Are You Experienced?

Wow, the last few days were so full of excitement! First of all was the Gibbon Experience. So much fun and so highly recommended! If you ever make it to Laos then don’t dare skip it. Even if you are just in North Thailand it is totally worth crossing the border for. A day before heading out I randomly ran into most of our ‘tree household’ at a restaurant in town and already realized that it is going to be a cool crew. We left Huay Xai the next morning and after some 4×4 river crossing and muddy trails got to the village of former gibbon hunters, now converted into gibbon protectors thanks to the work of the project. After a short hike into the park we were each given a harness and continued the journey to our treehouse. Using the zip lines was scary at first but the views are superb and it becomes addictive after a very short time.

We had lots of laughs after sunset and consumed all the alcohol in the tree house. The first night was very stormy but our tree house held up nicely and in the morning we got to see and hear gibbons in the trees around us! Unfortunately I don’t have pictures because the gibbons were too far to catch with my lousy camera., but we did have a telescope and got some good views of them and also of the many types of jungle birds.

We continued by hiking to the other tree houses and zipping around the area of the project. On the third day we pretty much just hiked out and returned to Huay Xai, but we got early enough to do a little extra zipping. It really is lots of fun.

So now I am back in Thailand after a smooth border crossing this morning and a short ride to Chiang Rai. I like this town, it has a really nice vibe in the backpackers area. Once here I went on a different type of experience – the hospital experience. I tripped over some steps back in Vientiane over 2 weeks ago and hurt my ring figure. It wasn’t so bad but then I tripped again during the jungle track in Luang Nam Tha and it got a bit worse. Since there are no decent hospitals in the entire country of Laos anyway (not to mention the north) I decided to just make a ghetto splint from a popsicle stick and have it examined in Thailand. Mind you that it didn’t hurt much and I was able to easily ride a motorcycle for 2 days AND zip-line through the jungle safely, but it was better to have it looked at by a doctor. I thought I just tore or hurt a ligament but it turned out that I actually fractured the middle bone of my right ring finger.

So now I have this huge thing on my hand for 4 weeks even though there is hardly any pain (unless I flex my finger all the way) and I feel very ridiculous. Oh well. BTW, the bill for the medical treatment was:

– Emergency room examination
– X-Ray
– Orthopedic surgeon consultation
– Aluminum splint
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Total: US$9

The staff was super friendly and professional and I was out of there in less than an hour! Why does healthcare in the west have to be so painful? So now after all these experiences I am going to explore the area a bit tomorrow and then probably just take a day of rest and doing nothing before continuing to Chiang Mai.