If you only have time to do one thing in Laos, like we did, I highly recommend the Gibbon Exprience. You won't find it in any guide book, and you'll have to look it up on the web, but you'll find that it might very well be booked months in advance. This is a three day tek through the Bokeo nature reserve in which you use a cable system to access the jungle canopy and make getting around a bit easier. You get to sleep in treehouses and have a great time gliding across cables up to 500 meters long and around 150 meters from the ground. This is not for the faint of heart or the casual walker. I myself do not do a lot of climbing or trekking, and I found it difficult to make the daily walks. We had a Laotian guide and the group we were in was 6 people. I was always the last one up the hill, but always willing to go as far as the rest and jump right on that cable line to get across, I was even the first one to go across the 500 meter line.
The views are amazing, and though it's called the Gibbon Experience, don't expect to see any Gibbon monkeys. Everyone always says they're dissapointed they didn't see any monkeys but the park is enormious and there is a lot of room for those monkeys to play in, be happy that you can hear them calling in the morning and enjoy the beautiful things around you.
