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Published: November 24th 2011
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Bukit Lawang
The view from our balcony... Well, following on from my last blog, yes, I had an excellent week in fantasy football, thank you for noticing! That aside we have had quite a week!
As expected we didn't end up going to Singapore, just about everyone we spoke to said it was very nice but that we'd be much better off visiting when we don't have such a tight budget, so it waits for another time. We spent a few more days in KL, getting on top of our washing, catching up on some sleep and enjoying the city without much to report, and then headed over to a small city called Melaka on the West coast of Malaysia for a change of scene.
Melaka was for a while one of the trading capitals of the Dutch East India Trading Company and the town had a bit of a pirates of the Caribbean vibe once you looked past the occasional midsized sky scraper! We went to a museum about the Spice trade and pirating in the area and spent an enlightening 2 minutes looking at the biggest meteorite exhibition in Asia (1 small case!) We did get to hold a meteorite
Bukit Lawang
A 90kg Wild Male Orang-utan... which although not much bigger than a wallet was so heavy it was difficult to lift. We passed the evening at a night market and ate some of the oddest food yet. As there was no menu and you basically had to communicate what you wanted with animal impressions and pointing, we eventually (we think) ordered a starter of deep fried duck won-tons which were fantastic. However they were followed by noodles in black sauce (bad) and for some reason the same 'duck' parcels as earlier but boiled in fish stock. These basically smelt like wet dog and managed somehow to taste worse and even my appetite for pleasing the owner didn't stretch to eating that slippery monstrosity! To finish we had a not to miss Malaysian desert of chipped ice (like a slush puppy) with Palm Syrup, Mango Juice and candied mango. Not so bad I hear you cry, but that’s only because I've not finished, the other ingredients were sweetcorn (raw and unsweetened) and kidney beans... Just weird! Again there was a small pile of rejected food at the bottom of our bowl by the end.
After our excursion to Melaka we got on a
Bukit Lawang
Mother with 2 year old infant... we saw babies, but the photos weren't as clear! plane and hopped over to the Northern tip of Sumatra in Indonesia for the beginning of the end of our tour of Asia. Landing in Medan at 7am we were I think the only westerners within about 100 miles (there is literally nothing for a tourist to enjoy in Medan, so we are a bit of a rarity!) and must have stood out accordingly. A local chap who thank god could speak some English worked out that we wanted to visit Bukit Lawang and pointed us toward the right bus, 3 hours of winding gravel road later we arrived in a carpark in the middle of the jungle and were told we had arrived.
Fortunately (and going against our theory that anyone who is nice to you is trying to rip you off) we befriended a jungle ranger who was sharing the same minibus as us. Actually it was inevitable we would meet someone involved in the jungle on the minibus as despite having only 8 seats, half of Indonesia (pop: 240,000,000) had managed to squeeze on... Anyway we never looked back as he (Sunir) helped us into the sidecar of a motorbike, jumped on behind the
Bukit Lawang
Thomas Leaf Monkey in the jungle! driver and proceeded to show us around his hometown and help us find the nicest accommodation in the village. A relative term as there was no fan, a/c, hot water or a flushing toilet but hopefully the picture of the view attached will help you understand the justification of our decision alongside the explanation that literally nowhere had hot water, a/c, a fan, a flushing toilet... We then spent the afternoon recovering from the pretty much horrible morning of early starts, flying and bussing, by enjoying the incredible view of the jungle, lying in a hammock and smiling.
The following day, unsurprisingly Sunir's kindness was rewarded and we arranged for him to take us on a trek into the Jungle (no doubt his plan all along!). We spent the day clambering through the steamiest, densest jungle I can imagine, and enjoying every swashbuckling second of it... We climbed cliffs, stone hopped across rivers, got bitten by leeches (a personal low point) and spotted monkeys, gibbons and orang-utans to our hearts content. (see attached photos and maybe video!) We were so lucky with regard to how much wildlife we saw even the guide and the barman from our
Bukit Lawang
Emma feeding a monkey near the village guesthouse who came along to keep us company were buzzing with excitement by the end. Literally one of the most brilliant days of my life finished with some drinks on the balcony, playing card games with the staff, getting embarrassed at chess and enjoying life very much... It couldn't last!
Emma noticed something wasn't quite right when the following morning I didn't finish my breakfast. Well the less said about the rest of the day from my point of view the better, but the staff called it jungle bug and I called it (something) miserable. On the flip side Emma spent the day playing in the river, climbing a waterfall and reading her book (as well as making sure I had everything I needed to stay alive) which I'm sure wasn't too bad.
Fortunately the bug was pretty much over within 24 hours and we passed a great day enjoying being away from the city, eating banana pancakes, drinking fruit shakes and watching monkeys jumping from branch to branch across the babbling river. Not too bad at all! This morning we got a coach back to the relative civilization of Medan and tomorrow we fly to Java to begin our home stretch to Bali and then the genuine civility of Sydney!
Sorry about the essay, but 1000 words was never so easy to write at Uni!
Hope all is well at home...
Adam and Emma
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victoria (mum)
non-member comment
Jungle Fever !
Adam - you need to come home if you are poorly. and eating bananas and fruit after a gippy bellie is not going to help ! Thomas Leaf monkey looks hideous. No flushing toilet and you had a smile on your face...........whats that all about and lastly - i thought it was normal to have a small rejected pile of food in your bowel !!!!!