus) grade downhill, he would come to a complete stop, shift into first gear, and go slowly downhill using the transmission to brake. Even the big dump trucks were passing us. And you can imagine what the passengers had to say! Anyway we somehow made it to Houayxai in time to rest for a day before heading off to see the gibbons.

In the Tubing in Vang Vieng

Well we finally tore ourselves away from the comforts of Grandma's house where they wait on us hand and foot unless we yell at them not to and laundry only costs 10 cents/kilo for wash, dry, and fold. We were lucky enough to catch the bus from there rather than having to backtrack to Vientiane. We stopped for one day in Vang Vieng, which is basically a tourist town on the river between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. The highlight of Vang Vieng is inner tubing on the river, or "In the Tubing" as they call it there. Basically it works as follows:

Follow the blond Canadian girl with the knit witch cap and fingerless Michael Jackson gloves and bikini who has covered herself in permanent marker ink numbers and is chanting "LET'S GO TUBING" and has been doing so all night long and well basically for the last week straight (apparently.) We think the tubing companies may actually have hired her for this purpose, but it's hard to know for sure. Anyway you get a number inked on your hand with permanent marker, climb in a tuk tuk and head down to the river.

Before getting in the river, you need to buy alcohol at the "Eco-drinking" bar where all proceeds go to the children of Laos. You then float a few yards down to the next bar where they have a rope swing on about a 20 foot platform which is extremely scary given that up to this point the water has only appeared to be about 1 foot deep. However after watching the acrobatics of the staff and the bellyflops of the other tourists and drinking a few beers or Lao Lao whisky buckets, you take the plunge. Then, repeat for the next dozen bars. Should you accidentally pass a bar, the staff will chant "Come-on come-on beer-lao beer-lao!" at you and throw you a line to pull you in. There are variations at each bar including the "flying foxes" which are zip lines that are even better for producing bellyflops than the swings. The culmination of bellyflops is a huge waterslide at one of the last bars. Unfortunately we failed to wait for the other drunken tourists on this one and so were not able to watch them and avoid bellyflopping ourselves. We're still hurting!



So we decided to beat the crowd for the rest of the float down the river. It is lucky we did because the rest of the float takes about 2 hours and the sun leaves the river quite early, resulting in some freezing tubers later on.

For nightlife in Vang Vieng, you have two choices: Friends or Family Guy. Basically all the bars have all the seasons of a single American TV show and play it endlessly. Unfortunately the Simpsons bar closed down. Luckily there is a 3rd choice for entertainment: the tubing girl, who gets back from tubing around 9pm and is still up chanting at 3am. Piss drunk. On the balcony across from our hotel window. With a big group of friends. But to be fair, she is the quietest of the bunch!

Now we are off to Luang Prabang by minibus!