Flight of the Gibbon adventure May 8

We were picked up at 6:50 AM and driven for an hour to the mountains in the east (4,000 ft altitude) where our program was to use harnesses and pulley systems to "fly" like a gibbon high in the trees for a distance of about a kilometer. The excitement included 10 rides using the pulley sliders and whizzing along a wire through the trees about 100 feet above the jungle floor, two hanging wooden bridges to walk across between trees, and three tree platforms that we needed to rappel down, including the last one going down over 150 feet.

We heard gibbons calling out loudly, and our guide said a family of gibbons was teaching a new baby how to communicate over long distances.  The gibbon is an ape like a chimp or an orangutang, having long arms and legs but no tail.  The noise it makes sounds quite a bit like humans squeeling as they traverse a zip line!

Then we visited a waterfall, saw some exotic butterflies there, had lunch, and bought honey stolen from "jungle bees" that was sold in a recycled Thai whiskey bottle, before travelling home.

In the evening we went to a civilized, air conditioned mall and had dinner with wine in an air conditioned splendour.  Such is life in Chiang Mai!