If you want to have an amazing experience where you get to feel like a bird or a monkey, flying through the canopy of a rainforest, try ziplining.  We did and we loved it.

2150 baht (about $70) buys you this amazing adventure and it is well worth the money.  They provide two accompanying experts, all the safety equipment, free pick-up and return to your hotel, training, fruit and drinks.

There are a couple of ziplining options on Phuket Island.  We chose ‘Cable Jungle Adventure’ and were very happy with the whole package.

Heading out to the venue I didn’t fully understand how it all worked, but I knew it was something I really wanted to do.  They provided a set of gloves, one of which had hardened grooves in the fingers area, which slip along the cable.  We were strapped into a harness which in turn was linked to a pulley arrangement that ran along the cables.  If you needed to brake you simply forced weight from your gloved hands onto the cable.

There were 15 stations on the zipline course.  To get the true feel of the rainforest  we endured a huge downpour as we climbed to the first station.  This turned out to be quite refreshing because it left us damp in the steamy heat of the jungle, which had a nice cooling effect once the rain stopped and we started ‘flying’.

We slid through 1.2 kilometres of zipline.  Five other Aussies shared the experience with us and we all loved it.  At times we were 30 or 40 metres above the forest floor as we flew from station to station.  Generally we zipped from platform to platform but on one occasion we climbed up steps on a massive tree to reach the starting platform.

The safety standards were pretty good although we were left to our own devices on a couple of occasions when our attendant experts needed to be elsewhere.

It gives you a great feeling flying from tree to tree.  Based in a National Park, the scenery is awesome as well.  It’s hard to compare it with anything else I have ever done, maybe a  cross between para-gliding, rope-swinging and being on a roller coaster.

If you get the chance, do it!  It’s better than visiting an island or riding an elephant.  Maybe we did descend from apes.