I got back to Houayxay yesterday. 2 days and 2 nights in the jungle. I will definitely take it as an unforgettable experience.
But maybe the reason is different than what even I expected.
The shortened version would look like this:
I had my share of traveling, unpleasant traveling, moderate hiking, lots of zip lining, delicious meals, some gibbon sightings and last but not least, excellent company. Oh, and I didn’t want to forget the rat and the spider.
What if I didn’t write my experiences briefly now?
Things to do before departure
My morning started after quite a bit of sleep on the day of departure.
I went to bed around two o’clock and brushed my teeth. A group of young people were walking home in the garden at that time. One of the guys came up to me and asked me a question very boldly.
This ended up being an hour and a half long conversation. I think we both learned a lot from each other. So I didn’t feel bad about the late hour or the fact that I wouldn’t be able to sleep much.
After we said our goodbyes with mutual respect, I put my room back in order. I moved the beds, took out my desk and packed all my equipment. This was harder because I didn’t take my big backpack with me, only the small one, so I had to pack everything for the next few days. Luckily, I didn’t need much.
It so happened that I set off on this trip after 2.5 hours of sleep. Obviously with the plan to sleep myself off on the way. One day I will definitely learn that these ideas are fundamentally flawed. Because of course I didn’t sleep on the way either.
Travel there and back
15 minutes after waking up, I was already at the travel agency 500 meters away, the headquarters of the Gibbon Experience. I was the first. Not even the employees were there.
They opened at eight. One corner of the office was set up as a lecture space. As I had learned earlier, we started the day by watching an educational video.
In the meantime, while the other – as yet – unknown participants of the experience showed up, I sat down in the front row in an excellent IKAE Ektorp armchair. Sweet romance. How much we longed for such a sofa, here it was. I had so much time before everyone was ready to watch the video that I had a coffee, meditated for 21 minutes and even had to wait a bit.
The video introduced the nature conservation program, the wooden houses, and a few safety rules.
And we were ready to go.
Well, I can honestly say that this van trip is anything but my favorite. We’ve now been on the road for a good two hours and about 45 minutes on bumpy and winding mountain roads. Unfortunately, as a result of my seasickness, I always feel like I’m fighting for my life after a while.
If it were true, I would say that I thought we’d never get there. This kind of survival trip is not helped by the fact that the arrival time and distance are completely unpredictable. After every major turn, I expected to discover the destination, so I disappointed myself quite a bit with my expectations.
The trip back was even worse. I think it’s part of the calculated program that we drive slower on the way there and insanely fast on the way back.
So on the bumpy and winding mountain roads, I often flew up from the seat. My exposed legs and pants on the back of the car were covered in a thick layer of dust.
Plus, we were here after a hearty lunch, so the struggle was much more grueling. It took me a good two hours after arriving for my stomach and brain to reboot.
Enough of the unpleasantness. After that, only good things will come.
The gibbons
This gives the experience its name. But it certainly doesn’t capture its essence.
If I had any idea that all I would do at the lodge would be to watch the monkeys and listen to their loud chatter, it quickly vanished.
There aren’t many gibbons in the forest. They can only be seen in the morning, and only on certain occasions. They roam around the vast forest. They’re not always in a place where you can observe them.
So I only saw them on the morning of our last day. Let’s say two. At a safe distance from the lookout where we waited for them, you could sometimes catch a glimpse of them.
We heard their voices clearly, but they didn’t keep their mouths open. They seemed to be silent animals. You have to imagine this concert hidden among the trees as if they suddenly started shouting. A very interesting cavalcade played for about half a minute. Then they ended with an interesting melody. Then they repeated it about 5 minutes later.
Even though I didn’t see them very often, I heard their voices three or four times.
That’s all I can say about the gibbons.
It was a nice experience, but the rest of the tour was more rewarding.
Here you can listen to what I heard.
The jungle
I had no ideas, but I expected something different.
After spending time in the forest, my experience was that this jungle was not much different from the well-known European forests.
After a while, I felt completely at home in it.
The trees and the undergrowth are of course different. The trees are huge, the leaves of some plants are several square meters. Perhaps there are more edible plants. At least I ate more than during my usual hikes at home.
However, I did not encounter any animals, just like I never did before. Once I saw a bird, and once a small lizard. Oh, and a few butterflies. Of course, we were walking on well-trodden paths here too, so I am not surprised that everything eluded us.
We hiked a lot up and down during our time there, and we really did not cover much distance on foot. During our time in the forest, we walked a total of 19 km.
Finally, I could spend more time in the forest again. I missed it. It was nice to live there, I would have stayed for a long time.
Sliding
We spent most of our time in the forest walking between the start and end points of the ropeway and sliding down the ropeways.
We were given a baseball cap with a protector and a pair of work gloves while we were still at the office. We arrived in a small mountain village. There – after lunch – we were given a harness for sliding, which we had to carry ourselves from then on.
We set off from the village into the forest. After a few kilometers of walking, they showed us how to slide on a short practice wire rope.
For those who are not familiar with it, I will briefly introduce it. The harness is actually a belt around the waist, which has a thicker part that holds the waist, plus two belts that also wrap around the thighs. These form a unit, so when you put one leg and then the other through the two belts, the harness will be able to support the entire body. In front, there are two thick cables ending in carabiners attached to the waist. One carabiner is a two-roller slider that is placed on the wire rope by turning the safety lock on and off. The other carabiner is the safety connector.
Sliding always looks like connecting the appropriate carabiner to the safety rope at the beginning of the wire rope course. Only then do we put the rollers on the track. We also put the safety carabiner on the track. Then we place our stronger hand on top of the rollers, and with the other we hold the two ropes. And we can slide.
We first hook the safety carabiner on the other side, and only then do we remove the rollers from the track. Sliding with this solution is practically super safe. If the roller sits properly on the wire rope, it is impossible for it to fall off the wire while moving, because our entire body weight is pulling it downwards. If by some miracle you do fall (say it breaks in two while you’re on the move), there’s a safety rope that will prevent you from falling even after all this.
The only possible accident is if the wire rope breaks. But it’s a twisted wire rope about one centimeter in diameter, so there’s not much chance of it breaking.
That’s all for the theory. The experience is more exciting.
There were a few shorter ones among the tracks. These were 80-100 meters long. Most of them were 200-300, and the largest was 400 meters long. We slid over the forest, dirt fast. In some places up to 350 meters above the ground. This height is relative, because the great height was reduced everywhere by the height of the huge trees. So, at an altitude of 350 meters, this depth was not noticeable because of the beautiful forest below us.
I feel like we covered at least as much distance sliding through the forest as we did walking. It’s an unfathomable thing for me. It’s almost like flying. The only thing that can slow down the pace is that it’s quite tiring. You have to walk a lot between the start and the finish. Almost every place was designed so that there was a rope course going in both directions. The roads are one-way. You had to pay very close attention to the fact that you could only get on a course where the sign was green. The finish was always marked in red. That way, there were no collisions.
The rollers are fitted with thick motorcycle tires. If you put your hand on the roller on this tire – you have to put your hand a little further back – you can press the tire onto the wire rope. This is the brake.
Some of the rest stops and turns were on platforms built on trees. So the other part of the experience was that we were relatively high up a lot of the time.
Sliding means a sense of freedom to me. It was great to take a bite of this extraordinary experience.
The accommodation
Unlike the gibbons, the wooden houses were very real.
And they also gave an incredible experience. The six of us (more on this later) lived in a house built about 30 meters high.
The building had two floors. First, the lower part had the receiving/starting platform for the wire ropes arriving there and leaving there. A small door provided the terrain. There was a small shelf for shoes in the entrance area, the wooden house was a barefoot home.
From here, to the left was the bathroom. Everything was built on the tree in an incredibly professional way. In front of the bath was a small room with a sink and a small mirror. From here, you could enter a larger “room” separated by a curtain. This curtain was the only wall in the house, because everything, in every direction, looked out onto the forest and the landscape. Perfect freedom.
The bathroom had a toilet, a butt washer (we are in Asia, mandatory!) and a shower. The floor was slatted, meaning that bathing immediately sprayed the ground. There was also a flushing tank for the toilet. All the water immediately went to the ground through pipes. Organic shower gel and soap awaited us in the bathroom, we were very careful about nature.
The water was brought into the houses from tanks placed higher up, at natural temperature. Let’s face it, quite cold. But the temperature was definitely compensated by the view that opened up before me while showering. I never imagined that I would be cleansing myself 30 meters high, on the top of the jungle.
A small kitchen and living room awaited us on the second floor. The kitchen was well equipped with cutlery and a sink. Tea, coffee powder, milk powder, sugar and cocoa were prepared for us. Part of the kitchen was also a large red plastic box. This was the keeper of all kinds of edible things. As it turned out later, we weren’t the only ones who wanted to eat here.
They were already waiting for us when we arrived. The large living room was then set up for us. Double beds were made using mattresses. We were given clean sheets, nice pillows and blankets, and finally a very serious tent was put over each bed. It turned out later that these did not only protect us from mosquitoes.
After the beds were made, there was still room in the living room to move comfortably and there was a small table that all six of us could easily sit around.
In the middle of the whole house was the tree. Above our heads was a roof made of leaves, and all around were railings. Our house was mainly made of teak. A masterpiece!
The house also had a solar collector and a battery system. That was how we had lighting. Except for the last day, when the electricity ran out for some reason. The electrical system only served the lighting, there were no wall sockets. But everyone was warned in advance to bring a power bank according to their needs.
The living room of our house faced the setting sun, although it could be seen around 320 degrees. So we spent part of our time watching the sunset on two evenings.
The houses are built according to blueprints. All the elements are brought here on wire ropes. There are no roads around the trees in the forest.
What I really liked: different solutions are used for houses built from different types of trees, in order to protect the trees. Before construction, they ask the tree for permission to build with a ceremony. When the trunk is finished, they celebrate, and many people visit the tree (breaking through the forest). They sing to it, consecrate it, and set up a shrine for the house.
Finally, when the tree, or the house, has reached the end of its journey, the entire house is dismantled and its elements are taken out of the forest. At that time, they thank the tree for its shelter with a final tribute. The first house was built 22 years ago, and there are currently 6. Three have already been demolished, and one is currently under construction.
We saw several other houses during the tour. If ours was 5-star, then suffice it to say that there were also 5++ stars. Since each one has a different design and size.
The best way to put this experience on my scale of experiences is to honestly say: I could live the rest of my life in any of them.
The team behind us
We had two tour guides. They looked after us. One of them led the line, the other closed it. They always paid attention to us while we were sliding. They told us a lot of stories.
We could taste certain plants. They showed us how to make a cup or even a flute out of bamboo. I even tried cutting bamboo.
They listened to all our wishes with respect and fulfilled them. They lived a hundred meters away from us, but if we needed them, they came immediately.
They taught us how to slide safely and how to leave the house very quickly if a storm came.
They brought us hot water, which they heated on a fire in front of their own accommodation on the ground, just so that we could have coffee. Our girl companion had a stomach ache, we looked for herbs and made tea from them.
They were overwhelmingly kind every minute.
I created a good habit after the first meal. I started washing the dishes. The others asked why, and then they would do it for us. I simply said that I was a nice guy and wanted to do it. I didn’t wash the dishes alone. And from then on, we always washed the dishes, and it’s very important to me that the next time I didn’t start. We missed one occasion and then we talked about how ashamed we were that one of our leaders washed the dishes.
In the end, our leader said that he really liked our team because we were very respectful to them every minute. He didn’t say that he was more than others. But we could all think about that.
There were also the girls who cooked for us and brought the food. Once we had breakfast in the jungle. We had everything there too, not just in the house.
I think with a grateful heart of those who work hard so that we, the strangers who have wandered there, can have a wonderful time.
There was at least one rat, not part of the team, but part of the house. During one evening conversation, we saw it climbing onto the roof beams, and that night several of us heard it stomping on the floor with its little feet.
Unfortunately, it had to leave disappointed, because everything edible was in the red box.
The most it could have encountered was the fist-sized spider that was swinging on the inside of the roof above our heads.
I think they are also part of the organized team. Some people enjoy it, some people get a shiver. Fortunately, no one in our team took their presence very seriously.
The company
Every encounter shapes you.
The current company has also become an excellent team. Already on the way there.
I shared the experiences with 4 young Israeli boys and an American girl. By the way, the American girl was also Israeli. However, this was completely coincidental. 3 guys left Israel together a month ago. The fourth met them during the trip, and that’s how they arrived in Houayxay. The girl and I met them in front of the office in the truck.
That’s why I couldn’t sleep on the way there. We started talking right away. The team feeling immediately developed. By the time we arrived in the village, and then in the forest, we already knew a lot about each other. We laughed a lot, we had many thought-provoking things to say to each other.
And then we still had the whole trip ahead of us.
We were together day and night. We slept together. We ate together, we slid together. In the evening, we talked in the dimly lit, or perhaps dark, living room without internet. We played cards. We enjoyed each other’s company.
We talked a lot with the guys about their religion, they added a lot to my knowledge. They taught me words, explained expressions. Our companion, who later joined the group of three, also practiced the religion. That’s how I learned a lot about prayer practices, customs, and countless other things.
He often said something in Hebrew, then in English. We talked with him for a long time on the second night, at the end of which he said that it was very good to have such a deep conversation. I felt the same way. This conversation must have added to my views on the world.
We looked out for each other. We were happy for each other’s successes. We spoke to each other with respect. This company was a great experience. I have to slowly realize that these people feed my soul. Just as theirs feed me, I hope.
On the way home in the car, one of them surprised me. Really.
I don’t remember what kind of text it was, but it said, we love you Steve. All of us. Damn, we spent 2 and a half days together… The others agreed and added a sentence each. Of these, I only remember the girl saying that she really liked that I always laughed.
You’re a special person, Steve, the guy said in conclusion. I couldn’t really say anything, they could see from my face that I was quite moved by the thing.
However, I wrote him a short letter today.
Thank you for the time we spent together and the friendship of you! I will carry the memory of the time we spent together.
You must have seen that what you said to me on the way home in the car had a great impact on me. 😁 I couldn’t find the words then, and I haven’t since.
You are not the first person to tell me that I am special. But for some reason you said it with such force that it made the thought especially special.
I mentioned to you that… (I’ll write about this later on my blog…)
You have awakened a spark of courage in me. I am grateful to you for that!
Now I would like to ask you a big favor!
If you want, tell me why you think I’m special.
It didn’t take long for me to get the answer.
I want to tell you that your message make me very happy!
I think you are a special man because of the way you present yourself to us and to the world.
Your young soul, your happiness and your way to appreciate the little things in life.
Me, … and … wish you the best and go chase the world and fulfill your dreams Crazy Steve!!
He named me Crazy Steve on the first day.
I’d be lying if I said I had no idea why he did that…
Shortened final version
Moderate gibbon sighting. Unknown yet familiar forest. Gliding on waves of adrenaline. A tree house experience of a lifetime with the support of a professional team. And another unforgettable company.
In which I was not the only special person.
In which I wasn’t the only special person. I experienced this whole thing with seven special people. Thanks guys!
And this one is stronger than the wire rope.
Buy me a coffee?
If you enjoyed this story, you can buy me a coffee. You don’t have to – but it means a lot and I always turn it into a new adventure.
Buy a coffee for Steve
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Short introduction