Blogs from Bukit Lawang, Sumatra, Indonesia, Asia - page 7

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 ... read more

Iwan the our guide from the Jungle Inn had been suggesting we take a trip to Tangakahan About 2.5 hours from Bukit Lawang (it took about 3.5 in the end) we can go for a day trip allegedly. Well that’s possible but who would want to. Not wanting to spend so long travelling in one day we decide on an overnight. This is where we screw up having got friendly with Iwan and liking his good knowledge and attitude to the wildlife. So we don’t check it out anywhere else. This would have been easy to do. Iwan said we had to come back to Bukit Lawang to get back to Medan we already had a flight to Banda Ache booked. Left one of our Bags at Iwans house and meet up with the chain smoking ... read more

This trip started well, Ellie and I were meeting up in Schipol with her coming in from home in the UK and myself travelling direct from work in Africa via Paris and London Heathrow. then on to KL through Schipol. First off AF didn’t get my bag from Paris to London and being AF couldn’t get it until the next day, this was early in the mourning with dozens of flights available to get the bag to Schipol before I departed for KL 13 hours later but for AF no chance. Next off Ellie coming out of Heathrow in the afternoon had a delayed flight due to the BA flight from Beijing crashing. She actually arrived at the other end of Schipol before I took off to KL no chance of making it. KLM were complete ... read more

So... we arrived safely in the city of Medan on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, via our Air Asia flight from KL. Indonesia has immediately struck us as being very different from the other Asian countries we've been to. For instance, although all the people of the various countries we have been to are very friendly, Indonesians are arguably even more friendly than the rest! They don't hesitate in the slightest to come up and chat to you, or even just shout "Hello Mister!" at you in the street. We checked into our hotel and discovered that there are no showers just mandi (a brick basin full of water, with a plastic saucepan thing to pour it over you, back to basics!), we were informed in a friendly manner by the manager that this is ... read more

what a bloody crazy adventure sumatra has been! a far cry from the ho-hum of the cities, the moment we arrived on indo soil it's been go, go, go! waking at 5am, we began our epic journey from singapore to lake toba, a 25 hr non-stop journey consisting of 1 train, 3 ferries & 5 busses. from singapore we took a short ferry to pulau batam, our first indo port where we were to collect visas, change cash and run to the next ferry port to catch the last daily ferry, all in about 15mins. apparantly nobody's ever made it and lived to tell the tale... we had crazy men running alongside us to hurry us up and lead us to the port, ruairi shot off ahead and i was trailing behind fast. mind you, ... read more