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Blogs from Bukit Lawang, Sumatra, Indonesia, Asia
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Days 20-21 - A little stroll through the jungle
Published: February 13th 2013Asia » Indonesia » Sumatra » Bukit Lawang
February 5th 2013
I was back in another airport waiting for another flight, this time to Medan in Indonesia, to go back in the rainforest again. The flight only took an hour and caught a taxi to Kampang Lalang which could loosely be described as a bus station. From there I caught a minibus to Bukit Lawang, on arrival a guy came up to be and offered me a lift to my hostel for 5000rp. There are 14,000rp to £1 so when I went to the ATM to withdraw £100 I instantly became a millionaire – woohoo. What the guy didn’t say was that he was going to give me a lift to the hostel on his scooter which made for a very cramped journey with my backpack and daypack! It was no surprise at all to me that ... read more
October 25th 2012
Our next stop was the jungle village of Bukit Lawang to visit our furry primate cousins, the Orang-Utans. Our journey took five hours, and on the way we stopped at a petrol station. There was a small cage of dogs outside, and I wondered whether these were guard dogs that were let out in the evening, or whether they were being transported for someone's dinner. Dog is eaten in some parts of Sumatra, although it's seldom written as dog on the menu. It's simply written as B1, and pig is written as B2. These correspond to the number of letter Bs in the name (dog is called Biang and pig is called Babi). I had seen plenty of adverting signs written with B2, but had yet to see B1. One strange thing I noticed about some ... read more
August 18th 2012
As Rebecca's Grandad would say “Oooo Heck!”. Where to start with this one?! The beginning is usually the best place to start so we'll give that a shot... The last few days of our life have been like living in a David Attenborough documentary. We were in the jungle, surrounded by birds, insects, primates, fauna and flora etc. It has been absolutely unreal! Warning: The pictures we will show you and the blog we are about to share are not even going to come close to justifying what we experienced in the last few days! Our first night in Bukit Lawang we stayed at a guesthouse we had read nothing but rave reviews about, Greenhill. The reviews were all accurate; it was great! We had a private room pretty much directly in the jungle with a ... read more
July 27th 2012
Vanmorgen eerst alle koffers ingepakt en toen zijn Joyce, Lisa en ik even het stadje ingelopen naar de markt. Wong had Tom beloofd dat hij nog met hem zou gaan zwemmen en van de rotsen af zou springen. Om 9 uur is Tom Mr WOng maar uit zijn bed gaan halen. Die arme kerel lag nog te slapen, maar daar had Tom niets mee te maken. De markt was een ervaring apart. Geen marktkraampjes zoals bij ons, maar alles op de grond of op dekens of plastic zeil. Alles was te koop, van speelgoed tot eten. Eten (vlees/vis) niet gekoeld, maar gewoon in bakken in de volle zon. Kip, lever, ingewanden, vissenkop, levende vissen, je kunt het zo gek niet bedenken. Bij terugkomst is Lisa ook nog even gaan zwemmen en toen was het hier echt ... read more
July 26th 2012
Vandaag zouden we naar de olifanten gaan, echter vandaag bleken de olifanten niet te werken. We zouden daar ook lekker in de rivier kunnen zwemmen dus we gingen toch. Wat we niet goed hadden beseft, was dat we 2,5 uur op onbegaanbare weg in een Jeep moesten rijden. Op een gegeven moment kwamen we aan bij een brug waar allemaal scooters, vrachtauto's, auto's en mensen stonden te wachten. Bleek dat er een vrachtauto door de brug was heen gezakt. Die lag op zijn kop onder in de rivier. Monteurs waren bezig om met boomstammen het gat weer te dichten! Dat zou echter wel een tijdje duren, dus regelde onze gids zo'n pick-up truck waar wij in de achterbak konden zitten en zo door de rivier naar de andere kant konden rijden. Aan de andere kant aangekomen ... read more
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July 25th 2012
Vandaag hadden we de jungle trek geregeld. We stonden om 8.30 klaar om de jungle in te trekken. Allereerst gingen we naar de voederplek van de oerang-oetangs. Er zat er eentje rustig zijn bananen te eten en zat ons ook stom aan te kijken. Toen begon de trip. We hadden gewoon een trip geboekt, eigenlijk niet wetende hoelang het zou duren. In totaal hebben we 6 uur door de jungle getrokken, berg op, berg af, op bijna onbegaanbare paadjes. Heel erg zwaar, maar ja, je kon moeilijk stoppen midden in de jungle. We kwamen oerang-oetangs tegen in het wild, ibon aapjes, hele grote mieren en nog allerlei beesten. In de middag lekker in de jungle geluncht (nasi met fruit). Op een gegeven moment op het einde zat er plotseling een oerang-oetang een 2 meter boven mij. ... read more
May 13th 2012
13thof may, after a nice stop here at Lake Toba we had set the alarm at 07am to check out and make our way to Bukit Lawang to see some orang utans. We had booked a collective taxi for 420.000 IDR. We thought a fast breakfast should be possible and while we were eating our pancake ( this seems to be the best alternative compared to bread ) the ferry arrived and started beeping as a sign of departure… It was only 07h45 and the ferry was supposed to leave 08am, we thought Indonesian time meant anything but too early! They will wait for us we thought and in 2 bites we ate our food (Jesper even left his so desired coffee of the day ) and hurried up with all our bags to the ferry ... read more
February 3rd 2012
During the last few days in Malaysia I had started reviewing my plans for Indonesia. Originally I had intended to travel Indo by land and sea only from Sumatra to Darwin, however with a 30 day visa it appeared to be a ridiculous idea. Trying to travel over a distance equivalent to London to Nigeria, during rainy season when boats were known to frequently postpone travel or simply sink and roads were closed due to mud slides or flash floods. Maybe a plan for one day, but for the time being I planned to fly from KL to Medan in Northern Sumatra, visit the tourist hotspots and then fly to Jakarta, travel through Java and then onto the islands to the south. Having camped out overnight in KL airport to catch an early morning flight I ... read more
December 23rd 2011
I had been looking forward to Bukit Lawang and its famed Orang-utan for quite some time, so much so that I dreamt about it whilst on Pulau Weh...but not in the way that you might think. In the dream, Amy had apparently had a child whilst we’ve been away (from where I don’t know) and had decided to name the boy Lawang! Of course I thought this ridiculous (although preferable to “Bukit”) and we argued and then...I woke up! Hopefully the place itself would not be as bizarre... Leaving from Pulau Weh, we knew we were in for one of those tediously long journeys again. A bus, a boat, a tuk tuk, two buses and then finally a final tuk tuk; all of which consumed 24 hours of our 30-day Indonesian visa before we ultimately arrived ... read more
November 24th 2011
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 ... read more
