Day 41: Back to reality?

We Woke up very early in the morning. The Gibbon Experience was never really about seeing Gibbons for me - they set your expectations fairly well. There simply are not many of the animals around, and it's more about protecting the Gibbons by visiting their habitat and funding the park. There is, however, a chance of hearing them sing in the morning. I started taking a video of the sounds of the morning, then caught the singing Gibbons near the end. The second video really captures their singing, which is quite beautiful.

After breakfast, we played some more cards and chilled. Everyone seemed very relaxed this morning, which was nice. Eventually, we got our gear on, packed up and were zip lining out of the treehouse. I have to say, Beth was looking very comfortable on the line - she is still full of surprises after all these years!

I took a little video of the end of our last zip line. You be the judge at who had the best form and who looked most relaxed!

We got to Houayxai in the early afternoon. I had arranged a pickup at the Gibbon office by our hotel, and eventually we did get picked up. Everything I'd read about our new hotel was correct. It's cheesy, in the middle of nowhere, huge and super clean. Our hotel suite is the biggest hotel room I've ever been in - it's probably 1500 square feet of aircon goodness, with a room for the kids, their own bathroom and a huge ensuite bedroom for us. The place is very odd though - we are pretty much the only guests in the whole hotel, the restaurant is manned by one woman who doesn't speak a lick of English, and most of the staff are Thai. It seems as though this is a Thai gambling retreat (we are just across the Friendship Bridge IV into Thailand) that during high season might attract Thai high rollers. Who knows - it serving it's purpose for us just fine.

After dinner, we got back to the room and Beth let out an ear piercing scream, which had Abby and Robin screaming! A huge spider (same size as the first one we saw in the Gibbon Experience) surprised her in the bathroom. I tried to smack it with my shoe but it was bloody fast. So we got the hotel staff to take care of it! Minutes later, a couple of the staff came in, saw the spider and laughed, and took care of it. I guess you don't need to venture into the deep forest to find scary critters here but I'm pretty sure THIS spider will not help make this hotel more memorable ;-)!