Adieu Chiang Mai, Bonjour Zip lines

Sabaidee My Friends!

On Saturday morning, our time in Chiang Mai came to a bittersweet close. It is always nice to be off on the next adventure, but at the same time we really made our selves at home in this fun hustle and bustle town; it will be missed quite a bit. Clay and Su were kind enough to take us to the bus station, and at 12:00 on the dot we pulled out of Chiang Mai on or way north to the city of Chiang Rai.

In 2007, when we were last in Chiang Rai we totally fell in love with this small northern town. We were very eager to revisit a place that is so closely associated with zooming motorbike adventures, fun guesthouses, delicious food, and city wanderings. Unfortunately, we were in for a few unexpected surprises. The biggest shocker was the untimely death of Brian, the owner of Baan Bua Guest House. We had so looked forward to sharing a beer with him in his front garden, but instead we only found a rather rude Thai lady who now runs the joint.

Feeling rather despondent, we decided to do a little exploring in the old city. We found a really cool market that sold everything from lanterns to crickets!


Paper lanterns in the Chiang Mai Saturday evening market.


A busy night at the Chiang Rai market.



Crickets for sale!

I was feeling a little funky by the time we made it through the market so we decided to meander back to our guesthouse for the evening. By the time we got there I was so feverish and racked with chills that I could hardly move. I spent the next 48 hours in and out of fitful sleep and running to the toilet with some really gnarly GI issues. Needless to say, this was the low point of our trip so far, but I knew that I had to get well ASAP since we had to be happy, healthy, and ready to move into Laos by Tuesday. With a little aid from our antibiotic friends I was right as rain when it was time to hop on our bus to Huay Xai, the Lao boarder town.

There are really only two things that people do in Huay Xai: leave on a river boat cruise and go on the Gibbon Experience (more on this below). We did both!


Our first night in Laos as we watch the sun set over the Mekong River.

The Gibbon Experience is an outfit that takes tourists into Bokeo Nature Reserve where they are able to trek endless kilometers, zip line over thousand-foot spans hundreds of feet in the air, sleep in tree houses over one hundred feet in the air, and if you are super lucky get to see a family of gibbons.

Our adventure into the Lao jungle started on Wednesday at the Gibbon office where we met up with the six other members of our group. We had a great group consisting of three Aussie guys, a French couple, and a British woman.

Day one started with 3 1/2 hours of intense trekking to a refreshing waterfall plunge and on to our first tree house, which was 90 feet in the air and had an awesome circuit of zip lines.

The waterfall was underwhelming at only 9 feet tall, but the water felt great.

Day two was a beautiful and fairly easy day of hiking that took us to our second tree house, and this one was way up there at 154 feet! The zip lines at this house were really long and took you over some incredible scenery, but you had to hike quite a bit between zips. No free lunch, eh? Day three took us to a string of back-to-back zips that were a lot of fun. Then we hiked out of the jungle and called it a day. Here are some of the photos I took along the way.


Young Lao girls in an opium poppy field.



Our guide, Boun Peng, taking a rest during our hike, not that he needed it!



Shaina at the base of one of the trees used for supporting the tree houses.



The view to the ground from one of the landing platforms in the treehouse.



Our second-night treehouse as seen from the zip line.



Launching onto the zip from a jungle platform.

I am working on a short video that will be posted as soon as I get better internet.

Cheers!

Maxell

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Location:Bokeo Nature Reserve