Gibbons and leeches and civets, oh my!

I'm on a HUGE high from the ridiculous experience I've just had over the past 3 days. I've been trekking through the jungle of Laos, living in treehouses and swinging from ziplines. Incredible. There's no way to describe it, other than dreamlike. Nothing I will ever do again will compare to it.

Day 1 of our 3 day trip included 8 hours of trekking up and downhill through the mud. Awesome. We arrived at the first stop, a kitchen, and I went to use the squat toilet when SOMETHING JUMPED ON MY BACK!!!!!! I screamed as I realized there was a monkey on my back. He jumped off and peered at me to let me know he was going to do it again. Talk about an awkward position. So we made friends and he sat on my back as I peed. Turns out he was rescued from poachers and lives with the guides at the base kitchen. Yikes! A downpour began as we zipped in to treehouse #1 of the Gibbon Experience (www.gibbonx.org ) in the Bokeo Nature Reserve in Northern Laos. The treehouse is literally in a tree, ~50m off the ground. It has running water from a natural spring and a free-fall toilet. During the night we slept with mosquito nets, and I awoke in the midst of a huge thunderstorm to something CRAWLING OVER MY ARM thru the net. I had no clue what it was but was just hoping it didn't want to crawl under the net to visit me, or steal my camera which was outside the net. The next morning the guides told me it was probably a civet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civet.

Woke up at 5:30 after a horrible night's sleep (a 4 hr thunderstorm when you're in a really high tree in the jungle makes it difficult to sleep) to gibbons "singing" (sounded like screaming to me). The jungle is mesmerizing to watch. Sat for a few hours just staring out, looking for shaking trees to indicate monkeys. I was able to see 4 monkeys! Only about 40% of the people who go ever see monkeys, so I was pretty lucky. If that wasn't enough of a rush, we then set out ziplining for the day. We got very little instruction on how to zip, just basically hooked ourselves up and went! Probably the biggest adrenaline rush I've ever had!

We zipped and trekked our way to treehouse 5 where we spent the second night. It was the most luxurious treehouse I'd ever seen. The view from the bathroom was unbelievable. After dinner our guide taught us a Lao card game and proposed marriage to me. This was after the cook proposed as well. The cook (Bonmai)is 19 and searching for a farang (western) wife in addition to the Hmong wife he already has. The similarities between him and Li (my Hmong guide in Sapa) were striking. They talked about love, animals and life in a similar way and shared a similar laid back demeanor.

I slept very well the 2nd night. No wildlife crawled on me, and there was only a small storm. Woke early again to look for gibbons but didn't find any. We zipped out of the treehouse one last time, and I left Bonmai behind with a hug and broken heart :) Trekked out to the base village through MUD. Mud mud mud, and leeches. Gross! 3 leeches, 2 rivers, lots of mud and 3 hrs later we made it to the village where the jeep drives to in dry season. We were fully prepared, though not looking forward to it, to hike the additional 5 hrs back out since we'd had so much rain. An hour into the trek we heard a car. We LEPT for joy since we wouldn't have to walk out on our own! It was quite a gift.

BEFORE this whole experience, I spent 4 great days in Luang Prabang in northern central Laos. Rode an elephant on its neck (not in the bench thing you usually have to sit in) and frolicked in some ridiculous waterfalls. My last night there was spent out with 12 westerners (US, Canada, Ireland, France, Australia, England) at the only spot allowed by law to stay open pas 11...the bowling alley :) Quite a fun time. Stayed up all night and was out at 6am to see the monks proceeding for their morning alms. We gave them bananas and sticky rice. I then spent 2 REALLY LONG days on a slow boat going against the current to get up the Mekong River to the Lao/Thai border. 10 hrs both days on really hard small benches. Pretty brutal...but the treehouse experience was a great reward to have after going thru it.

Last night after getting back from the GibbonX I crossed into Thailand and took a private bus (wasn't supposed to be, but I was the only one on it!) to Chiang Mai - the 2nd biggest city in Thailand. So far I like it and am here for a few days, so today is going to be pretty low key. My body needs some time to recover I think!

Write me an email if you have a chance. I miss everyone! I'll be home soon!