Travel Memories: Sunrise Zip-Lining in the Laotian Jungle

My naively idyllic imagination of what it would be like to wake up every morning perched in a tree house in the upper canopy of the Laos jungle did not take into account the song-like call of the Gibbon monkeys competing with the strangely cicada-like bird songs floating through the air as I clutched on to the last remnants of sleep at some ungodly predawn hour.
The jungle is LOUD!
And yet surprisingly peaceful. This shot was taken in the early morning hours from …

Having Jenn join us for this leg of the trip has really given me a bit of perspective about the months spent traveling in developing world. For me, after five months of backpacking I really lost track of the delineation between my developing world experiences and life back home in the states.
Jenn though had no such confusion when she arrived with shiny-clean clothes and a backpack that smelled distinctly better than mine (what is that funk!?!). Jenn knew two things about herself when deciding to join a leg …

I have come to a pretty clear conclusion from my four months of travel in Asia -the name Shannon is not common, normal, or in some cases, even comprehensible. It’s completely normal in the United States…and Ireland for that matter!…but Asia is a whole other story. I dare-say that the theme for my journey over the past seven months could be summarized as “The Changing Names of Shannon” or, perhaps even more appropriate:  “The Complete Bastardization of my Name.”
Where did this start you may ask? Well, in Australia actually. …

I don’t want to be too overly dramatic here, but I feel as if this trip has firmly closed a chapter of my life for good.  I started the trip as a quarter-life crises of sorts as well as because of a general yearning to see the world and break out of the borders of the United States.  A lot of friends and family have sent emails and made comments about how lucky I am to have a year of vacationing.  Let me clear something up …

I have largely neglected my duties to this blog so far by not updating all of my readers on the state of driving on this side of the world.  For those who have not yet had the pleasure of traveling or backpacking through Asia, well, it’s unique and an assault on Western safety sensibilities.  To understand the way these people drive you pretty much have to completely abandon your conceptions about Western driving tactics and strategies and instead accept the organized chaos of a free-for-all.
From what I’ve discovered …

Part two of the Gibbon Experience  Zip-lining Tree House Adventure in Laos
Part one: Getting to the Gibbon Experience, Hiking in, & Learning to Zip-Line!
We had three days and two nights total in our tree house and the six of us really didn’t want to waste any of our time on the first day.  Once the guide dropped us back off he told us we were free to zip around to our hearts desire…and when we got hungry, the guides would zip some food right into our tree house.  The …

Part One: Getting to the Tree Houses & Learning How to Zip Line
Part Two:  Videos of zip-lining in Laos over the jungle canopy and the Gibbon Experience!
Ok, I know what most of you are thinking…what could Shannon possibly mean by the title of this post?  Surely her RTW travel adventure didn’t take her on a zip-lining adventure through the upper canopy of trees in the Laos jungle?  Well, let me assure you that I did all of that and more.  I think that I’ve now lived out nearly …