The Gibbon Experience

The Gibbon Experience is a great place to go if you want to sleep in 50 meter high tree houses and spend the day zip lining. The longest zip line is 400 meters and about 100 meters high. They set up the Gibbon Experience to save the  Black Crested Gibbon which we were lucky enough to see. Our tree house wasn't just any ordinary one, it had more than enough room for eight people to sleep in, solar power,
a bathroom and even a shower. Other than that the pictures will explain the rest.

 

This was our awesome tree house we got to stay in.

We were lucky enough to have four nice people with us in our tree house.

My brother clipping in with his roller. The bike tire is the brake. Thankfully we didn't need to use it often.

This was zipinlining into a platform in a tree connected to 5 zip lines.

Hill tribe trek of Northern Laos

Hill tribe trek's are relatively popular with tourists in northern Laos and Thailand.

After much research my mother chose to go on a very new trek in northern Laos from a small town called Vieng Poukha. We took the option of staying in homestays in small undeveloped villages.These villages were of the Hmong, Akkha and Khmu tribes.  They were undeveloped to the point of having no running water, no electricity and worse of all NO toilet!!!!!!!!! When we asked our guide the typical tourist question "where is the toilet??" He responded by spreading his arms out and saying everywhere. No big deal. However, to make matters interesting, we had to fend off dogs and pigs with sticks in order to "finish our business" before they came to clean up. Poor is poor. Putting aside this aspect of jungle life we found our experience quite rewarding even though it difficult at times. 

This was our delicious lunch served on freshly cut banana leaves. Our guide would cut them down were we had lunch and dumped all the food on them

See, the Canadiens are the greatest team in the world. There are even fans in the jungles of Laos.

This little boy was making these roosteres fight by throwing one at the other.

This is the tiny village that we slept in. We were woken up early by rooster's and pigs.

You might think that this is art, but it's actually a bamboo wall for their huts.

Voilà!!

"Don't play with knives" doesn't apply to Laos children. This little girl was nursing a few minutes before this picture was taken.

We gave the village some books that have Laos and English writing. They seemed to really like them.

This is the most commonly found building in all of South East Asia. The bamboo shack. The thing we were building will be one of those walls.

You cant imagine how much food they can make out of these little kitchens.

This little puppy wouldn't walk so we put her in my backpack until she jumped out.

 Not the Hilton, but it did just fine.

One of our guides making us some bamboo cups.  The jungle has all you need to live.  Each meal was prepared by our guides using vegetables and rice from the jungle villages.  Twice, a rooster reluctantly gave it's life to feed us.

White sand Christmas

We had a pretty uneventful Christmas on the beach except for our little kayak /snorkel trip to the nearby island. Enjoy the pictures.

Christmas picture on the beach.

Our stockings that are hung on a high close line so the dogs can't get in to them.

My Christmas present from my brother. The houses' in the painting are typical Cambodian home's.

My mother and I are winning the race to the island.

Our home by the beach.

Firing off a lucky balloon or as the hotel owner ( the Thai guy that you see) would say a "rucky barroon".

Releasing our Lucky Balloon. 

Christmas dinner with our new friends. (British Columbia and Sweden)

a

Our beautiful little Christmas tree/branch. 

All these presents are from the local market in Siem Reap, Cambodia, bought especially for the Corbeil's and Degerstedt.

Mahout training day

Mahout means elephant trainer in Thai. As the name says we spent the day learning how to control an elephant. At first we just threw bananas in their mouths and made them to tricks but we ended up trekking and going to a waterfall to play with the elephants.

They all wanted to have the bananas except for the old one.

This was one of their favorite tricks. We would say " APPA" then the elephants would open  their mouths and you walked up and popped a banana into the mouth.

This was Ora giving me a kiss.( only for the bananas)

My dad riding and controlling the elephant bareback (on the elephant for his first time).

We all took turns guiding them in a circle before we went on our trek.

You don't realize how big they are until you  see somebody walking beside them.

FAMILY PHOTO!

My  brother and I on our elephant who decided to bring her little brother, Pet.

Little Pet and his sister rolling around in the waterfall.

My brother and I washing the laying down elephant.

Ok, we're not working that hard...

When we arrived all the elephants wanted a good scrubbing.

Our Mahout group for the day.  There were two other really nice tourists with us. From the Netherlands.

Ora was a little too "kissy".

Tamang, Langtang, Helambu and Gosainkunda Trek

We had a great time during this trek. We had a bit better luck with the weather than the Annapurna, as you will see in the pictures. The nights got very cold as we were hiking in late fall, early winter. The Helambu wasn't our favorite part by far. On the Gossainkunda we saw the big religious lake where Shiva (Hindu goddess) made the moon, the sun and poison. At Kyangin Gompa we had an amazing view of the Langtang and Ganesh Himal mountain range.

Holding up our prayer flags in the Langtang valley.  This little lookout was at 4300m.

We were treated to an impromptu cultural performance on our first night of the trek.  In Tamang.

We like yaks...

Where did the chicks go? Gabriel got a kick out of this little scene.

A small Stupa up high in the clouds.  These were common on our treks.  They are part of the Buddhist religion.

Behind us and across the river is Tibet (China) and some very paranoid Chinese.  This border crossing is literally in the middle of nowhere and the Chinese have it fortified and guarded like it's a national secret.  They have quite a few "projects" going on in Nepal that make some wonder why they would be so interested in being there.

Gabriel receiving a Kata (symbol of friendship and good luck for traveling) from our Tibetan host.  We stayed with a Tibetan couple at their homestay

Marek tying a prayer flag.

Rhonda taking a little break after a climb up to a stupa.

A far away picture of a guesthouse we stayed at. EcoLodge. Once again, we really had a great experience there.  The couple was very friendly and great with the boys.  We spent two nights here.

Marek receiving his kata  (pictures got a little out of order in the uploading..)

How to make your prayer wheel turn all day long (and night)?  Rig it up with paddles and place it in a stream.

A sea of clouds towards the end of our hike.