{"id":397,"date":"2009-10-26T20:54:39","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T03:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/?p=397"},"modified":"2017-09-13T13:32:43","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T17:32:43","slug":"the-gibbons-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/the-gibbons-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gibbons Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I even got to Thailand, Annie told me about this thing called The Gibbons Experience. \u00a0What she told me was that: a) we would have to go to Lao and b) would be zip lining and living in tree houses for 3 days. \u00a0Zip lining in Lao!!!! \u00a0How safe could that be? \u00a0I told Annie I was in. We planned to do the Gibbon Experience on our mini break from school in October. \u00a0October 12th to the 14th was our scheduled dates to be in Lao for the Gibbons Experience.<\/p>\n

Oct. 11<\/strong><\/p>\n

We crossed the border from Chiang Khong in Thailand to Huay Sai in Lao the day before we were to set out on the Gibbons Experience. \u00a0It was a simple boat cruise to get to Lao. \u00a0The one thing that stood out was how nice the people in Lao were and I was only in the country for about 3 minutes. They were teaching us phrases in Lao like \u201cCope Jai,\u201d which means \u201cThank you,\u201d and \u201cSa Ba Dee,\u201d which means \u201cHello.\u201d \u00a0We got to the office for our orientation. \u00a0We were greeted by a French man. \u00a0I could not understand him if my life counted on it. \u00a0My life did count on it, on the fact that I would be zip lining in the middle of the jungle in a third world country, Lao. \u00a0We signed our lives away, so if anything was to happen we could not sue the French. \u00a0After about 10 minutes we left and started to mentally prepare for what we were about to get ourselves into.<\/p>\n

Oct. 12<\/strong><\/p>\n

8:00 AM was our departure time into the mountains. \u00a0There was 8 of us on this adventure together.\u00a0\u00a0Everyone arrived and we headed out for our 3 hour drive. \u00a0The drive is split up into two parts. \u00a0The first part is the simple, easy part where we drive on a highway that is paved. \u00a0There are some parts of it where there is just rubble, but for the most part it is smooth sailing. \u00a0The second part of the drive is where we are doing some off roading. \u00a0We first had to cross a river where the water came above the tires. \u00a0It was then an up and down muddy path that we took. \u00a0The road was bumpy and I had no idea how our driver had any strategy to attack the terrain. \u00a0We arrived at the village where our hike started. \u00a0All 8 of us were fresh, clean and excited to start our trek. \u00a0We had no worries in the world. \u00a0As we arrived at the village another group was coming from the mountains. \u00a0They were dirty and looked beaten up. \u00a0The one and only thing that they kept on telling us about were the leeches.<\/p>\n

A couple people in our group started to do some minor changes to their shoes and what now and then off we went. \u00a0The first hour of the hike was cake. \u00a0It was simply just walking into the jungle. \u00a0No steep inclines. No leeches. \u00a0The one part of this hike that changed our whole perception of hikes for the rest of the trip will be stuck in my mind for a while. \u00a0We crossed a little brook and were waiting for everyone to cross when one of the girls on our trip started to yell because she had a leach on her shoe. \u00a0All at once everyone looked down at their shoes and started to scramble because everyone had leaches on them. \u00a0Our guide Tcha Ya, just yelled \u201cRUN, MANY LEECH!\u201d \u00a0So we all bolted straight up the path to get away from our first encounter with the leeches. \u00a0We trekked for about another hour. \u00a0I was straight up dying on this hike. \u00a0My legs could barely move. \u00a0I was getting dizzy. \u00a0It started to rain on our hike, so the \u201cso called\u201d path was slippery. \u00a0I thought I was going to pass out. \u00a0We stopped in the middle of the path to put on our harnesses. \u00a0This meant that our first zip was coming up soon.<\/p>\n

The first zip finally came and it was amazing. \u00a0You are literally in the middle of the jungle zip lining from one mountain to the next mountain. \u00a0This made the long trek worth it. \u00a0Our guides were hilarious on the zip. \u00a0They would run off of the platform and start screaming while on the zip line. \u00a0They also did that entire hike in flip flops. \u00a0I have no idea how they did not slip, not once. \u00a0We zipped a couple more times to finally get to our tree house. \u00a0At the tree house, we took off our harness and our shoes. \u00a0Lo and behold I had 5 leeches on my feet. \u00a0My socks were covered in blood. \u00a0I yanked off the leeches and burned them to kill them and then proceeded to bleed from my feet for the next hour. \u00a0The rest of the night we got to chill in our tree house and relax. \u00a0Our guides made us coffee and tea and we ate some delicious Lao food. \u00a0The shower was an open room in the downstairs room. \u00a0There was no door. \u00a0The room was just open to the whole jungle. \u00a0The rest of the night we relaxed because tomorrow we had another huge hike to a different tree house we would be staying at.<\/p>\n

Oct. 13<\/strong><\/p>\n

I woke up to the sound of the zip line. \u00a0Our guides were coming to wake us up. \u00a0There was an optional hike that morning that we could do. \u00a0Tcha Ya, our guide, said they there would be many leech. \u00a0As soon as I heard there would be many leach, I said to hell with the hike. \u00a0Instead, Anna and I zip lined all morning. \u00a0Definitely way more fun than going on that hike. \u00a0They came back and we had to pack our stuff to go to the waterfall. \u00a0It was a quick hike to get to the waterfall. \u00a0The waterfall was refreshing. \u00a0The water was perfect to cool us down from the day\u2019s hike. \u00a0We had a quick lunch and then off we went for another two hour hike to the new tree house. \u00a0The first part of the hike was relatively easy. \u00a0It was mostly down hill or flat. \u00a0The second part of this hike was way more difficult. \u00a0Very steep and long. \u00a0Our guides would usually say, \u201cUp, Up, Up, Many Leach, Zip, Zip, Zip.\u201d \u00a0I was a lot better on this trek than the first one. \u00a0I was not as winded and my legs were a lot stronger. \u00a0We finally got to our tree house and it was amazing. \u00a0This tree house had three floors. \u00a0The main floor with 3 beds and the sink and bathroom. \u00a0An upstairs floor with another bed room and the bottom floor where we would zip into. \u00a0It was quite amazing to think how they built this huge structure in the middle of the jungle high up in this tree.<\/p>\n

Zip Line 2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Zip Line 1<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

These videos were taken around the second tree house we slept at. \u00a0One of them is myself filming and the other is Anna filming. \u00a0The one that I am filming is very shaky because I am awful keeping that camera still. \u00a0You can see our tree house towards the left of the video. \u00a0I tried to get all around me to show how it was up there. \u00a0The other video is a video of Anna zipping into our tree house. \u00a0That is a really good video. \u00a0Go check it out. \u00a0Here is a picture of our entire group eating dinner in the tree house.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oct. 14<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our last day in the jungle of Lao. \u00a0We got up early to zip around our tree house. \u00a0The videos are from this morning. \u00a0We then had to hike a little ways to get out of the jungle, back to society. \u00a0We were going to the place where there were many zips. \u00a0We were on the \u201cWaterfall Experience.\u201d \u00a0There was more trekking in this experience, but we go to see the waterfall. \u00a0There is also the \u201cClassic Experience,\u201d where there is less trekking and more zip lining. \u00a0In retrospect, I would recommend the Classic. \u00a0We slept at tree house 6 and 5 the nights before. \u00a0We walked over to tree house 1, 2 and 3. \u00a0Here there is a circuit of zip lines that are amazing. \u00a0You start on one side and zip to this one tree in the middle of the jungle where there are many other zip lines. \u00a0You then zip from there to the other side to another mountain. \u00a0You walk up a little and then zip back to that same place in the middle of the jungle. \u00a0On this zip, you can pass people going the other way on another zip line. \u00a0Once you back to the area in the middle of the jungle, you then zip right back to the other side, to start the whole circuit again. \u00a0Overall, there are 4 zips connected to it; 2 coming in and 2 going out. \u00a0We all did this circuit a couple of times and off we went to go back to the village to head home.<\/p>\n

It was a pretty easy hike back to the village. \u00a0All down hill, so nothing to worry about. \u00a0We got back to the village, hopped in the car and off we went our way back to Huay Sai. \u00a0If you remember, this drive is going to be off roading. \u00a0While we were in the jungle, it rained quite a bit. \u00a0We had no idea what we were getting into. \u00a0I thought that it was going to be simple drive back to town. \u00a0Boy I was wrong. \u00a0The dirt road was muddy. \u00a0The first hill we had to climb we barely made it. \u00a0The next hill was a different story. \u00a0We started to ascend up the hill and about half way we got stuck. \u00a0We were not moving at all. \u00a0The car was sideways. \u00a0A couple of us got out to push. \u00a0The car slid back a little to straighten up and then we started to push. \u00a0As we were pushing, mud was slinging back towards us. \u00a0We finally got the car unstuck and off the car went to the top of the hill. \u00a0We walked the rest of the way up to get in the car. \u00a0Again, another hill and again we were stuck. \u00a0This time the car was not moving at all. \u00a0We pushed and pushed and the tires were just smoking. \u00a0Everyone had to get out of the car because the bottom of the car was stuck in the mud. \u00a0The Lao driver and another Lao guy had to improvise. \u00a0They went into the forrest with a machete to cut down a tree to use as a lever to lift the car up. \u00a0As we lifted the car up with the tree, a girl in our group was putting rocks under the tires to create traction.<\/p>\n

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We eventually got out of the mud and back to the main highway. \u00a0I was covered in mud, but still happy to be alive. \u00a0Even though we got stuck a couple of times it was awesome. \u00a0It just added to this whole experience. \u00a0Really making it more worthwhile. \u00a0We still stopped two more times on the highway. \u00a0Once, so our driver can stop at a convenient story. \u00a0Not sure why we stopped, but whatever. \u00a0The next stop was at 2 cars pulled over to the side of the road. \u00a0The cars were not working and they were working on the cars to get them to work. \u00a0Our driver gave the guys a bottle of whiskey. \u00a0Now I realized why we stopped at the store. \u00a0The men working on the cars gave us some drinks of their rice whiskey. \u00a0We finally got back to the town where we started. \u00a0We checked into the guest house and showered. \u00a0I was happy and upset that the three days were over. \u00a0Happy to finally shower and rest and not trek. \u00a0Upset because it was an amazing time that can never be replicated. \u00a0I also met some amazing people on the journey. \u00a0This is a picture of me after our whole escapades in the mud.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This was just the beginning of our vacation. \u00a0We still had about a week and a half left. \u00a0The rest of the time we spent in Thailand. \u00a0We mostly stayed in Chiang Mai and spent a couple of days in the beautiful mountain village of Pai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I even got to Thailand, Annie told me about this thing called The Gibbons Experience. \u00a0What she told me was that: a) we would have to go to Lao and b) would be zip lining and living in tree houses for 3 days. \u00a0Zip lining in Lao!!!! \u00a0How safe could that be? \u00a0I told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832,"href":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allaboutmatt.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}