Zip zip

Now I know I am prone to getting a little over excited about things but honestly the last 3 days have been some of the best in my life.

Having finally made it to the north of Laos after 18 hours on the 'hell bus' I was, to be honest, completely unenthusiastic about spending 3 days in the darkest reaches of the Bokeo Reserve in the hope of seeing some gibbons. It was cold, threatening to rain and I was very very tired and as everyone knows I am not at my best when tired.... However I decided to persevere and as we got in to the jeep and sped off the sun started to try and shine, by the time the 8 of us had reached the first stop off point we were taking off jumpers and things were starting to look up.

After a couple of hours trekking we were given the harnesses that we were to live in for the next 3 days and told to hook on to the first zip line and jump off.... So I did and was hurtled hundreds of metres into the jungle emerging over a valley and way above the tree canopy. It was incredible. No fair ground adrenalin as such just completely breathtaking. My hitherto undiscovered 'Lara' came out and there was no stopping me.

Sadly one of the group couldn't face the first zip and so that was the end of her and her very loyal friend leaving just the 6 - 2 guys from Hampsted (Jonny and Jamie) that know Peter Levinger's son (weird), 2 lovely ladies from New Zealand (Holly) and America (Rebecca) and Rebecca's fabulous treeman from Germany, Flo. As you can imagine living in a treehouse hundreds of metres above the trees we all got to know each other very quickly and they made the whole thing even more special - we laughed and zipped our way around the jungle.

The last day we all got up at 4am and zipped off the treehouse into complete darkness (scary) and off on a 2 hour trek to find the gibbons ... which we did and I will never ever forget sitting in the middle of the jungle with their calls echoing all around - hauntingly beautiful...then I GOT TO SEE ONE - Flo saw its bottom bit but I saw it swing (as did the guide so I am not making it up and yes I did have my lenses in) through the trees.

As you can see I am still rubbish at posting photos and as I lost my USB cable I have bought one of those card reader things (???? but Flo was very nice and patient and explained about a hundred times the difference beteen that and a USB stick and I think I get it) and I've decided to describe the photos by number going from the top left to right. There are two videos of zipping in action too but the card reader decided not to read them so I will post them tomorrow (hopefully)

1. Happy Holly.

2. Flo in his element swinging from the zip.

3. Rebecca - braving a mid zip line hang.

4. The toilet. Overlooking the jungle. The best toilet experience a human can have.

5. The beds in the second treehouse. Overlooking the jungle. The best view a human can have from their bed.

6. Me about to zip. Very happy Hoad.

7. Food. Delivered by the local villagers by zip of course to the treehouse. The best restaurant a human can eat at.

8. One of the treehouses. Taken as I am approaching on the zip

9. Me in the waterfall pool. Possibly the coldest bath a human can get into.

10. Jungle Mushrooms. I just liked the look of them.

11. Me about to jump off the zip from the treehouse. Please note the break which is made of a motorcycle tyre. Hmmm.

12. Me having completed my Lara training coming back in.

Jamie and Jonny will follow but the computer and the card reader are having a fight and I haven't got the energy to sort them out tonight so they will follow tomorrow along with the videos of the zipzip zip zip. x