Jungle Flight, Chiang Mai

Sasha:

Activity Review:Jungle Flight

Location: 90 minutes outside of Chiang Mai

What is it: Riding a series of ziplines across a Thai jungle

Cost: 2100 Baht ($70 USD)/ Person

This, along with the Elephant Nature Park, was a splurge for us. However, we had never done anything like it before, and all the reviews we read said that it was a highlight of their trip to Chiang Mai.

On trip advisor, there were two ziplining tours with good reviews: Flight of the Gibbon and Jungle Flight.  The later was given slightly better reviews for personality, and was a little bit less expensive.

We decided on the longer route- one you spent 2 hours on the ziplines, and 2 hours in a car while the other you spent almost 4 hours in the trees with 2 hours in the car.

Our day started with the Jungle Flight Van pulling up in front of our building in Chiang Mai.  As an added bonus, we were joined by Celine, who was in Thailand for a couple weeks.  They drove us out of the city, and into the hills.  When we arrived, there was chaos.  It wasn't clear which way we were supposed to go.  We were asked if we were A trip or B trip so many times that we were ready to strangle whoever asked us again.  After forcing someone to give us the paperwork we needed to fill out, we were given lockers to put "everything but your cameras!"

At this point, we are not impressed with the company, or at least their ability to organize.

Off to the side, we see some people getting into body harnesses, and being fit with hard hats.  I'm pretty sure that out of three van loads, Ra, Celine and I were the last people to get our safety equipment.  Finally we seem to be assigned to a group, who all seem to be on the longer B trip.

On the website, they have an itinerary which lists a 15 minute "village tour."  In reality, this just means that we walk from the main facility through the main street to the edge of the forest where the course starts.  Village tour is a generous description, indeed.

When we got our safety equipment, they gave us a piece of bamboo with a crook.  It turns out, this is our breaking mechanism if we nestled the wire in the crook hard enough.  Needless to say we failed at this at least a couple of times and crashed into our guides. (Sorry!)

From this point, we had around 3 hours of ziplining, canopy walks, and plunging down pulleys in the Northern Thailand Rainforest.  We got to superman fly, take videos, and passed our camera off to our guides countless times for photo ops.

After the initial clusterfuck, everything else went smoothly, and we had a great time.  Being gluten intolerant, the snacks of cookies and crackers were not great for me, but the regular supply of water was appreciated.  The lunch was mediocre.

I would highly recommend a ziplining trip around Chiang Mai to anyone considering it.  We were happy we did the long trip which was the perfect amount of time and activity for us.  There was a walk back that was uphill, but for anyone in moderate shape, it should be no problem.

Now for pictures: