Arrived at Bukit Lawang what a lovely place with the rustic bridges across the river and the little backpacker style restaurants and guest houses. You have to walk all the way up to the top of the village for the Jungle in which is by the boat crossing near the ranger station at the top.

Jungle inn is stunning, we went for the big room one floor down from the top, as we took it for 5 nights it was a good price. The famed waterfall right out of the bathroom window and you can go out of the back door of the bathroom and take a bath in the small pools in the stream. The room is special and reflects the care and attention that has gone into the Jungle Inn giant furniture and loads of space great view across the river.

Settled in and took it easy troupes’ of Thomas leaf monkeys swinging through the trees on the other side of the river opposite then Mecaks coming bounding through the accommodation.

Spent the first day reading. Ellie did some painting the troupes’ of Mekacs coming through are a hoot like an organised gang of vandals with the General and his assorted lieutenants taking the lead the young foot soldiers dispatched to rip this or that bit of roof off others sent to smash bottles or break into room to see what can be stolen the young ones hesitate if you confront them the boss monkeys just look as if to say come on then if you think your hard enough. Bringing up the rear are the camp following girls and babies all advancing through the village like a mob of little Hells Angels.

Organise a short trek for the next mourning 3 hours but more like 5.

Set off down to the bottom of the village then up round through the farming area and into the national park. Even though the path is tired and over walked it’s still nice being in the jungle, the route passes a huge tree great to be stood next to this, oh no I am becomming a hippey tree hugger.
After awhile another group see an Orang-utan and we join them. The Orang-utan is on the ground hanging around close to the tourists, this is a good close meeting and for amateur photographers like myself it’s the best photo opportunity. What it obviously is not is an encounter with a wild Orang-utan out in the jungle, These Orang-utan are dysfunctional care in the community cases i.e. not quite right but managing to be out there functioning The ones properly rehabilitate would not be seeking out Human company and would not be on the ground. But for this you have to go further walk more and have a good chance of missing them we are not fit enough.

On the sad side many of the female orang-utans that hang around people do not do well as mothers, Babies get sick through contact with human illness and this can result in them loosing grip on their mothers and falling to their death even if they are not so sick as to have their life threatened by the illness. Mothers raised in captivity often have poor mothering skills not having the experience with their own mothers to guide them. On the positive side it would seem many of them have made it back into the jungle never come back to the feeding station staying in the trees. The Sumatran Orang-utans belong in the trees away from Tigers unlike the Kalimantan orang-utans with no Tigers they can go on the ground and hence grow much larger.

Even the Orang-utan that hang around Bukit Lawang have freedom and can do as they please a much better place for them than a zoo. Even if they don’t have a wild Orang-utan lifestyle.
All the ones you see have names and the guides know them all.
We continued on our walk/ trek even on these easy paths near Bukit Lawang, its slippy and very steep in places, In the main season the route can be crowded and several groups can bunch up we only crossed with 2 other groups of 2 each plus there guides and everyone was behaving well.

We rest and there is a troop of Thomas leaf monkeys in the trees above us leeping about at a cracking pace also a couple of Mekaks hoping to pick up some stray bananas. Walking on we see the notorious Mena the guides get between her and us but she does not threaten the guides are wary of her, The local mythology says that she prefers to bite Indonesians as one of the guides struck her face and left a bad scar, She does have a scar.

We then head of the main track down a small side path very steep hanging on to small tree trunks and branches to avoid slipping down the slope. Further down there is a mother and small baby sitting amongst the trees one of the guides not our guy Iwan, gives one of the other tourists a banana to give her but Iwan is not pleased about this so no more bananas are offered. The mother and baby move amongst us and the mother goes over to my wife and holds the baby towards her gently gripped in her long strong hand, as if showing the baby to her, we are holding trees to stop slipping down and not able to move out of the way the mother touches my wife it’s not possible to follow the rules of no contact in these circumstances. They came so close you could smell the mother’s breath. The baby is very small and mostly still has its eyes closed the guides obviously knew where they were.

A fascinating encounter for us, but much to close for the orang-utan particularly with the baby there was no way to get out of the way.
We walk on and back to the main path here we come on the majestic Abdul building a nest in a tree almost over the path, again the guides are spooked Abdul chases people they say moving faster than those he chases. Elaborate plans hatched to get old overweight tourists past Abdul without incident. Abdul meanwhile looks great, a big dignified looking guy with a crop of side whiskers, as we approach he shown no interest only bothered about building his nest thinking only of his afternoon nap. We take our time and watch him totally focused the nest is not so high about 3M so we can see well.
Walk down past the ranger station there are quarantine cages here for sick orang-utans just one resident who looks OK.
Not up for bouncing down the river on the inner-tubes even though it looks like fun we cross the river in the dugout canoe on the rope pulley, precarious but fun.

The Orang-utans have been known to cross the river on the wire rope for the canoe crossing then going into the guest houses, the rangers to their credit put effort into keeping them away from people.

Next day went to the Bat cave didn’t see many bats the cave system has many openings so there is no place that you get the mass exodus they come out all over, great fun clambering around avoiding the millipedes and all the stuff I didn’t see i.e. scorpions and snakes mostly. Came back and went for a swim in the river just stayed near the side currents to strong for me.
Next day there is a group of Thomas Leaf Monkeys roaming the village and having fun they join in the local football matches sometimes but only to steal the ball.

Next day a visit market in the mourning Little boys crowding round the live decorative fish stall girls crowding elsewhere The market is the local rubber tappers rubber clearing place.

In the afternoon we visit the feeding platform, Only Mena showed look so cool and in control swinging through trees talk about graceful, this is good the rest are feeding in the Jungle. Mena comes over drinking the juice and eating bananas Afterwards she moves around and walks up to Ellie gently grips her arm and moves her out of the way to get past. Ranger comments he thought she was going to be Mena 56. After the 55 people she has already took a bite out of. Ellie was careful not to look her in the eye or behave aggressive and Mena was real sweet. Mind maybe not so sweet when some of the guys at the Jungle Tribe cafe were showing us there Mena scars the next day.

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