When in Chiang Mai, one can’t help but notice numerous advertisements for zipline jungle adventures. At last count, we noticed posters for at least 4 different zipline companies – all vying for the tourist dollar. Wanting a little adventure and a good activity to entertain our 8 year old and a visiting friend, we decided to go with Flying Squirrels Zipline Adventure.

For convenience and the discounted price, we opted for the online booking option. Our fee was 1,999TB (~$61) per person. Not cheap, by any means, but competitive with the current going rate and worth it for a full day’s activity with transportation included. We tend to be early risers, and we wanted to take advantage of the cooler morning weather and lighter crowds, so we booked the 7:30am pickup time.

We were picked up in a clean, air-conditioned van, where we joined a group of young Japanese and Korean travelers. The van carried us out of town to the north towards Mae Rim and then west into the forested mountains.

We enjoy trips out of town for the opportunity to see what the country side has to offer. The comfortable morning drive took us past horse pastures and residences, small stores, a military base, an elephant camp, a royal botanical garden, an ATV/gun club (interesting combination!), the Mae Sa river with riverside tables and play areas, and more.

After pulling off the main road, we followed a long, winding mountain road to the village of Pong Krae and the Flying Squirrels “headquarters”. The main building has a beautiful view overlooking the village of Pong Krae, with terraced hillsides and flower farms, as well as rugged, forested mountains surrounding it.

Upon arrival, we were greeted and signed our liability waiver. We were given t-shirts, which was a nice touch, although the color was not our favorite. We were each outfitted in sturdy harnesses and helmets. A bandanna was provided to go under the helmet, which turned out to be a great idea as the day wore on. Our son was starting to get excited about what lay in store – he had no real idea of what a zipline actually was, but he’s been rock climbing enough to know that putting on a harness of some sort equals upcoming fun and adventure.

Finally, it was time for our intrepid guides, Doi and Boom, to shuttle us into a pickup truck and take us another 10 minutes up the road, further into the forest. It was such a wonderful feeling entering the shaded, damp coolness of the morning forest. There are no real rain forests in Thailand, but the forests can be dense and lush, nonetheless. We could see a cable stretching out into the canopy from a giant tree. Banana palms stretched up the hillsides below the canopy of the larger trees.

As soon as we arrived at the first platform, my son bounced up to the front of the line and asked if he could be first to go. Our zipline companions were happy with this, as they seemed a little hesitant to get started. So, one of our guides hooked in and disappeared into the canopy to catch us as we arrived at the other end. Our son, as soon as he was able, very enthusiastically followed. There is no doubt that he is a fan for life!

We could tell we weren’t the first group out that morning, because we could hear the squeals of delight and trepidation from somewhere nearby in the jungle canopy. But, we only caught glimpses of another group a couple of times. Otherwise, we had the jungle to ourselves – or at least it felt that way. Our group of 9 people seemed a perfect size. We didn’t go too fast through all the obstacles, nor did we get backed up on any.

The ziplines traverse the space between platforms built up on various trees. Sometimes, you transfer to the next zipline from the same platform, other times there is a very short walk to the next one. Overall, we started at a high elevation and over the course of all the traverses, work our way down in elevation. There were a total of 26 stations, with 17 zipline “runs” and 9 other obstacles, including a skateboard-cable, a swinging bridge, a bicycle-cable and several others.

Although they must do it several times every day, our guides were incredibly cheerful and did a great job leading us around. I know it’s their job, but I appreciate their professionalism and enthusiasm. There’s never any guarantee in tourist activities that you’ll end up with such good-natured guides as we had.

The guides seemed like they’d been pretty well trained also. I have spent some time around ropes, and elevated work environments, so have some familiarity with the equipment and safety protocols in these environments, and everything here seemed on the up-and-up. Harnesses, although used, were in good shape. Every connection we made was solidly backed up with used but good equipment. Cables all appeared newer and solid, with minimal corrosion or wear. All the platforms appeared to be well-maintained. All good signs when flying along 10 to 30 meters off the ground.

When all was done, we were shuttled back to headquarters for a lunch buffet. Upon our initial arrival there had been 2 vans in the parking lot, there were now 15 vans. Several groups were milling about, signing paperwork and getting harnessed up. I don’t know what it was like with all these groups out in the forest, but I do know that I loved our experience with the early arrival.

Lunch was included in the price and was quite a decent buffet of some standard Thai dishes, with salad and fruit to choose from. We grabbed a couple of large Leo’s for 60 bhat, a reasonable price, to go with our meal and sat back to enjoy our lunch and the view. Our son, even managed to make friends on the the small playground with a child of someone who worked here. Asked what he though of the adventure, he gave an enthusiastic “Awesome!” and two-thumbs up.