At our last breakfast at Baan Gong Kham they brought us sliced dragon fruit and prepeeled rambutan fruits along with our regular meal.

Wednesday was something Sam and I had waited a long time for.  We would have to wait a bit longer as our tour had to wait for the last group of tourists to fit in our minibus because of a “driver miscommunication error.”  Once underway we were stopped in traffic again when a bunch of the giant double decker tour busses you see all around Thailand had to turn around in front of us.

Finally we got the site of Flight of the Gibbon and got our gear on.

For three hours we flew through the rainforest on zip lines.  There were also “Indiana jones” style jungle bridges, vertical rope descents and treetop tree houses with stairs winding down around the tree.

During the first part the ziplines were mixed with some hiking.  At  one of the sites they brought us over to the side and pointed way up into the trees where we could barely see some Gibbons lounging around.

going down one of the spiral staircases around a tree:

There were lots of insects running up and down the crazy rainforest trees.

About halfway through we had to cross a bridge that had wooden slat with wide spaces between each slat.  This was hard for me to walk on since I was walking with a limp.  The woman in the photo below behind me kept joking that “hop-along” was slowing everyone up.  While I was on the bridge it seemed to move around a lot – and actually the cable on my left banged into my head twice (which would have hurt immensely if I didn’t have a helmet).  I later found out that either the mother or the daughter behind me in the photo below (forget which one) was bouncing the bridge around purposely.

Twice we were lowered down vertically from one platform to the other.  This one is the shorter fall:

Another wood bridge:

When we got to the final zipline the forest was cleared a bit for a stream and a small basecamp.  For the first time we could see how high above the forest floor we were, and this made this zipline probably the most exciting and scary.

The way down from the last tree stand is to be dropped straight down.  They dangled Sam and I together below the platform to take our pictures…

and then something happened.  The guide started looking at something else up there and we dangled for what was probably ten seconds but felt like ten minutes before he looked back down and started to shoot us down.

After the three hour adventure we were taken back to base camp for lunch.  The base camp for FotG (like most of Thailand) had lots of insects.

On our way back to Chiang Mai we stopped at Mae Kampong waterfall.  Like Sawan Noi, this waterfall had seven levels, but we only had time for two.  Both times the adventurer in me was disappointed, but on this day my foot was still hurting (though less than the day before) so it was best that I didn’t walk up hundreds of wet slippery stone stairs.

When we got back to the hotel we took photos of Baan Gong Singh before going to the other side of town.

We changed to a hotel called Lilu in a more densely populated area of Chiang Mai.  This hotel was the best one so far in the trip.  The rooms were cramped, but very modern and the shower was better than mine at home.

After checking in we headed to the night bazaars, which was not as impressive as the weekend night market.  On the way I saw another one of the crazy huge buses.

We ate dinner at the night market.

And finally, no trip to Thailand would be complete without a gaggle of ladyboys competing for attention in the market.