With our things already prepacked, we wake up and have a breakfast already made by the hostel that we ordered last night (mine was pancakes with chocolate sauce and bananas), and go 20 seconds down the street to the Gibbon Experience building to check in and drop off some of our stuff that we won’t need for the trek.
We check in and are shown a brief safety video which primarily covered one of the main methods of transit around the area of the jungle we’re going to; ziplines. Thr Gibbon Experience has a combined total of roughly 14km of zipline, with the longest one reaching 400 meters in length and around 150 meters above the ground. I’ve gone ziplining before, but never just as a method of transit, and never on lines this large. We also meet our two guides who will be navigating and assisting us on this, Lan and Ping.
We hop in a truck to drive to the basecamp of the expedition, which is about a two and a half hours away. We pull into the village and enter a large domed building where we are seated for lunch. We are served some egg noodle stir fry and soup while we get to know the other members of the group. After we finish up, our guides give us our ziplining gear, consisting of harness and helmet, and we set off into the mountainous jungle to get to where we’ll be spending the night.
The first thing I realized when starting to hike was that since our destination is on high elevation, as per the ziplines, it means it would be primarily an uphill hike going there. The second thing I realized, was that the temperature was inhumanely hot to be climbing uphill in the sun. At around 37 degrees, sunny, and high humidity, it made what would be a slightly challenging ascent feel impossible. My dad and I went through a couple liters of water before we got to the first rest point, where thankfully there was a small shack to refill water in. I pour the remaining water on myself to cool down before refilling them and sitting down for a quick rest.
After a little bit, we continue going further up into the jungle, with this stretch being slightly longer, but a bit more shaded from the trees. The jungle trees alternated between massive trunks several times wider than me, to groves of smaller trees, to clusters of bamboo, which made it feel more foreign than the birch and oak I’m used to. Lan was explaining the differences between certain types of bamboo while we struggle to keep up with him. Along the way up, we come across the training zipline, which was only a short distance and served to teach you how to connect and disconnect from the line safely.
After what feels like another several hours (but was likely closer to just 1), we get to some of the larger ziplines. It’s admittedly a little scary for the first couple ziplines, looking down and seeing the canopy of the jungle 100 meters below you without being able to fully see where you’ll be landing, but after the first couple, you’re able to just enjoy the wind in your face and the views around you. A couple lines later and we reach the short line into the treehouse where we’ll be staying for the 2 nights we’re here.
The treehouse you’re imagine probably doesn’t quite do the place justice, as we land in a large 3 story treehouse 30 meters above the ground, partially hidden by the larger trees, while overlooking a canopy of smaller trees. We unpack, claim our sleeping areas, and enjoy some dinner ziplined in with the guides, ending the night having some LaoLao (a type of alcohol) with the guides.
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