I have deadly fear of heights. It’s an irrational fear that I’ve struggled with all my life. I’ve frequently tried to face it head on, hoping to cure myself of this neurosis (like my paragliding experience in Bavaria). Nothing really helps.

Traveling through Thailand, one of my goals was to try ziplining. Probably the single most famous zipline in Thailand is the “Flying Gibbon” in Chiang Mai. For whatever reason, while in Chiang Mai, I wasn’t able to schedule a time to try it. So after landing in Phuket and googling for activities, I came across the website for the “Flying Hanuman”. I was intrigued. I knew I had to do it.

How To Book

Booking with the Flying Hanuman was very easy. You can do it through phone or email. When booking you need to choose which course you want to do. Below are your options:

• Journey A (3,490 THB): This is the full course covering 28 platforms. It generally takes 2 hours to complete and there’s a meal at the end of the course.

• Journey B (3,250 THB): This is the same as Journey A except it doesn’t include a meal at the end of the course.
  • Course A & B include the following: 15 Ziplines (longest being 400m), 2 Abseils (heights up to 40m), 2 sky bridges to walk across and a honeymoon sling.
  • Available Times: 8 am / 10 am / 1 pm / 3 pm

• Journey C (2.300 THB): This is an abbreviated form of the course covering 16 platforms and doesn’t include a meal. This course generally takes 1 hour to complete.
  • The course includes: 8 Ziplines (longest being 100m) , 1 Abseil (from 15m), 1 sky bridge to walk across and the honeymoon sling.
  •   Available Times: 8 am / 1 pm

I ended up booking Journey A. While I felt that 240 THB was expensive for a meal in Thailand, I figured what the heck – I can be big baller and splurge the extra $7 for the meal 🙂

Getting There and Course Orientation

As part of your booking transportation is included for free. I booked the 10 am course time and the pick up time was scheduled for 8:45 am. So if you book the 8 am course time, then plan on a VERY early morning.

Yuck!

The  minivan arrived on time, unfortunately I was one of the first pickups for what turned out to be a full bus. So it was a long drive as we went around town picking customers from other hotels and locations. By the time we arrived I was feeling restless.

After checking in and getting assigned to a group, we got to meet our guides. Immediately my grumpy mood evaporated. Our guides were very gregarious and funny. They ran us through the basics of the equipment and safety procedures.

I asked whether I could use my Go Pro, and they said yes. But I was responsible for the camera, if it fell or broke they wouldn’t be able to retrieve it (since we’ll be up high up in the tree tops).

The Experience

Once we finished our orientation we hiked up to the first platform. Unfortunately, along the way one of the girls in our group fell on the uneven terrain and twisted her ankle. The injury forced her to go back to base camp. The emergency took a while to resolve, so we ended up starting the course 20 minutes behind schedule.

The first zipline we flew was short and not high off the ground. I guess it was designed to get people used to the sensation of ziplining. The course takes you from platform to platform, each time you land on a new platform, you’re unhooked from the zipline and clipped to a safely line.

From the second line onwards we were flying high and fast between the trees. It was an incredible experience. I really did feel like I was a monkey swinging in the canopy. The visual sensations were intense. Looking forward, I felt like I was moving at warp speed. Looking down was dizzying. To the side were panoramic views of forested mountainous tops.

Whoever designed the course is a genius. It never felt repetitive. The ziplines alternated from short fast lines to intense long rides. In between we had to walk across a couple of sky bridges (which really aggravated my fear of heights), as they swayed in the air and forced me to look down. The course also had two abseil drops. Those were show stoppers.

The energy and adrenaline never dipped or faded throughout the whole course, if anything it increased.

The course became more challenging and terrifying the further along we went. The final 2 or 3 ziplines and abseils had all of us screaming (with fear and joy). By the time we were done, my knees where shaking.

Hands down, this was the best money I spent in all of Thailand.

This is not a sponsored post and it has no sponsored links. This is my personal assessment. Experiencing the  Flying Hanuman will be one of the best memories I’ll always carry with me from my trip to Thailand.