Bukit Lawang - Gate to the mountains

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It is Saturday morning, shortly after midnight and we experience a typical tropical rain shower. A new waterfall develops - in our room. The water runs down the walls and a lake develops on the floor of the green room. I really do love waterfalls but not in my room. It was a horrible night and as if the water wasn't bothering us enough the prayers were projected through the loudspeakers at 4.30 in the morning. Amazing - NOT!

We decided to get up at 6 am in the morning. Yes, you got that right, 6 am! It seems like we are turning into real morning people. We had a quick breakfast and took a minibus to the bus terminal to catch a big bus to Bukit Lawang. The bus ride was quite bumpy and it took us about 3 hours even though it were just 90 km (60 miles). The Indonesian people were very interested in us and looked at us like we were rare creatures. We arrived in BL around midday and walked up from the river to the village. We found a pretty room to stay and started exploring the village. After a while we sat down in a cafe at the river and I started complaining that I haven't seen any orangutans yet. As if they had heared me 2 orangutans came into our sight and swung aroung in the tops of the trees. It was amazing watching them. We had quite a lazy day and decided to go to bed quite early as we hoped we would get a good night's sleep. Our hope vanished very quickly as a Karaoke party was going on on the other side of the river until 6 in the morning. When I got up it was still dark and quite chilly and apart from the Karaoke it was a beautiful and peaceful morning. We had a yummy breakfast and afterwards we went to the national park to go for a walk in the jungle and to the orangutan feeding platform. Our guide literally ran up the stairs into the jungle and we tried to keep up with him. We eventually arrived at the platform where an orangutan mummy was already waiting with her little baby. The little one was adorable. (If anyone of you doesn't know what to get me for Christmas, an orangutan baby would be great. Thanks.) We stayed up there for about one hour and watched the orangutans in amazement. A male one came as well and swung through the trees right above our heads. We absolutely loved it, it was a great experience. This was the major sight for us in Bukit Lawang but we turned into sights for the Indonesian children. They were keen on taking pictures with us and shaking our hands. The rest of the day was rather lazy again and we went to bed at 10 pm even though we couldn't sleep. At 6 am I declared frustrated that I'd get up now and so we had a quick cold shower, some breakfast and then we took the bus back to Medan. We checked into a different guesthouse this this time and a nice yellow room was welcoming us. Everything is so colourful here. We had a little snooze and went for some delicious chicken sate and a cold beer afterwards.

Now we are sitting on the balcony of our room, I am writing and Ryan is falling asleep next to me. I still hope that we'll have a good night's sleep but the thought of the prayers starting in just over 3 hours destroys this hope. Tomorrow we are off to Jakarta and maybe we can get some more sleep there. We had a great time on Sumatra and maybe we'll come back one day.

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