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Published: October 18th 2008
Our home
Our hut is on the leftI start thinking it's going to be a long taxi journey from Medan to Ketambe when the kid in the seat behind me pukes before we even get to the end of the road. It's 8 hours on what is known as the 'vomit route' over pot holes, the locals chain smoking and listening to Indonesian pop music full blast. Indonesian pop music is generally crap English music speeded up x10, with a thumping beat in the background and sung by the smurfs on helium. I try to survive the journey by remaining unconscious and sleeping as much as possible. But I am awoken several times by the Indonesian girl behind me who keeps tapping me on the shoulder when she needs a new plastic bag for her/her daughter/her son to puke into. We arrive into Ketambe at dark. We decide to go back to Friendship guest house - that of the previous holiday's fated incident. Ahmed, the owner, looks like he's seen a ghost as Rob waltzes in and asks for a room. From then on we are celebrities within the village. It's good to know I'm a legend somewhere. Apparently all the trek guides in Ketambe now start by
Creepy Crawley
One of many residents in our bungalow telling the tourists the story of the English girl who fell within 5 mins of the trek and fractured her arm.
The treks were very cool. Well, roasting. You're either wet from the inside of your clothes and outwards from sweat or there's an almighty jungle storm and you're soaked to the skin. The leeches were out in force. Only one of the little evil things got to me. Although I say little, I made the error of wearing an outer layer so the little thing must have dropped on my shoulder, crawled through my raincoat and t-shirt and onto the top of my arm. Somewhere I couldn't see easily, so by the time I'd discovered him he looked like a fat slug and I was feeling weak from the couple of pints he'd sucked from my system.
Luckily for us, Olly the orang-utan decided to perform an acrobatic routine right in front of us, so we have some good close-up shots. We were lead to expect to see a flash of orange at most, so were pretty impressed. Saw probably 8 orang-utans in total so we're both quite chuffed. Unfortunately every shot Rob got of one seems
Rafflesia
The biggest flower in the world was in bloom for our arrival to be focused on their testicles, so I'm not sure we'll be putting any of them on the wall when we get home.
So the jungle visit part II was a success. Although I'm now glad to get into an air conditioned hotel where I don't have to spend the night wondering what the weird noise is outside the door or waking with some furry creepy crawly dive bombing into my face. Oh, and I've counted my mozzie bites. The current total is 53.
Bye for now,
H + R
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Poor HId
Never complain about spiders in your room ever again