Ghosts in the Jungle: The Gibbon Experience, Bokeo Nature Preserve, Laos

Nighttime in the jungle can bring you close to madness. Invisible insects fly kamikaze missions into your eyes, skin, and hair. The ever-present threat of leeches gnaws at the back of your mind causing frantic, full body searches every time you feel the slightest tickle.  In the sticky darkness the trees close in all around you while a cacophony of birds, frogs, and cicadas sing out their ancient melodies to the unseen moon above. A rustle of leathery wings overhead means you are firmly in bat country and the scurrying around your feet makes the forest floor seem alive. Then, of course, there are the ghosts.

Beware the Pontianak! (web image)

Marred for centuries by war and conquest, many of the jungles of Southeast Asia are living graveyards for countless soldiers not lucky enough to make it back home. Their restless ghosts are said to haunt the forests, guarding the ground on which they fell. Among Malay cultures in this part of the world the Pontianak ghost is said to be the spirit of a woman who died during childbirth. She stands at the base of a tree in the form of a beautiful woman in white holding her baby. Any man foolish enough to approach her screams in fear as she transforms into a haggard old woman with razor sharp teeth and begins to devour his organs. But there are other ghosts in the jungle that are not nearly so malevolent. Seldom glimpsed, they glide through the treetops like wisps of smoke. On cool, misty mornings their haunting songs echo through the valleys for miles around.  They are the mysterious guardians of the canopy; dark phantoms of the primeval forest. They are the gibbons.


Needless to say, if there is something strange, mysterious, and slightly dangerous to be done on this trip Molly and I will be all over it like tuk tuk drivers on a noodle stand (like white on rice, like a cheap Thai suit…). We booked a slot with a company called “The Gibbon Experience” in the Laos border town of Huay Xai. Founded in 2003, the company is a model for the new eco-tourism that is spreading across Asia. With their profits, the Gibbon Experience team makes a great effort to teach the villagers in the area that eco-tourism can be more lucrative than the way they had been using the jungle. For example, hunters who formerly stalked gibbons for their meat and organs have been enlisted as park rangers and guides. The company also pays villages to buy food instead of slashing and burning the jungle for farmland. So while we were contributing to such a worthwhile project, we also got to zipline through the jungle and sleep in tree houses. Sounds ideal, but like most things in Laos, there is a little gray area.

Bright and early one morning, seven of us climbed into the back of a pick-up truck and we were whisked out of Huay Xay into the hills. After an hour of traveling over paved roads, our truck plunged through a shallow river and onto an extremely rough, dirt road that led deep into the jungle. The road ended at a small clearing in the trees. A collection of ten or twelve thatched huts were huddled by a shallow stream. Villagers watched lazily as we piled out of the truck and began hiking into the forest.

Ya Tor gives demonstration of proper braking procedure.

After about an hour of steamy trekking we came to the first zip-line. Our guides Ya Tor and Simon gave a quick demonstration on the proper uses of the harness and safety lines. Then it was time to take the plunge. I clipped onto the line and with a bit of a running start I jumped off the platform and into thin air. It was amazing. Zip-lining is about as close to being a jungle bird as you can get. You fly through the air, inches away from huge Ficus trees and bamboo groves. Most of the lines on the Gibbon Experience connect one hilltop to another so soon after you jump off the platform, you are gliding at terrific speeds hundreds of feet above the valley floor. When I finally reached the next treetop platform my heart was pounding and I was ready for more.

As we wound our way towards our shelter, Ya Tor told us about some of the animals that live in the preserve. Snakes, cloudy leopards, wild elephants, and even a tiger or two share the park with the gibbons. A sound like a loud table saw turned out to be made by a tiny tree dwelling insect. Meanwhile the honking that seemed to be a dog’s squeaky toy was really made by countless geckos that hunt insects in the forest.

“Maybe one or two percent of people see gibbons. They move very fast. Very hard to see. They scared of people,” he told us in slightly broken English as we neared our tree house.

When we arrived at the Tree House #1 everyone just started laughing. It was awesome— every child’s dream. Built in huge Ficus tree about 150 feet off the jungle floor, it was more like a tree mansion than house. It is four stories tall with a huge common room, kitchen, multiple bedrooms and an open air bathroom that looks out onto the valley below. Fresh water is piped in from a stream high in the mountains so you can take a refreshing shower while watching the jungle and drink the water straight from the tap. Electricity is provided by solar panels installed on the thatched roof. The Swiss Family Robinson's house has nothing on this place. We spent the rest of the afternoon zip-lining all over the park before our dinner was zipped in.

When the sun went down we all retired to our respective bedrooms and turned in. That’s when we realized that we were not the only inhabitants of the tree. We all listened to the sounds of the jungle come alive. Cicadas, crickets, and those buzz-saw insects sang their hearts out, searching for a mate. A curious hiccup/barking noise turned out to be a barking deer. (Who knew?) Later in the evening something about the size of a beagle dropped onto the house and could be heard plodding around on the stairs for a while. In the middle of the night I was awoken by a blood curdling scream. It turns out that an inquisitive little tree rat had chewed through the canopy surrounding the bed of a girl upstairs. It then decided to take a little walk… on her face! Not the best way to wake up. Despite all of these midnight ramblings, I slept better than I ever have in my life.

Midnight visitor?

At dawn the next morning we heard the distant singing of a family of gibbons. Everyone got up and trudged through the jungle for an hour to find them, but by the time we arrived they were long gone. We went back to the tree house for breakfast and then spent the most of the day zipping and hiking to different spots overlooking the park.

Before sunset that day Ya Tor took Molly and me on a hike over the mountain to look for gibbons and we discovered why it might be so hard to find animals. As we stalked through the trees, Ya Tor suddenly put a hand to his mouth indicating silence. A rustle in the trees about 100 feet away alerted him to the presence of animals. We quietly crept closer, scanning the canopy for movement. Suddenly three dogs burst from the underbrush and ran towards us. Shortly afterwards a man with a huge hunting rifle appeared from behind the bush and looked startled to see us. Ya Tor, in the local dialect, asked where he was from but the man and his dogs quickly retreated into the jungle. So much for no hunting.

Misty morning in Bokeo Nature Preserve

The next morning two girls from our group and I awoke before dawn and went out in search of gibbons. We met Ya Tor on a zip platform around 5:30 am and waited silently, straining to hear the distant singing of the gibbons. After about fifteen minutes we heard a troop that was very close. We zipped down to the jungle floor and proceeded on foot. We moved only when we heard the gibbons singing and stopped when they fell silent, hoping not to give ourselves away. Soon we were right underneath a whole family squawking and singing and calling at the top of their lungs. It sounded like a dozen ambulances had gotten lost in a disco and were blaring their sirens trying to find one another.

“Gibbons, Gibbons!” Ya Tor exclaimed pointing to the trees but none of us saw anything.

Then, just as suddenly as it started, the singing stopped. All we heard was the faint rustle of a few leaves and
then silence.

“They are gone.” Ya Tor said solemnly.

We all felt exhilarated from getting so close to the gibbons but slightly defeated that we hadn’t seen one. It was now around six thirty and the sun was just beginning to crest the hazy mountains in the distance. On the way back down to our tree house I heard the faint echo of that familiar siren song in the distance. I looked at Ya Tor.

“They very far away. You want to go?” he asked with a smile.

The girls decided that they had had enough for one day and headed for the tree house but I was on a mission.

“If we go, we must go fast,” Ya Tor exclaimed as he jumped onto a zip line heading in the direction of the singing.

Before I knew it we were running through the jungle at top speed. Branches and leaves smacked me in the face as I jumped over exposed tree roots. Ya Tor, having grown up in the jungle, easily out-distanced me. He moved like deer. His light feet barely seemed to touch the ground as he bounded gracefully through the underbrush, in flip flops no less. For half an hour we ran up and down steep, vine covered hills until my lungs burned and rivers of sweat ran down my back. Then, once again, the singing stopped and we were plunged into silence. It seemed that the gibbons had eluded us for a third time.

Jumping Gibbon

We continued walking for a short while when suddenly Ya Tor stopped and pointed to the trees directly above us. In a flash I saw a great black mass of fur leap thirty feet from one branch to another. A family of gibbons was feeding right over our heads. They swung from branch to branch, extending their impossibly long arms to reach a distant limb as easily as a person walks across a room. It was a beautiful sight to see an animal so at home in its surroundings. Gibbons spend their entire lives in the canopy and no other animal in the jungle moves so seamlessly or gracefully. We watched them for about six or seven minutes before they disappeared yet again into the foliage.

Encouraged by our sighting Ya Tor and I ran to a nearby treehouse to try and find them again. Sure enough, as soon as we had zipped into Tree House #7 we spotted a family of seven gibbons feeding just across the valley. This time I was able to get out my camera and snap a few shots. After forty-five minutes, the gibbons moved away and Ya Tor and I headed back to Tree House #1. Although it was only eight in the morning I had already run three miles through mountainous jungles. I was very tired but ecstatic.

On our way back from the Gibbon Experience I reflected on what a rare gift I had been given that day. Most people in the world never even get the chance to enter a gibbon forest and of those who do, only a small percentage actually see the gibbons themselves. I had gotten to within a few dozen feet of these tree dwelling primates and watched them at length. Looking out from the back of the truck that took us back to town, I was reminded of how important projects like the Gibbon Experience actually are. Laos has few logging restrictions and those regulations it does have are often ignored. All across the jungle huge black and brown scars cross the land where locals have burned down the forest to make room for farmland and logging. The Gibbon Experience and other nature preserves offer the people of the jungle an alternative to this slash and burn lifestyle. By making biodiversity a commodity, they help the people to see the value in protecting their land and the things that live there. In the future, unless we can convince other communities and governments to start protecting their forests, the gibbons and the jungles they live in, will be only ghosts.