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Adventures of Underpants Man

It's called "The Gibbon Experience" because you stay in tree huts with hopes of spotting the once believed extinct gibbon monkey. But really I think they call it that because if they called it the "Underpants Man Experience" there would be an overwhelming and unmanageable response. I'll explain in a moment.

There is one small office, in a small border town of Laos, and the only true form of marketing is word of mouth. Really that's all they need. I heard of it from a guy from South Africa that I met my first week in Thailand. He warned me they fill up quick so you need to book at least a week in advance. But he said it was an amazing experience and now having done it myself, I have to agree. The goal of the organization is to build a system of tree houses and zip lines. Then the profits raised will be used to employ forest guards to protect the Bokeo Nature Reserve from poachers, many of which were once poachers themselves. Everybody wins.

Needless to say living in tree huts, flying on zip lines and watching monkeys in the wild sounded pretty good to me. Before my elephant trek in Thailand I sent an email asking to be put on. When I returned from my trek I had received an email informing they were full until the end of July. Unfortunately, I had already managed to really get myself pumped up for it. So The day my visa expired in Thailand I crossed the border to Laos and checked in at the office. Still full. "Do you ever have cancellations?" Not likely. Well I'm a world traveler. I mean I ride elephants and get lost in the jungle just for fun, so that just wasn't cutting it. The group left at 8 in the morning, I showed up at the office at 7. No luck-still full. OK! Ok, I get the point. I'll just have breakfast next door an be on my way. It's a stupid idea anyway. (These are just thoughts, I didn't actually tell anyone this.)

So I have breakfast and am watching everyone load up the truck while I wait for the rain to stop so I can tuck my tail and walk home. Then 15 minutes before they leave a girl tells me someone has not showed and I can go... if I want. Heck, yes I want! And my luck kept getting better. Since I was the last one the back of the truck was full which meant I had to squeeze into the front, and not sit in the rain... shucks. They warned of two things. First that the ride would be a rough 3 hours. And second, because of the rain we might have to hike in on another road to the trail making the 1.5 hour hike more like a 7 hour hike. Both were spot on.

I found myself at every turn saying to myself, "Not a chance. We will never get through that with a car. Time to walk." To my amazement, we made it. Now for the 7 hour hike and the introduction of "Underpants Man". Not 5 minutes into the projected 7 hour hike we come to strong flowing river with a downed tree across about 80% before disappearing into the water. A medium sized Laos man with a strange resemblance to Jackie Chan works to the front of the line and proceeds to declothe down to his sea blue briefs. Then pulling a machete out of his pack he walks to the edge of the river where I can only assume he is about to kill a crocodile for tonight's meal. To my knowledge he did not kill anything but crossed the river bean to hack a path through the jungle brush, for the others. In 10 minutes flat he had a fine trail worked out and came back stood waist deep in the flowing river and helped the humans cross.

Everyone began our hike leaving Undie Man behind, or so we thought. 2-3 hours later coming down the trail we were hiking up we were met by a majestic fellow sporting the same elastic uniform. Underpants Man somehow transported himself ahead of us. Frozen in amazement, he asked almost supernaturally if anyone needed water. 3 or 4 surrendered their water bottles to this briefed man who disappeared and 5 minutes later reappeared with each bottle filled. "It's rain water," proclaimed our hero in very broken english. After we hydrated and gained our composure, U-Man escorted his humble followers the rest of the trip to the village.

I realize I haven't told you at all about the tree huts or zip lines, but I hope you'll understand there is no easy way to summarize U-Man. And rather than trying to test everyone's time and patience I think it might be best to speak more in another entry (Sorry, Alison). And look at that just enough time to share one last Undie Man story.

U-Man spottings were more rare as time went on. However, one morning after a jungle trek and zip line adventure, we returned to our tree house(3). I got to the house, all hyped up from the zippin, pulled off my shoes and climbed up to the main area of the tree house. As sudden as lightning I heard someone proclaim something in Laos behind me. There standing behind me already in my house was Underpants Man, though it took me a second to recognize him in his civilian clothes. He must have seen I was shocked so he slowed his speech and repeated: "Leeeeech!" I looked down to my ankle to find a fat slug trying to make his way to my heart.

I ripped it off and no matter what I did could not stop the bleeding (see pic). Not to fear. Undie Man called for a cigarette, casually lit it and puffed a cool couple drags. Then he took the ash from the fag in his fingers and applied it to my lesion. In moments the bleeding stopped... With little need for words U-man extinguished the cig, closed his eyes and rested in the tree house bean bag like it were his own super human throne.

God bless you Underpants Man.

posted by Travelin' D @ 7:32 AM