The Gibbon Experience is an innovative forest conservation project in northwestern Laos, where visitors spend three days living in treehouses built 40 meters above the ground, reachable only by a network of ziplines and a few short hikes. The lucky ones get to catch glimpses of Black Gibbon apes who live in the forest.
After Luang Prabang I spent 10 days travelling around Northern Laos by slow boat and bus. I took a scenic boat ride up to Nong Khiaw, another to Muang Ngoi and back, then a series of buses to Huay Xai on the Thai border with a stop in Luang Nam Tha.
I flew from Siem Reap to Vientiane, Laos, and spent just one night there before continuing north to Luang Prabang, one of Southeast Asia’s most beautiful and well-preserved cities, a UNESCO world heritage site.
I spent six days exploring the amazing temples of Angkor near Siem Reap, including Angkor Wat, The Bayon, Ta Phrom, Banteay Srei, and several others. I was going to write about each of them as a separate post but that would take forever so this is just a quick summary.
On the last day of the trip we stopped by another few Khmer Rouge points of interest before riding back from Anlong Veng to Siem Reap. Aside from one fun section of singletrack through the jungle it was a pretty boring ride so I took a few pictures to liven things up.
Last night’s rain made for some muddy riding today — fortunately, just enough to make it fun, not enough to make it tedious or difficult. After breakfast in Thailand we made our way to Anlong Veng, the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge who controlled the area until they were overthrown in April 1998.
The second day we rode to Prasat Preah Vihear, a temple-mountain on the Cambodia/Thai border. Obstacles encountered today include a suicidal cow and a notoriously steep and sketchy path up the mountain to the temple.
The first day of my 4-day dirtbiking trip we rode about 160 km, from Siem Reap to Koh Ker, stopping at a bunch of great deserted temples. A few times today we did some stretches of really fun singletrack that I loved, and no big wipeouts!
I have been taking up tons of new sports lately; one that I had never tried before is dirtbiking, so I figured what better place to learn than a country covered in land mines, with no decent hospitals! I’ll just be extra motivated to stay on the bike. And so began my 5 day adventure, dirtbiking around rural Cambodia.
After getting over my illness I spent a few days exploring Phnom Penh, including the Royal Palace, Russian Market, Tuol Sleng torture museum and the Killing Fields. Aside from those last couple gruesome and depressing places it’s a really nice city.