Laos forum

I've not been there in wet season either, but I've also heard a number of horror stories about the walk in during the wet. On the upside, May is just the very start of the wet, so shouldn't be toooo bad.

Report back on how you go.

beachfunguy

I've just returned to Australia after a month in SEA. 3 weeks ago I 'did' the Gibbon Experience.

Just to 'explain'...

From Huay Xai, a 4WD travels about 2 1/2 hours up the highway to the village of Ban Ta Fa (its on the LP Laos Northern section map).

From there, the 4wd has to cross a river before heading north into the Bokeo Province.

If the river is too high, the 4Wd can't cross: full stop, start walking!

The road (if you can call it that) is a red clay bench that was cut about 15 years ago for logging trucks. Generally, the surface is OK, and the topography reasonable. However, if there's been too much rain and the surface becomes too slippery, then shank's pony becomes the 'solution'.

Even though the wet season has begun, it's now more a case of heavy afternoon/night downpours than rain settled in for days (that is more typical of June onwards).

As SomTam has indicated, it's unlikely that either the river will be too high or road surface will have been compromised.

That the 'experience' is just SO SO fantastic - go for it!!

ps. Make sure you take plenty of DEET repellant, have long socks that can go well above your trousers (for avoinding leeches), and you're prepared to have very dirty boots/ shoes at the end of a wonderful journey.

Cheers

manotone: to Luang Prabang same day? no way. You'll need to overnight at Luang Nam Tha or perhaps Udomxai I'd have thought.

based on this February's bus schedule:

if you get out & wait along HWY 3 by early aftn, you might be able to catch & squeeze onto the daily Huay Xai > LPB bus that's supposed to depart Huay Xai at 1:00PM. you'll reach LPB some time after midnight.

if it's a Mon, Wed or Fri, & you can get to HWY 3 by noon, you might be able to squeeze onto the thrice weekly Huay Xai > Vientiane bus that's supposed to depart Huay Xai at 11:30AM...& reach LPB about midnight if all goes well.

time is elastic in Laos. be prepared to wait, to be delayed (incl getting out to HWY 3), to not have a seat on the bus, for schedules to be changed, for things to just 'not happen', etc. to some of us, it's the country's way of making us pause to notice more things about her, stuff that we'd have missed if we'd just hurried by :)