Advertisement
Published: August 27th 2009
We included Sumatra in our Indonesian itinerary for the sole reason of visiting Bukit Lawang where they have a conservation programme reintroducing Orangutans back into the wild, as many as 5,000 wild ones are also thought to live in this area. Here they have a good opportunity to see them when they visit the feeding platform twice a day which is just inside the Gunung Leuser National Park. Our friends had visited it earlier in the year and said it was lovely and we were keen to see as much of Sumatra as possible so it was included as our first Indonesian stop.
Our 7.30am flight from KL to Medan meant us getting up at 2.30am to get the first bus from central KL to the airport. We had thought it would be easy walking at this time but with it still being over 30 degrees outside it was quite a chore. When we arrived at the airport we were yet again amazed that Asia really is a 24 hour place as it was packed! People were sleeping, eating and generally milling around everywhere just like it was the middle of the day. This was our first internal Asian flight
but we had expected the usual lack of organised English queueing so used our trolley as a ramming machine to ensure our place wasn't lost. What we hadn't expected was that Asian people seem to take all their belongings onto the flights so it took ages for the queue to go down with every person checking in about 10 boxes of stuff.. what was in there we have no idea but it was pretty frustrating!
We were surprised by the flight to Medan which only lasted 50 minutes! We'd expected a short flight but not that short! Our fears over landing in Polonia an airport infamous for it's air crashes due to a too short runway were thankfully not confirmed and we landed safe and well in our 14th country at just gone 7.30am.
We'd already decided not to stay a night in Medan after hearing no glowing reports about it so walked the 2km to the town centre avoding all the Becak drivers, found an ATM to stock up on cash and a McDonalds to rest from the heat for 5 minutes then headed out to find our way to the bus station to take us onwards
to Burkit Lawang. We were instantly taken in by the kind Indonesian people who always say hello as you pass them by and after asking a traffic policeman to help us we boarded the Opulet number 64 to the bus station. The driver was surprisingly helpful in getting us on the right bus by shouting out our required destination as he approached the buses, we paid the man the correct money we were expecting (something we'd been prepared to argue about) and boarded the bus to Burkit Lawang.
The ride there was 3 hours and we instantly felt we were back in the land of memorable bus rides and memories of Bolivia came flooding back. The bus was hot & sticky, it stopped every 2 minutes and pretty much everyone on board was smoking. This was something we were going to get used to as 90% of Indonesians smoke. It actually wasn't so bad on this bus as all the windows and doors were fully open but this was to change in future journeys.
On the bus we'd already been collared by a friendly man who was a guide, we made it quite clear we weren't going to
Man vs beast
but which is which?!need any such services here but he persisted and wouldn't leave us alone. In the end he helped us find a guesthouse which was quite handy but we still didn't want to go on a trek with him so we just went into our room and left him to it. To be fair he was a really nice guy but we just weren't interested and having made that quite clear from the start we didn't feel so bad. We'd already decided not to do a trek here before we'd arrived. The main reason was that we'd heard that this area is overtrekked and you don't get the sense of being lost in the jungle at all. Our thoughts were confirmed when we saw the 'quality' of the guides hanging around in the restaurants chatting up the young western girls, smoking and asking everyone if they wanted any drugs.. nice! We also spoke to a few people who'd been on the treks and said that while it was nice and some had managed to spot some wild Orangutans, the guides spoilt the experience a little by feeding the animals, littering and constantly talking on their phones. Not really our idea of
a jungle trek!
Bukit Lawang is a very small village set on 2 sides of a river with various rickety bridges joining it together. It was a Sunday when we arrived and we were amazed by the amount of people there. We had images of a small quiet village but it was more like a theme park with crowds of locals on each side of the river, everyone swimming, eating and generally having a right old time and making the most enormous noise. It was nice to see though because this village has recently been though some tough times in 2003 when the river flooded taking out most of the houses and killing 239 people. Thankfully they seem to be getting over this disaster quite well and everyone is making the most of rebuilding their lives with a smile on their face.
We were so exhausted from our early start we went to sleep for the rest of the afternoon, only waking to eat dinner then go back to bed. We had intended to get up early for the 8am feeding the following day but were still tired so slept in a bit which was a big mistake...
With the rest of the day to fill until the 3.30pm feeding we decided to fill it by taking the short walk to the bat cave about 2km away from the village. When we got there we found a few men who'd obviously decided that the bat cave was a business opportunity and had set up a little shop in front of their pay booth! They were all really nice though so we didn't worry too much and chatted to them for a while and it was these people who made the visit to the cave worthwhile because the cave itself was quite rubbish really as we only saw 2 bats flapping around.
One of the men we spoke to was a real life jungle man who we named Mowgli (we can't remember his real name). He was a little crazy and took great pleasure in showing us his cobra bite scar which was hideous. It was not the bite itself which made it look so awful but his refusal to go to a proper hospital to have it treated instead doing it himself using traditional jungle methods. In his near perfect English he explained how he'd saved
himself by cutting various veins and then removing the dead flesh afterwards. The whole thing made our stomachs churn but we were glad he seemed to be ok despite having this terrible wound on his arm.
Not content with just showing us his scars and recounting his stories of his jungle experiences (he had seen a tiger!), he asked us if we wanted to see a cobra.. err yes of course! We were both a little unsure on what he would be showing us but when he reached into the hut to get a sack we assumed he'd found a dead cobra to show us.. errr no! He tipped up the bag and out came a cobra.. hissing and writhing away to show it's displeasure at having a sack as a house. Sophie was fascinated so tried to move a little closer which resulted in everyone telling her to stop and be careful as the cobra was obviously not having a good day. It wriggled around on the floor for a while and then Mowgli decided to show us some of it's tricks! He picked it up and made it coil up on itself hissing at him all the
time as he did it but Mowgli seemed unconcerned and kept a tight hold. For his next act he showed us his Python which was quite nice but nowhere near as impressive as the cobra... so much so that the thing we were most impressed with here was that it pooed all over the floor!
It was all quite fascinating and we have no idea why he had the cobra and what he did with it, we didn't dare ask. They didn't seem great friends so we suspect he hadn't had it long.. maybe it was the one who'd bit him and he keeps it to teach it a lesson?! It didn't seem quite fair that such an amazing animal should be kept in a bag but we weren't really in a position to give him an animal rights lesson so we left him to it.
At 3.30pm we were both very excited at the prospect of seeing semi-wild Orangutans, something we'd both always dreamed of doing but never thought we would be able to. We walked up the entry point, crossed by a little canoe and were immediately greeted by a ranger and one of the Orange
Hairy Ones! He'd come down from the jungle to the office for a bit of an early feed and was sat there enjoying Durian and bananas to his hearts content. There were only a few of us there and we were all transfixed watching him eat, roll over and walk around. They are such amazing animals as we're sure you are all aware but to see one in this situation is something quite special.
Finally it was time for us to all go up to the feeding station which is a bit deeper in the jungle and a short walk from the office. We all took our places and sat with our eyes fully peeled as the ranger banged on the platform to let the locals know he was there and it was time for dinner. At this platform they are only fed very bland food to encourage the Orangutans to go into the wild and collect food for themselves. Really the feeding platform is a last resort for them and they will only come if they can't get food elsewhere.. which is exactly what happened here of course!
The ranger had already explained that this time of
year is prime fruit season with copious amounts of mangos, rambutans and bananas to be found in the jungle. That morning they'd had a visit from one mummy and baby Oragnutan but the previous day had seen none. Just our luck then that we'd overslept that morning to miss seeing the mummy & baby! We all waited for nearly an hour all keeping our fingers tightly crossed that one of them would be hungry enough to come down but it just wasn't to be.
We have to be happy that those that have been rehabilitated are doing so well to not have to rely on humans to keep them but it was disappointing all the same. It seems that our luck with organised animal watching just isn't in on this trip but we had seen the one outside the office which was amazing, especially considering we'd seen him so close up but we'd really wanted to see them swinging though the trees so left a little downhearted. We got over it pretty quickly though by going for a comiseratory beer with a lovely couple and their sons (hi Karen, Tony, Tom & Max!) over looking the river and a
troop of naughtly Macaque and Thomas Leaf Eating monkeys on the other side.
The following morning we were due to leave for Medan but decided to give it one last shot and ventured to the feeding platform again. This time the crowd was much bigger and some from the previous evening had returned too but yet again it was a no show so we called it quits and caught a bus back to Medan with our thoughts on organised animal spots confirmed!
On the bus we had to decide our next destination.. we'd toyed between visiting another, less popular area of the Gunung Leuser National Park to do a trek, seeing a volcano or a big lake. In the end the lake won and we crossed Medan to get a bus to Danau Toba and the Samoir Island. The bus took a little longer than we'd anticipated after getting a flat tyre and driving though a huge thunderstorm that had us on the edge of our seats but we arrived safe and well in Parapet, the jumping off point for the lake and island. It was quite late and still raining like we'd never seen it before so
we dived in the closest guesthouse which was hugely overpriced at 80,000Rp for the night, had some dinner and an early night.
The following morning we woke up to bright sunshine and as we rounded the corner we were gobsmacked at the view. We actually thought we'd woken up in the wrong country for a moment as the views of the lake & island were a cross between Scotland and the Alpines.. it was stunning. We boarded the small ferry for the 30 minute ride across the island loving the views and the slightly cooler temperature all the way.
Dauau (Lake) Toba is actually the biggest volcanic lake in the world at 100km long, the deepest at 505m and the biggest supervolcano to have erupted in the last 25million years around 75,000 years ago. Impressive stats but we'd never heard of it before we got there! The island is also home to an interesting group of people called the Bataks who are found both here in Sumatra and also in parts of Saluwesi. They used to be cannibals up until just a couple of hundred years ago but this is forgotten now and tourists are quite safe to
visit! Aside from this they also have a very interesting house design which is still found the whole way round the island.
Immediately on arriving we knew we'd spend our remaining 4 days in Sumatra here and would not be moving on to see what else was on offer.. it is fantastic here, so relaxed and beautiful and filled with such friendly people. Best of all it's deserted! This used to be a tourist hot spot but in the last few years the industry has mostly tailed off apart from peak times like Christmas and Easter. The result is peace and quiet and a great bargain as things are dirt cheap!
Our guesthouse was lovely and we bagged our new cheapest room winner.. for just £1.81 we got a huge beautiful room with matching antique furniture and a comfy bed so we felt like the cats who got the cream. Food here is also amazing and every night we dined on fresh fish from the lake cooked in the small restaurants which are actually people's homes too and they love to make you feel at home in them!
There is a lot of historical intererst here on
the island so we rented out a bike one day to have a tour. We saw old Batak Kings houses and final resting places, stone chairs used to punish people before they were eaten and lots of old traditional Batak houses alongside cute little churches and strange multistory graves painted in all sorts of crazy colours. We had a bit of a disaster on the other side of the island when we had our first puncture of the trip but all was not lost. We found a repair shop and got it fixed for a mere 42p!
One of the best things for our time here was the performance that our guesthouse put on every Wednesday and Saturday. This was a display of traditional dancing by a group of giggly girls who were very good but this was topped by the folk songs performed by the men. They were amazing, with a mix between Hawaiian, South American and Barber Shop Quartet we were humming their songs for days afterwards. We loved it so much we had to see them twice and their songs are still going round and round in our heads! Music is very important here on the
island and as you walk around you see groups of men and young boys sat round guitars singing away downing palm wine (and smoking of course!) which is lovely to see. As you sit in a restaurant it's like having your own little concert in front of you, that is as long as they turn down the restaurant's background music of Boyzone & Westlife!
Like we said it's very relaxed here so we did a lot of sitting around chatting to Jamie, a guy from Bradford who befriended us for our time here and in Java. It's amazing how quickly time can pass when you're sat around doing not much at all and before we knew it our time here was at an end and we needed to catch our ferry back to Medan for our flight to Java that evening. Typically the ferry we wanted to catch was cancelled but after Sophie having a mild panic we'd miss our flight we made it in good time on the smoke filled public bus and boarded our flight to Jakarta...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.101s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 13; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0586s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
LivingTheDream
Ben
Good eye for detail
Hey guys, been reading this entry and it reminded me very much of my time at Bukit Lawang and Danau Toba a few months ago. I especially liked your eye for details in this one - the massive amounts of luggage the peoplel always seem to carry, the smoking, the "guides" just selling drugs - I can relate to all of this... :-) Safe travels, Ben