Blogs from Bukit Lawang, Sumatra, Indonesia, Asia

Jim, the Habitat employee, helped us plan and execute the next two days of our honeymoon. His brother-in-law (Nia) is a driver in Medan and the driver’s cousin (Wanda) is a trekking guide. This was exactly the hook-up we needed to accomplish our planned activities. Sunday, we planned to hike into the jungle to see some wild and semi-wild orangutans. Guides are required by law to hike in this area. Nia picked us up at 7:00 to drive us out to Bukit Lawang (“Gateway to the Hills”). We rendezvoused with Wanda at his house and he followed us to the trailhead. Wanda had a good command of the English language and was impressively knowledgeable about apes and the jungle in general. We hit the trail with Wanda and his 17-year-old son Fabio. After 15 minutes on ... read more

The highlight of Sumatra was, of course, the rain forest trek that lasted two days. It was an early morning and I woke up for one my hardest hikes in my childhood. My mum had told me we would see orangutans and I was dead excited. We met our guide Andu and we went out of the tourists resort and started climbing the first hill of our hike. We first saw the rubber tree plantation and apparently the rubber in the trees just comes out liquid. Then we continued and saw a gathering of people staring at a huge 90 kilo male orangutan. As he moved towards us people ran away and so did we. In all we saw eleven and including semi wild Mina and Jacky. Mina once bit Andu by sneaking behind him and ... read more

Our first stop on the Indonesian island of Sumatra was Bukit Lawang, 90km northwest of Medan. This small village is set back from the Bahorok river and covered in the dense Sumatran jungle. Famous for it’s orangutan feeding platform; the small village has become a popular tourist attraction. Unfortunately, this comes with its downsides as the locals are very pushy to send tourists on expensive tours into the jungle and can often exploit the animals as a consequence. On a limited budget we resisted the strong sales tactics of the locals and opted to visit the feeding platform costing only a fraction of the price. On a daily basis the rangers visit the platform with rucksacks full of milk and bananas to feed the semi-wild orangutans, giving tourists a chance to see them too. Originally the ... read more

So after only getting up once in the night for a wee and waking with what felt like someone shining a torch in my face ( it was the daylight!) I was relieved to know that I must have got some sleep during the night. Not feeling too keen on having an early dip in the river I settled with a roll of deodorant and some clean clothes. After being entertained by the large group of macaques diving and swimming for scraps of food - have never seen a monkey swim before! And watching the large resident lizard lazily making its way up the river we sat down and had breakfast ourselves. We all had a choice of tea or coffee, omelette or 3 layers of toast with cheese, tomato, onion and egg finished off with ... read more

Geo: -7.83075, 112.697I arrived in Medan and got a local bus out to my hostel in town which took around one hour, I've stayed here before so I know the owners and some others that are around. I contacted my friend Elly who has been looking after my bike in her home in Bukit Lawang and I'm pleased that she will be down in Medan in the morning so I do the return trip with her back to the jungle.The journey takes around 5 hours so it's great having some company along the way, I explained to her my change of plans and that I'm going to take the bike back over to Thailand and meet back up with Drew and Malmuirie. We have a great catch up along the way and it is nice to ... read more