Change of plans for Indonesia
Trip Start
Aug 07, 2008
1
41
79
Trip End
Ongoing
Bukit Lawang,
Sumatra,
Indonesia
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
we have a flight out of Jakarta on the northeastern tip of Java, Indonesia in late November. we decided to give up that flight as the bus ride down to Jakarta would be over 48 hours long.. hopefully travel insurance will compensate some of that...
so instead of spending so much time in Indonesia, we opted for a one week visa for much cheaper than a 30 day one and just go balls out for a week in Sumatra and make it back to Medan, Indonesia for our ferry seven days later. we have two places targeted for the week. Bukit Lawang and Danu Toba.
this entry is about the journey from Penang to Medan to Bukit Lawang and our time in Bukit Lawang.
the morning of our ferry from Penang, we met two Poles: Maric and Patricia. more friends during our travels. we did they ferry ride with them. and eunice did not feel well. she spend most of the 6.5 hour ferry ride over ocean waters laying on boxes outside on the top deck of the boat. at one point, she came down to toe sitting area and barf'd within 15 minutes. immediately we went back outside. the boat got so rocky that it even made me queasy for a bit. we arrived in Medan, Indonesia around 7pm. that's where we met Trevor, Adel and Michael. two english and a swede. after haggling over a van, we decided to suck it up and endure a 4.5 hour minivan ride straight to Bukit Lawang instead of staying the night in Medan (again, a few of us only had 7 day visas). after the most horrid pot holed streets i had ever seen, we rolled into Bukit Lawang at about 11pm Indonesian time. by this time, we are starving, needing to pee and super tired. we still didn't have a place to stay... luckily, we followed some locals to a hostel wher we had to walk over a suspended footbridge across the river. we checked out the rooms. after seeing fist sized cockroaches in two of the rooms, eunice and i opted to hike a bit more to another lodge through pitch black forest... luckily, we had booked our guide for our two day jungle trek starting the next morning. good thing we had seven of us... bargaining power! dinner, cold shower, then sleep under mosquito nets.
woke up fairly early to start our two day journey into the jungle. with our small packs strapped on, we began our must anticipated hike into the jungle. i was so excited. why? because after about 3 hours of hiking into the mountains, we saw them... Orangutans in the wild! we fed them, watched them and even ran from them a few times! apparently, they are super strong. these gentle creatures were a wonder to watch. they were so comfortable swinging from vine to tree branch and so fort. and most of the apes we saw were female which meant they each had a baby with them... it was an amazing experience... did you know that orangutans and humans share 97% of the same DNA? they are the closest things to humans... and it was apparent in their facial expressions and care for their young.
through the rest of the trek, we caught glimpses of a peacock, played with two other types of monkeys (feeding them before the orangutans chased them away) and heard toucans in the distance. the hike itself was fun especially when it started pissing down rain! we were soaked and muddy all over! although a bit dangerous, it made it fun. Erwin, one of the guides, had is mother prepare Nasi Goreng for our lunch. it was wrapped in banana leaves with some crackers and cucumbers. we ate that in the middle of the jungle with our hands hunched over near HUGE fingertip sized ants. i kept on thinking about the mastercard commercials where they say "priceless"... eating indonesian fried rice with our hands sitting with orangutans... "priceless"!
we finally arrived at camp for the night. but the route to the camp was NOT EASY! we had to cross a pretty strong river that was about chest deep. while the locals had no problems, the rest of us slipped, slipped again and under the force of the down current slipped again. eunice was literally dragged on her stomach across this river by two guys pulling her arms. and she laughed at first watching other people crossing the river. some of the girls in the group even teared up as they were SO exhausted trying to fight the current. even the guys had trouble. but all in good fun. the night was spend huddled under tarps eating some of the best food in the past month through crazy piss hard rain. didn't get much sleep that night laying on rocks and dirt.
for a second i thought, "we've already seen the orangutans, eaten the jungle food. i guess everythings down hill from here..." i was wrong. i should have said "everythings down RIVER from here". just when i though the climax was done, here come the guides with intertubes! we are rafting down river back to town on intertubes!!! they took all of our packs, wrapped it in plastic, tied four intertubes together in length and we pretty much white water intertubed down river into town... it was some of the most fun i've had! the whole time i'm thinking, these safety regulations in indonesia are not like the ones back home.. this would never be allowed! but it was good times!
we had originally planned to finish the trek, stay the night in Bukit Lawang and the next morning make our way to Danu Toba. change of plans... because we were back at camp around 10am, the group decided that we should just suck it up again and do the 8 hour minivan ride to Toba asap. ok... let's do it... another tired day of traveling coming up. that's where we left Michael, the swede, as he was headed further north in sumatra and picked up Malcom and Julie, an irish couple.... on to Toba we go!
side story: during the trek, we got a chance to play Tarzan and swing on some vines. my daredevil wife, jumps at the opportunity and swings..... but doesn't let go. so she's suspended on this thing afraid to let go... well, being the superwoman that she is, she holds on for a whole 10 seconds before her grip gives way. she presumes to fall, tumbling into trees and stopping with cuts and some bruises.... thank GOD it wasn't anything major... then i got on and swung to a tree before having to pole down the thing... ahhh, good times!
