Day 121 Taxes and Rain 5 June 2012

Since life goes on, even when you are travelling around the world we took some time to prepare and send off the yearly taxes. On returning from the post office we planned to head out to the city to see some of the highlights. Unfortunately a monsoon decided to disrupt our plans, so we stayed in our room and after the rain passed went for a swim. In the evening we returned to a nice little restaurant (Lemongrass restaurant) at the night bazaar that we stumbled upon yesterday.

Day 120 Elephants and Longnecks 4 June 2012

Today we went on a true tourist excursion, an elephant safari combined with a visit to a hilltribe village, the Longneck Karen. After arriving at the elephant park we started off on a bamboo raft alongside the local village.

Next on the program was a bit of playing with the elephants and the elephant show, where one elephant truly mesmerized us by painting a perfect self-portrait!

Then we climbed on top of an elephant for an elephant safari that brought us to a little village. An ox cart brought us back again to the camp. Since the driver had some trouble controlling the oxen, we happily offered to take his place and assist him!

After lunch we visited the long neck Karen, a hilltribe from Burma that has no rights in Thailand. The women of the tribe extend their necks or rather lower their body by adding an extra ring to their neck whenever the bottom of their chin does not touch the top ring. They also choose for their daughters to do the neck rings and the process starts at age 4 or 5.

On our way back we made a quick stop at an orchid farm.

Day 119 Resting Day 3 June 2012

Still feeling tired off all the activities from our gibbon adventure, we decided for once not to put an alarm. Result: we woke up at 1PM, and felt decadent enough to order some room service for lunch.

A bit of swimming and again we headed to the night market, primarily to use the advertised laundry service for all our very dirty clothes and for dinner.

Day 118 Travel day from Laos to Thailand 2 June 2012

Today we got up early to travel to Chiang Mai in Thailand. We started off by getting our exit stamp from the Laos officials (1 US dollar overtime stamping fee since it was Sunday), took the ferry to the other side of the Mekong and got our 15-day visa to Thailand. A tuk tuk, some waiting, a five hour minivan ride, and another tuk tuk later we arrived at our luxury hotel in Chiang Mai, where we dipped into the pool. At the night bazaar we soon encountered the golden arches and just couldn’t resist.

Day 117 Gibbon Day 3 1 June 2012

A stormy wet night resulted in the two of us sleeping very close on one little mat (Ana was wedged between a wooden fence and a Martijn trying to avoid the dripping water).


We were supposed to wake up at 4am to go Gibbon spotting but it was raining too hard, so we had the luxury of sleeping in until 9am. After breakfast we leaped off the tree-hut  and started our trek back to the village.

We did 9 zips today making it a total of 30 zips for the trip. 

When we returned to the guesthouse at 3pm we took a nice long hot shower then relaxed motionless on the bed watching The Adventures of Yellow Dog movie. We ended the night with a riverside dinner, a call home and an excellent hour long massage at the Lao Red*Cross.

Day 116 Gibbon Day 2 30 May 2012

The jungle is loud at night, but we both managed to get a couple of hours of sleep. We woke up around 6am for a zip-line loop before breakfast.

 

After breakfast we carried on with our backpacks for a 2 hour hike to the next tree-hut.

 

Although the zips are fun they are also hard work- especially if you use the hand-brake too soon or slide backwards away from the landing platform. Here Ana is using all her might – you can see the effort in her face. 

 From this tree-hut we did an extra loop of zip-lines before we settled down and relaxed for the evening.

We were able to take a nice cold shower while seeing the water drop below, a remarkable experience. Ana thought ‘this must be what being a rain-cloud feels like.’

We stayed in the penthouse (private second-story sleeping area).

Exhausted and aching we went to bed straight after dinner (which is brought to us from a kitchen on land).

In total today we did 19 zips.

Day 115 Gibbon Day 1 30 May 2012

After the recommendation of one of Martijn’s colleagues Alex, we put ourselves in for an amazing Tarzan like adventure called the Gibbon*Experience. In a few words it means sleeping in tree huts in the jungle trying to spot Gibbon monkeys, while zip-lining from tree to tree. We picked the more adventurous (more hiking) Waterfall option (3 days 2 nights) and saw early on we were not only the oldest of our group, we were also the boring married couple.  After a 2 hour (jeep) drive followed by a 3 hour strenuous  hike we arrived at our first zip line. Tired of the hike but still full of adrenaline we zip-lined over the top of the jungle canopy.  

However, we were a little too terrified/concentrated to see much of the view. Another zip brought us to our accommodation for the night: a tree-hut 40meters/120feet high.

After dinner and a card game (the cards provided by the always prepared old married couple) we called it a day and settled in for the night where we could hear the jungle lullaby us to sleep.

In total today we did 2 zips.