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We left Luang Prabang on a slow boat up the Mekong River. Our trip to Huayxay, Laos would take two full days on the river. We were served delicious five-course lunches. It was quite chilly in the mornings, and we cuddled up with blankets.

That first day on the boat, my mom’s infected leg looked pretty bad. We had already been to the doctor, and she had taken 4 doses of the antibiotic, but it still looked bad. I was worried that the antibiotics weren’t working, and we were heading to a more remote place. I texted my consulting boat doctor Susie in Anchorage and my bestie Mo (who is a flight nurse) in Tacoma. Susie responded with the advice to do warm compresses for 24 hours and see how it looked. Mo responded that it didn’t look great, but also didn’t look dire. The second day on the boat we did warm compresses, and they did the trick! Dr. Susie to the rescue! It looked much better by the evening, and I felt confident leaving Ma alone in Huayxay for three days while the kids and I did the Gibbon Experience.

We made friends with Morten and Steffi, from Lübeck, Germany on the boat. Morten taught Tomu and I to play Terraforming Mars — it took four hours! Mom hung out with Steffi and Morten in Huayxay while we were at the Gibbon Experience.

The Gibbon Experience is popular — I had to book it 3 months in advance, and we planned our trip around those dates. Though called the Gibbon Experience, only about 10% of visitors actually see gibbons! The gibbons are wild, and our guide said there was only one family of 3 individuals left in the area (down from 7 families before Covid). Our experience began with a safety briefing video in the office, then a 2.5 hour drive, the last hour on a dirt road. We had lunch in a big dome in a village, then hiked into Nam Kan National Park, home to pristine jungle and Laos’ biggest trees. We were told to bring only small backpacks, sneakers for hiking, and long pants and shirts for mosquito cover. They said the most important item to pack was mosquito repellent!

We did the Classic Experience, which was 3 days of ziplining and hiking, and 2 nights of sleeping in a treehouse in the jungle canopy. Here is Luz going on her first long zipline. She had to go together with our guide Yia, because she was too light and would get stuck in the middle if she went alone.

If you stopped before reaching the end, you had to turn around quickly, grab the cable, and pull yourself hand over hand to reach the end. This was quite difficult! And it kept happening to me, because apparently, though heavy enough, I didn’t have good technique. You want to go really fast by leaning back and tucking your knees up. The longest zipline was 400 meters long! It was a little like rappelling in rock climbing where you just have to calm your mind and trust your gear. The kids weren’t scared at all, of course.

Here is a video of Jade showing the pulling technique:

And Yia would sometimes come to rescue me, like this:

Our treehouse had 3 floors and was 42 meters off the ground! You pulled on a rope to open a trapdoor to access the toilet on the bottom floor. It had running water! Shower, flush toilet, sink in the kitchen. We slept on mattresses on the ground, with mosquito nets around us. It was only accessible by zipline. Our meals were delivered by the cooks via zipline.

Our second morning was our chance to try to spot the gibbons. We woke up early (except Tomu who had had trouble sleeping due to what we later realized were bedbugs) and ziplined off our treehouse in the dark. We hiked up to the viewing platform to look for the gibbons.

The gibbons’ singing is loud. haunting. beautiful. And you can’t believe it is made by just one or two animals. here is a video of their singing, as we waited in the hopes of catching a glimpse of them.

After waiting and hearing their calls for 20 minutes or so, Yia said, come on, let’s go back, because they are near to our treehouse. So we hurried back. On the way back, Ming Lao said, wait, let me go in the forest and see if I can spot them. So I waited…impatient to follow the girls, but wanting to do as he said. No sightings. By the time I got back to the treehouse, the gibbons had moved further across the valley. Black blobs in the distance. But the girls (and 5 other visitors) had seen them in the tree right next to our treehouse! Here is a drawing of gibbons by Luz.

Jade and Luz giving each other a high-five on the short ziplines:

And Luz and Yia ziplining to a treehouse:

Here are some photos from the Gibbon Experience.