Bukit Lawang

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Note: We wrote this ages ago and have only just found an internet cafe with a decent enough pc and connection to actually upload it! The piccies are not labelled and are in random order. Hope you enjoy J&M x

The journey from Pulau Weh involved a dodgy old minibus to the ferry port, express ferry and then an overnight coach back to Medan (we paid a bit more for a half decent one) which delivered us straight to the local bus which would take us to Bukit Lawang our next destination. Bukit Lawang is situated on the fast flowing Bohorok river and is best known for its orangutans and being the gateway town for trekking in the Gunung Leuser national park. From what we have seen, read and heard, Indonesia seems to have been be blighted by far more than its fair share of natural disasters. Everywhere we have visited has had its tails of earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and/or floods and Bukit Lawang is no exception... It was one of Sumatra's star attractions until in November 2003 at 9.30pm one evening without warning it was hit by a flash flood which wiped out most of the village, killing 350 people in the process and permanently altering the course of the river. Ironically at that time there was already a government initiative underway to move the village away from the waters edge where it had been built without permission. The flood definitely accelerated those plans.

On the bus from Medan to BL we we got chatting to a “friendly local” called Calvin. Calvin was a lovely bloke who would have no trouble eating an apple through a letter box with his protruding gnashers. As we chatted he told us he lived in BL and hated coming to Medan as it was so noisy compared to the tranquility of his jungle home. He only came there to use the internet as there was no access in BL since the flood. He asked us if we were planning to do any jungle trekking in BL and we said we weren't sure. He then revealed that coincidently he was a jungle guide and produced a book with glowing references about his guiding prowess. All the people who had written references talked about a 2 day trip with rafting back down the river at the end, which raised a smile from us and sounded interesting... He then casually mentioned his sister Nora's place called the Rainforest Cafe which also had cheap rooms. He was a tout, but he was the nicest tout in the country, so we didn't mind on this rare occasion.

For the rest of the journey we chatted to him and looked out the window at the country side (and unfortunately saw evidence of lots of logging and palm trees having been planted in place of the natural trees) as well as country life whizzing by including a traditional funeral. The last hour or so the road got really really bumpy and dusty and by the time we got there we were bruised and dirty and tired after over 24 hours of Indonesian travel, which is equivalent to about 48 hours of normal travel. We got a little motorbike with side car thing as far as the river then grudgingly walked the last 2kms along a small steep path that ran alongside the river. We eventually reached the Rainforest cafe and collapsed. We were revived with cold drinks and food and enquired about staying there. We were told there was a room available for 30,000rp (cheap and we assumed probably shitty) but it was yet to be cleaned so we decided to check out the competition in the mean time, leaving our packs there. We walked along the river further and started at the furthest place which had a good review in the Lonely Planet (aka Crowded Planet) and as a result was expensive and fully booked. We then checked the place next door which was the same sort of thing and it too was fully booked. The next place we tried was not quite as posh and did have a room. The friendly guy (who it seemed was the village gay) showed us a room which was probably nice in the 90s but had not seen much attention since... It was accessed by a treacherous uneven staircase and had also had a squat toilet much to Mon's horror, although to its credit it did have a very nice balcony overlooking the river and a reasonable 60,000rp price tag. We thought that was probably the one but headed back to Rainforest to check out the budget option. It turned out to be a winner. It had a shared bathroom, which was do-able but smelly with western toilet featuring manual bucket flush. The room was small and basic room with a mattress on the floor with a brand new mozzie net. It was amazingly clean and had a nice feel to it and a hammock hung outside the door which overlooked the river. We found out the place had only been built and opened since Jan this year. For less than 2 quid you couldn't really go wrong.

We met loads of nice fellow travellers there too down in the cafe area where everyone hung out. The first day we met an English/Kiwi couple who gave us the low down on visiting the nearby Orangutan rehabilitation centre and warned us about the local guides/touts/annoying cunts. We were spared any real hassle as we had already signed up with Calvin for a 2 day, 1 night tour starting the day after next but during our time there we saw other people lives made a misery by the relentless pestering and stalking, particularly women traveling on their own.

The next morning we got up early, had breakfast and headed up to the orangutan place for the 8am feeding. We met on our side of the river and the Gunung Leuser National Park and orangutans were on the other. There was not a bridge but a cable ran across above the river and there was a small boat attached to it which took 3 ape watchers across at a time pulled over by hand via a rope. We noticed a young male was over our side of the river and we assumed that he had come to welcome us and say hello. When he hung from the cable above the river, waited until the boat was half way and then started pissing and shitting over it, we realised he was not so well intentioned.

It was a short hike to the feeding platform which reminded us how little walking we had been doing for the last few weeks/months and how unfit we were. We started to have little doubts about our upcoming 2 day trek. After the young male, we saw a massive big faced dominant male and watched him eat some bananas about 10m away on the feeding platform and watched staff passing food by hand to him and later passing cups of a milk like substance to other orangs, which stuck us as wrong for what purports to be a rehabilitation program. It started to look much more like a money making tourist attraction. The set up was very different here from the feeding we had seen in Borneo where we were 100m from the platform and the feeder never went near the orangs. He just left a bucket of fruit on the platform and shouted to let the apes know it was breakfast time - the way it should be done. We felt a bit bad about the way things were done but at the same time (selfishly) it was amazing to get so close to these amazing creatures and we did get some great piccies! Flash photography and even talking at normal volume was not allowed at Borneo but anything went here and the orangs were flashed and fed and generally exploited...

We had read the warnings in the guidebook against the ill advised but popular past time of river tubing, which involves jumping into an old tractor inner tube and floating down the white water river. You can hire a tube for next to nothing and do a short bit of the river on your own and then just walk back up. But if you employ a guide you can do a 2 hour 18km stint and then get a bus back. We decided to throw caution to the wind, along with another resident at the Rainforest Cafe called Laura, and do the long stint. There was a bit of a misunderstanding about how much it was going to cost us for the guides it turned out he wanted 50,000 per person (on top of the 10,000 each for the tube and as it turned out 10,000 each for the bus back) but we managed to get him down to 30,000 each and we arranged to meet up later in our swimming gear.

Not sure if we have mentioned the fact the Joe bought Mon a waterproof (to 10m) and shockproof camera in Kuala Lumpur to replace the one he had drowned in Jack Daniels on the Perhentians and as an early birthday present. It had already proven its underwater credentials in Pulau Weh and it was about to have its shockproof claims tested in the tubes! We also brought Joe's waterproof bag so we could bring our flip flops and a bit of money for the bus back and a cup of tea. We hired our tubes nearby and then were off for our first taste. Just before we got in the water our guide Joe John mentioned that when we went under the bridge we had to stop by the right hand side and get out as there was dam which was effectively a small waterfall. We asked how we stopped and were told he would show us when we got there... Great! We jumped in the water and went with the flow and there were a few gentle rapids to warm us up. We then saw that the 2 guides had pulled into the side up ahead and realised it was time to do the same. They had done it by leaning back in the tube and paddling with their arms, driving the tube backwards or just one arm to turn the tube. Looked easy enough. Joe navigated into the edge quite easily but Mon managed to get herself stuck at the grill of a drain which lead down another way along with a load of floating rubbish and the guide had to go and rescue her! Mon had taken some photos on this first stint but realised the camera was restricting her ability to paddle and steer so we put it in the waterproof bag for the next stages.

We walked past the dam thing and then were back in the tubes. There were some more challenging rapids here and we were hanging on for dear life in a few places The guide would occasionally direct us to stay on the left or right, but we were more often than not left to our own devices, although we noticed he was never more than a few metres away from Laura and regularly giving her his personal attention and a helping hand to stay on track. Joe happened to be quite close to Joe John and Laura when we approached a particularly daunting looking stretch with Monika about 30m behind round a bend. All 3 of us in the lead group were flipped by exactly the same bit and Joe found himself being flipped around like spin cycle in a washing machine trying to make sure he did not lose the bag, which contained some air and actually floated. Once out of the real churning bit he was able to stand and was reunited with his tube with the help of Joe John and his assistant. By the time Mon hit the same spot we had all made it to the bank and stopped for a fag break/rest so she had no idea about the impending doom... She got the same treatment as the rest of us and was rescued and brought to the side of the river dazed and battered. She had hurt her leg but it didn't seem too bad. She was not happy about the fact she had not been warned about this bit after the guide merrily told her that everyone always went under at that point.

There were no more bits as bad as that for the rest of the journey, but there were quite a few bits where you had to be on the right side of the river or you got stuck on shallow rocks (and often got hit by a rock up the arse if you weren't on your guard.) Joe managed to get carried by the river under a bamboo tree and was slightly battered by it. Then it happened again and this time he was actually dragged off his tube and into the water again. He also got caught on lots of shallow bits and sharp rocks and noticed a small puncture in his tube towards the end of the journey but luckily it was a slow one. We did ask ourselves more than once why we had bothered getting a guide when he didn't seem to be doing much guiding unless you were a blonde haired bird called Laura! ;-) It was great fun for most of the trip and the scenery was AMAZING on the quieter bits of the river when you could actually look around and take it in, but to be honest I think we were both glad when we got to the end of it! When Mon stood up, she realised her leg was a bit worse than she had realised and hobbled to the nearest cafe for a medicinal Bintang beer. With her tendency for hypochondria, sorry, health anxiety, she realised she had probably fractured or chipped the bone in her shin or at very least ripped or sprained something important. She diagnosed that she may never walk properly again and the jungle trek was looking unlikely for the following day.

Our guide commandeered a small local minivan and we threw the tubes inside, which filled the back of the van where the seating was... Joe John climbed up a ladder followed by Laura and us and took up our positions on the roof! This was obviously standard procedure as there were hand rails down each side of the roof... After the initial shock it was actually fantastic being up there and we got a great view and all the locals waved as we bounced past. Sadly we have no photos as there were no spare hands after hanging on! When we stopped we realised that getting down was slightly more tricky than getting up, but eventually we all managed to get down. By now Joe's tube was looking as deflated as Monika. When we got back to Rainforest Cafe we asked Nora, the owner and Calvin's sister, to call bruv and ask if we could postpone our trek for a day, or maybe more. Luckily he was OK with that. In the end it was 4 days until Mon's leg was ready for action and we spent the time in between hanging out, reading, swimming in the river, drinking beer, eating and smoking jungle weed. It could definitely have been worse. In the mean time, most of the people who had been staying there with us had left and new people had arrived including a couple of English girls called Penny and Nico who were traveling separately but had linked up as some protection from the local touts. We got on with them and hung around together. There was also a slightly strange American guy who was “in media” who lived in Singapore. His work included some involvement on Indonesian Idol and he proudly wore his “crew” t-shirt.

When time came for our trip we put our bits and bobs and water in our backpacks and met up with Calvin at 8am after a breakfast of banana porridge and half a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich. We walked down by the river and crossed the only bridge, walking through a few resorts along the way including one where they were feeding some Thomas Leaf Monkeys which are cool monkeys which our guide called funky monkeys. They were black and white with a mohawk and a skull like face. We showed the paperwork to the appropriate people and then were off into the forest, passing through a rubber tree plantation on the way, just outside the national park where our guide explained the process of rubber tree farming, which we won't go into.

Soon we were in the jungle proper and spotting critters. We saw some Long Tailed Macaques (no biggie as you could see about a million of these a day without leaving the Rainforest Cafe) then we saw some Pig Tailed Macaques, which we had not seen before. As the name suggests that had little tails, which must have made balancing a bit more of a challenge... A bit later the guide heard a call and rushed us off the trail to see some rare White Handed Gibbons and we got a good look at them and watched them making giant leaps and throwing themselves from branch to branch. We stopped for a bit of a rest (after about 10 minutes) and sat on a fallen tree (which our guide informed us had been eaten from the inside out by termites) and Mon noticed a small scorpion in a little hole not far from where Joe was sitting. He wouldn't come out of his hole so Mon got a small stick and poked him. He grabbed the stick with his claws but still didn't feel like coming out...

Later we saw orangutans out and about and one called April actually blocked our path demanding fruit from the guides... Calvin took us around it at a safe distance while the other guide, the mustachioed Anwar got close enough to the ape for him to start pushing him and punching him what looked really hard - enough to knock him off his feet. But he didn't seem bothered. There was then quite a steep climb and when we got to the top we stopped to catch our breath. Mon realised she had lost her pink bandanna/scarf that our friend Stevie had bought her for xmas and made Calvin go all the way back down the steep bit to get it. He was her hero! We had another climb and when we got to the top it was Nasi Goreng time. We all sat on a big log ate, drank, and admired the jungle around us. We ate with another guide and his camp Russian customer. We had fruit for desert and the guides smoked some local cigarettes which contained a lung busting 40mg of tar! Calvin claimed he could not get up the steeper ascents without a drag on one. We might also add that Calvin was doing the whole trek in flip flops so quite often as we struggled up a steep bit Calvin would be up ahead casually strolling up it in flip flops whilst toking on a fag which made our struggles seem even more pathetic. At this point it started to rain a bit, which didn't make much difference as our clothes were drenched with sweat by this time. The orangutan April had been following us (he obviously knew the routine and where lunch stops were made) and was hanging around for scraps. Anwar, the assistant guide gave him some old bananas and left over fruit which we frowned upon, to be honest. After lunch Calvin's bag was light and he noticed Mon with her big heavy pack and valiantly offered to swap bags which Mon graciously accepted.

From reading various things and speaking to other travellers we had heard about an aggressive female orang in the area called Mina who because she had been fed by guides in the past over the years had now come to expect food from guides and would not take no for an answer. Calvin warned us about her at the beginning and told us that if we saw her and he told us to run in a particular direction that we should not fuck about and leg it. She regularly bit people and had tasted the blood of 89 of the jungle guides and an undisclosed number of customers. When the shout of “MINA!!!! RUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!” We shat ourselves. Calvin pointed up the hill off the path and ordered us up there while he and Anwar distracted her. We did not hang around and legged it up the hill. Mon noticed Mina making a b-line for her and in doing so lost her footing and slipped. She realised Calvin's bag contained edibles and quickly threw it off and Calvin gave her a push up the hill. We both got over the other side of the hill and stopped, pulses racing and adrenaline pumping and waited for the others. When we saw the size of her and knew her intentions it really was a scary moment. When the guides appeared over the top of the hill Calvin did not look happy and we noticed that Anwar had a now empty pack and was holding one of his arms. As he got closer we could see his arm was swollen and bleeding. Mina had claimed her 90th guide. Calvin gave Mon back his pack (quickly removing his wallet from it!) and told us to follow the other guide (with the nice Russian boy) while he sorted out Anwar. When he caught up with us he told us Anwar had gone back to seek medical attention. He told us that Mina had basically caught Anwar and bitten his arm, refusing to let go. She only let go when he surrendered the contents of his pack to her, which had all our fruit in. We couldn't help but think that there may have been a bit of karma involved as Anwar had been feeding other orangs by hand earlier...

We continued with the trek and the mood improved after a while. We saw a few more orangs and monkeys and were starting to get tired as the way was hard with lots of steep ups and then steep downs which with the wet weather we were struggling with and were often found clinging to roots and vines as our only support. We were happy when Calvin told us there was no more up, it was all down from here on. However when we realised it was nearly vertically down we were not so overjoyed... We slipped and slided down the last bit hanging onto anything we could find. There were some parts when Calvin had to tell us right foot on that root, left foot on that root, etc. It was like a bad game of jungle twister. We could hear the river rushing below which was an indication of how far we had to go and collapsed with exhaustion at the bottom when we finally made it. We could see the camp on the other side of the river and there was fire going and we were told there was hot tea over there which spurned us on. We removed our shoes and bags and gave them to one of the camp crew who tied them in a waterproof bag and waded across the fast flowing river. He then came back and ferried us across one at a time him wading, us in a tube.

That evening after washing in the river we drank gallons of hot sweet tea and were well fed although there was no fruit for desert. As it got dark Calvin lit candles and entertained us with some match stick riddles and card tricks. By 9pm we were falling asleep and made our way to our bamboo and tarpaulin shelter to lay on 1cm thick mats with our bags as pillows. We were asleep in no time. Mon woke up at 3am with a bladder full of hot tea but realised she would have to scramble over 4 other bodies to get out of the tent but was too scared to do it in the dark so waited for it to get light before making her escape and emptying her bladder like a racehorse. We all got up around 6.30am and found it was a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky. We all went our separate ways for our morning constitutionals. Joe wandered off and found some great giant leaves with a nice soft side and was soon wiping his arse with them. He showed Mon the leaves and she snuck off to do the same. After breakfast Calvin showed us (just Joe and Mon) a little waterfall tucked away and then left us alone and we had a nice morning dip together with no need for swimwear. We swam, splashed about, washed and cleaned our teeth and felt lucky to be in such beautiful surroundings.

As the sun came up we put all our stinking wet clothes from the night before on rocks and they were dry by the time we were packing up to leave a couple of hours later. We put all our bags and shoes in water proof bags again and the guides roped together 4 big tubes to make a raft. We all climbed on and we were off down the river, back towards home. There was a guide at the front with a long stick and another at the back and they steered our vessel safely down the river so we were free to admire the views and enjoy the ride. We were soon pulling in and Penny, Nico and James (Indonesian Idol) were swimming with another English guy. We joined them for a sunny swim and then headed back to the Rainforest cafe where we relaxed for the rest of the day and drank some beer.

Nora came back from Medan with Mon's birthday cake (which she charged Mon 75,000 for, the same as 2.5 nights accommodation!) and she wanted to celebrate it that night, but we were tired and Joe had dodgy guts so we snuck off upstairs at around 9pm. We slept well on the luxurious feeling mattress on the floor, with the exception of a few essential midnight visits to the toilet for Joe. In the morning when we came down Penny and Nico were already down there and Penny presented Mon with a packet of strawberry Oreos wrapped in a banana leaf. Nora and her sidekick Siti then spotted Mon and pounced on her with the cake and both gave her a little present each (which didn't even balance out the 75,000 ;-). The cake was heavily iced in garish colours and said “Happy b'day Mika” there was a candle in the shape of a number 3 and 2 other candles. One of the many guitar playing locals grabbed the guitar and started strumming and there was a half hearted performance of Happy Birthday Indo-style. After Mon blew out the cake Nora decided that Mon should buy everyone a beer and 3 big beers went on the tab, before Monika could complain icing was smeared all over her shocked face. Mon, Joe, Penny and Nico looked at each other a bit bemused and didn't really know what to say or do. Mon plastered the best fake smile she could muster but to be honest the whole situation was a long way from fun and felt really uncomfortable and Mon was unhappy that her birthday was not going as she had hoped or planned. Then the blue flour came out and they started to throw that over Mon (who was wearing her best dress for the occasion)... What next?? When someone turned up with a wheelbarrow and they wanted to put Mon in it and throw her in the river, she drew the line and informed everyone she was going to wash herself in the river and she and Joe got away from the birthday party from hell!

We had a swim and washed in the river and decided we would celebrate Mon's birthday together elsewhere properly. Later that day Nico suggested we had a little birthday drink and we decided to have it upstairs outside our room, so we bought 2 bottles of gin and some sprite and set to work. We were soon restocking with gin and when we had drunk it all we moved on to “whiskey” and “brandy” which were disgusting local approximations of the real thing but by that stage we didn't care! Joe also kept the jungle weed joints coming and we all got hammered and had a good laugh in the end.

The next day we woke up badly hung over and realised we had to pack and leave, which we did. We got a bus back to Medan with Penny and then got on the 24 hour bus to Bukittinggi. Only later did Joe discover in his hung over state he had forgotten to pack his favourite (well only) vest. Gutted. Mon also forgot her Mr Men pants. Luckily she had 2 pairs.

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