The Gibbon Experience, Laos 1

This year I had the most unique Christmas of all time. My friend Liesbeth, another Peace Corps Volunteer, and her brother and I went to the country of Laos on Christmas to do the Gibbon Experience. This is a conservation effort to help raise money to protect the black gibbons, which were thought to be extict until the 1970s where they were found again in the area of Laos known as Bokea. They were also recently found in China. In Laos there are now more than 400 individual black gibbons living there. Basically what we did was spend three days and two nights in Laos living like the gibbons. The local villagers have set up zip lines all across this part of the jungle. You get to trek through the jungle and every hour or so you come across a zip line where you zip line over the jungle. Then at night you stay hundreds of meters off of the ground in tree houses that would make any American child jelous! They dont advertise this project as they dont want the wrong kind of people coming and trying to exploit the gibbons and the project. The word of mouth is so good for that they are never lacking for people, which is how I heard about it...through backpackers. We spent the three days in a small group of 7, us three and a German and British couple. They were really nice and we had a really awesome time with them. We never actually got to see any gibbons, except for one that the villagers had found abandoned by its family...but we did get to hear them singing to each other when we woke up each morning.
The first picture is of a group of monks crossing the river from Thailand to Laos. We had to cross a boat like this over the border. The second picture is of the road we took to get from the border to the Bokea reserve where we did the gibbon expereince. It was rediculous as it was nothing but a dirt road into the mountains for 2 to 3 hours. They are trying to develop a road, so hopefully in a few years there should be an actual road there. The third picture is of the village we started in. The people in this village are an important part of the project as they provide a starting point and guides to help lead you through the jungle. It was so different from my town in Thailand as there were naked children running around everywhere. The fourth picture is of Liesbeth. We started our trek going through corn fields. It was more corn than I have ever seen in my life. The last picture is of us in the jungle. Sometimes there was a path and sometimes only the guides could see the path. It was really cool to be around all of the bamboo and different types of plant life.