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.

The Many Faces of Thailand; Bangkok, Sukhothai, Chiang Mai and more

Stock Photo

When most people think of Thailand the only image that springs to mind is that of lush, equatorial jungles growing out of an emerald sea. For many travelers the voyage begins and ends on the sun soaked tropical beaches of the southern islands. Tourists spend their days lounging in the tranquil water while haggling over Chang Beer T-shirts and drinking $5 buckets of whiskey (yes, buckets). You can spend a month on the islands with sunburned English frat-boys eating pizza or fish n’ chips while never uttering so much as a “Sawatdee” (hello) to a local.

While that type of traveling can be extremely fun, for those willing to look a little deeper Thailand offers some of the most diverse and rewarding travel experiences in all of Asia. From the steamy, scooter-choked streets of Bangkok to the pristine, mist-shrouded mountains of the far north, Thailand is a study in contrasts. Fabulous wealth lives alongside abject poverty as chaste Buddhist monks rub elbows with ladyboys who prowl the red light districts. There is no one face of Thailand, no single image that can encompass this mystifying, multifarious land. The country is rather a whole universe of temples, skyscrapers, rivers, mountains, people, and cuisine that blend together in an intoxicating brew that will leave you thirsting for more.

After having our fill of buckets and beaches, Molly and I boarded an overnight bus from Chumphon, in the south, which was scheduled to arrive in the capitol city of Bangkok at seven in the morning. The name Bangkok conjures up the images of hazy opium dens and exotic temples; a hedonistic Nirvana where booze is cheap and women play Ping-Pong without paddles.  At 4AM, the bus pulled to a screeching halt and we were unceremoniously dumped onto the side of the road in Bangkok’s Talat Yot district. Normally getting dropped off in a strange city at four in the morning would be a little scary, but not here. We walked a block or so to the famous Khao San Road and it was like Saturday Night Fever. Techno music blared from huge speakers while hundreds of tourists and locals stumbled from bar to bar munching on pad thai noodles and fried bugs. Some people might call it an “all-night rager,” but on Khao San road they just call it Tuesday. We found a hotel tucked down a side alley or “soi” and went to sleep until a less ungodly hour.   

Later that day we awoke and spent the day visiting royal palaces and Buddhist temples. Ninety-five percent of Thais are Buddhists, so temples in Bangkok are as common as mullets at a Winger show. Entering temple grounds is like stepping into a calm oasis, a welcome reprieve from the heat, pollution, and the buzzing of a million motorbikes that are constant companions in the streets. The temples are beautiful to look at. Vibrant reds, blues and greens cover every structure while embellishments of sparkling gold dazzle the eye. A seemingly endless array of dragons, elephants, and lions guard each entrance while the ever-present eyes of golden Buddha statues gaze out from every direction.

The majority of Bangkok’s huge temples, buildings, and canals were built by laborers imported from China during the late eighteenth century. In 1782, the emperor declared that all the Chinese immigrants would be moved to a small section of the city called Yaoarat. Since then Chinatown Bangkok has grown into one of the most vibrant and exciting neighborhoods in all of Southeast Asia. Stepping out of the taxi that evening, Molly and I felt like we had been transported to Shanghai. Throngs of people clogged the street, crowding around stands selling food of every description. We spent hours walking to a dozen different stands eating everything from bird’s nest soup to atomic strength chili noodles sizzling on an iron skillet.  

The next day we went to meet up with a friend that Molly had known in college who now lives in Bangkok. His name is Jon Nutt and he is a Muay Thai kick-boxer and a fight promoter (Yeah, he’s badass).  On our way to his apartment, we stopped at one of the many malls in downtown Bangkok. The mall that we walked through was insane— eight floors jam-packed with the most extravagant excesses of capitalism imaginable. On the first floor Louis Vuitton and Chanel duked it out for floor space and it only got crazier as you went up. How many malls do you know that have a Ferrari AND a Lamborghini dealership? 

Spring rolls and Leo beer. A winning combination

We met Jon and his Thai girlfriend Bo, and they took us out for some for some amazing street food. Having a Thai native with you to help navigate the galaxy of strange and exotic foods that pop up on street menus is invaluable. Jon and Bo walked down the street smiling and greeting almost every vendor we saw by name. That night I didn’t make a single decision. I just sat back and let the food roll in. We pulled up a chair at a stand for some roasted pork while vendors from all over the street dropped by with plates full of spring rolls, fried seafood omelets, duck soup and mango sticky rice.

After dinner we were introduced to another face of Thailand, the military. We were in a taxi on our way to see “The Hunger Games” when we got pulled over. Being a kingdom, Thailand has a different take on the personal privacy rights of its citizens. Every night thirty or forty streets in Bangkok are blocked off by the army as they unceremoniously pull people from their cars and search them for contraband. Three blocks from the theater ten soldiers jumped into the middle of the street and, after seeing my white face, waved us to the side of the road for an impromptu “get to know you” session. I quietly prepared myself for a very intimate encounter with a Thai soldier and rubber glove. Fortunately, as soon as the car stopped Bo jumped out and shouted in Thai that we were late for a movie and couldn’t be bothered to be searched. As we got back in the car, we breathed a sigh of relief that we had a local there to get us out of the situation.

We left Bangkok the next morning on a fan-cooled train heading north for the town of Autthaya. Autthaya is the ancient capital of Siam. Built around 1350, it is an island city surrounded by rivers and canals. For hundreds of years, the rulers of Ayutthaya poured the wealth of the surrounding countryside into the city creating a vast array of temples, stupas, and palaces. The city was sacked by an invading Burmese army in 1767 and many of the impressive structures were reduced to ruins. These days, the town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and tourists wander through the broken buildings straining for a glimpse of its former glory.

Molly and I disembarked from the train across the river from the old city. We spent 12 cents on a ferry to bring us over and we soon found a lovely little guesthouse called Tony’s Place (it is WAY more authentic than it sounds). Our room felt like a little Thai museum. Beautiful tapestries covered the teak walls and the room was full of intricately carved wooden chests. We spent the day riding bikes around the ruins. We walked through beautiful crumbling brick temples and past 100-foot-long reclining Buddha statues. But the most beautiful and mysterious sight was found in a tree next to the main temple. Somehow, no one knows how or when, a Buddha head has grown into the middle of the roots of the tree.  The head sits, enshrouded by its wooden veil, watching over the pagodas and stupas with unblinking eyes that have seen all the good and evil this world is capable of.

 Soon thereafter we found ourselves in the jewel of ancient Thai cities, Sukhothai. Another day, another town full of ancient ruins.This enormous complex has a mind boggling array of structures spread out over 25 square kilometers. Much better preserved that Ayuthaya, Sukhothai ranks second only to Cambodia’s Ankor Wat in grandeur. Beautifully manicured gardens and lawns run down to mirror-like lakes that reflect the images of the thousands of Buddhas, stupas, and temples scattered about the expansive grounds. This time of year the farmers around Sukhothai burn their fields to return nutrients to the earth, sending huge plumes of smoke into the air and darkening the skies for miles around. Molly and I rode bikes through the falling ash as we visited enormous statues and tranquil gardens. We were even blessed by a monk when we stopped in the stupa of the “Diamond-eyed Buddha” (so named for obvious reasons).

Leaving Sukhothai we headed north to Chiang Mai on a “VIP” bus with no air conditioning and five seats in each row. We got the last two seats on the bus so we spent a good five hours bouncing and shaking over barely paved roads in 100 degree heat. I had to peel myself off of the seat like a miserable, sweaty colorform.

Chaing Mai was beautiful. It is higher up in the mountains so the air was a bit cooler as we strolled through the crowded streets. Around sunset we stopped by the oldest temple Wat Chedi Luang to watch the monks chant and worship.

We found the night market on the southern edge of the city wall and grazed for hours on sweet coconut confectionery, fried shrimp and a delicious curry-based soup called Kao Soi that burst with hot chilies, coconut milk and deep fried noodles.

You want me to do WHAT?!?!

Eating such delicious food made me curious about how it is prepared, so the next day Molly and I took a cooking class at a farm outside of the city. A small bus picked us up at our hotel early in the morning and took us to a market where we met our instructor. She was a sweet little Thai woman about twenty-five years old with a bubbly demeanor and a love of fiery chili peppers. She took us to through the market explaining the various ingredients and answering questions along the way. After a little while we hopped back on the bus and drove out to a beautiful farm surrounded by rice fields. The color of growing rice is one of the most beautiful colors I have ever seen. It is a bright, vibrant green that almost glows with a golden inner light. Looking out over the feather-soft fields of I am always reminded of the Robert Frost poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”.

We cooked several dishes over the course of the day including Tom Yum soup, red curry, pad thai noodles and mango sticky rice. That night we went to bed early filled up with our culinary creations.

Our final stop in Thailand was a small hill tribe village outside the city of Chiang Rai. Thailand’s population includes half a dozen or so hill tribes that have migrated into the country from China, Burma, and Tibet over the last few centuries. Each tribe has a unique culture and language and many still practice the same subsistence farming techniques that have nourished them for thousands of years. We stayed in a village with the Akha people in the cool green mountains. The village was a collection of three dozen bamboo huts with thatched roofs perched on the side of a steep valley overlooking tiny gardens and tea plantations. We stayed with the villagers for a few days singing songs and playing guitar by night and hiking through the jungle to beautiful waterfalls by day. Massive thunderstorms would roll through the mountains in the evening. Flashes of lightning momentarily illuminated the jungle around us before everything was again plunged into inky blackness. Even though they look like they could be blown over by a strong sneeze, the bamboo huts kept us all warm and dry through even the most torrential downpours.

After leaving the village Molly and I headed for the Mekong River which makes up part of the border between Thailand and Laos. As we got off the bus I looked out over the flowing, muddy waters observing the tiny eddies and ripples as they floated languidly downstream. In the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse the novel’s protagonist achieves enlightenment while sitting by just such a river. He looks into the water and the ripples become the faces of everyone he has ever seen and everything he has ever done. The river allows him to see the interconnectedness of all things as they move through existence. He realized that we are all part of the same fabric of the universe and, therefore, no one is ever truly alone. 

He also comes to an interesting revelation about the nature of time while speaking with his friend, Vasudeva.

Once he asked him: "Have you also learned from the river the secret that there is

 no time?"

A bright smile came over Vasudeva's face. "Yes, Siddhartha," he said. "This is probably what you mean: that the river is everywhere at once - at its source, at its mouth, by the waterfall, by the ferry crossing, in the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains - everywhere at the same time. And that for it there is only the present, not the shadow called the future."

"That's it," said Siddhartha. "And when I learned that, I looked at my life, and it too was a river; and the boy Siddhartha and the man Siddhartha and the old man Siddhartha were only separated by shadows, not by anything real. Siddhartha's previous births were also not a past, and his death and return to Brahma were not a future. Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has its being and is present."

As we cross the border to leave Thailand my heart aches to think of all the amazing things that I have seen and beautiful faces that I will leave behind. It is a magical country where you could spend a hundred years traveling and still never cease to be enthralled. My stomach is already grumbling at the fact that it won’t be getting any real Thai food for a while. But the words of Siddhartha can help to bring a kind of serene calm to those troubled stirrings of my western mind. Wherever I go, I am connected to Thailand. We are all ripples gliding across the surface of the same river, flowing and changing with the current. The time that passes after I leave is not an insurmountable obstacle. Time is an illusion of our perception and no matter how far away I am, the only thing standing between me and Thailand is but a shadow.