Zip-lining excursions in Laos (and throughout Southeast Asia, from Thailand and Vietnam to the Philippines) have become wildly popular in recent years. In Laos, though, they’re also an important part of the sustainable tourism movement. Built in national parks or near game preserves, they provide local agricultural villages with a lucrative (and reliable) new source of income. They also transform former poachers into wildlife advocates, hiring them as guides and conservationists.

It’s breathtaking how the world opens up. You can’t stop on a zip line – you can’t even slow down as you speed along gravity’s rainbow – so the scenery flashes across your retina like a newsreel: the trees below, the distant hills receding in a haze, the Disney-like spectacle of the waterfalls cascading to your right. And the narrow riverbed of huge tumbled boulders 200 feet below, upon which you will fall if the zip line breaks (it won’t).

Source: Continue Reading @ sfgate.com

^{images: Jock Montgomery}