Cast a glance at Houayxai, a Lao border town of languishing mongrels and dust-blown monks, and you could be forgiven for passing swiftly on. Many do, then later — watching a wide-eyed traveller relate a visit to the Gibbon Experience — come to regret it. But what is this Gibbon Experience, and why is it so often described as the quintessential experience in Laos?

In short: an ingenious series of navigable zip lines crisscrossing the canopy of some of Laos’s most untouched forest, home to tigers, clouded leopards, black bears, macaques, migrating wild elephants and the black-crested gibbon.

Five years ago, poaching in the area was replacing the gibbon’s soprano with a funeral dirge. Cue the Gibbon Experience, which convinced the poachers to perform a volte-face and become the forest’s protectors. By acting as guides to falang (westerners), they now make double the money of their old predatory days. Visitors scatter the word, bringing a continuous yield of much-needed income (at £135, it’s not cheap).

As a visitor to the park, you get to live out your Neverland fantasy, gliding hundreds of feet above the treetops. Jack Osbourne, eat your bungee cord: this is adrenaline Lao-style, and even more heart-pounding than it would be anywhere else, as most things in this country have a way of suddenly not working.

Not a comforting thought as you scream down a 550yd zip line, your brake a primitive strip of bicycle-tyre tread that you squeeze to slow down. And another thing — you have to be pretty fit, for in the zen of zip, what whizzes down has to walk back up again on the other side of the valley.

After watching a safety video, we’re summarily dispatched to the jungle, three hours away. The choice: the Classic trek, a three-day trip into the Bokeo jungle, spending two nights in a treehouse; or the Waterfall trek — same time span, but a seriously increased amount of trekking.

Against my better judgment, I choose the latter. I try not to notice the recruits from the last trip sitting waiting to intercept our ride as we arrive at base camp in a Lamet tribe village — the burnt-out glaze of their eyes, the crimson tattoos of leeches’ work around their ankles.

An hour into our hike, lunch arrives in the form of a baguette and a pot of sticky rice. By then, we’ve left the paddy workers far behind; the secondary forest is thickening into brooding jungle, a sinewy chaos of creeper vines and muscular banyan roots. Our guide — his name sounds like Nietzsche — has a mournful face and a heart full of song. For most of our ascent, he’s a human iPod of Lao folk tunes, and we swiftly christen him “GuyPod”.

For three hours, we slog up sodden trails, passing giant snails and banshee rags of dead palm fronds. We even spot fresh tiger waste and claw marks mercilessly etched into a tree. Then, just as I sense revolt in the legs of our party of seven, GuyPod pauses and smiles: “Now it time to zip.”

Secured by a safety line — and a little faith and adventurism — we push off into the jungle abyss, aerial neophytes exploring our new element. The first time you zip, it feels as if you’ve stolen the gift of flight and traded your stomach in the bargain — whistling along at high speed, you see the jungle canopy unravel below, the distant mountains an endless green amphitheatre. Each ride lasts about 30 seconds, but, airborne, it seems considerably longer.

Initially, some of our company are roaring with so much testosterone and enthusiasm that the likelihood of seeing any animals is impossible. Two hours and six breezy zips later, exhausted by our exertions, we catch sight of our home for the night and fall to silent wonder.

Awaiting us at the end of another zip line is a fabulous treehouse fantasy, 200ft up in the branches of a mighty strangler fig. It took a month to build — the main structure was constructed on terra firma, then gradually manoeuvred up the tree trunk. It even has a rainwater shower: just don’t look down through the wooden fretwork as you douche off the day and soapsuds fall to the forest floor. “It’s like a Timotei ad,” swoons one of our party, still wearing hockey socks to deter the bloodsuckers.

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