Orangutans in the Sumatran Jungle, Indonesia

As I write this blog we are sweatier than we have ever been in our entire lives. It’s extremely hot and humid, but now that I’ve got that moan over with I’ll tell you about the real action!

We flew over to Medan in Sumatra last Thursday and were greeted with the most interesting airport that either of us has ever been to. After discussions with immigration, who wanted to know why we don’t have a job in the UK(!) we got through to collect our baggage. We have never seen anything like it – usually you get harassed by taxi drivers and money changers, but this was on another level. As soon as we went into the baggage room (on the passenger only side of customs), people surrounded us, offering us so many different things. Then 2 porters brought our backpacks to us – we hadn’t even needed to wait by the conveyor belt – they just knew those backpacks were ours! On leaving the airport it was the closest we have ever felt to being a celebrity . There was a crowd of men shouting for our attention. They didn’t want anybody else from the flight – just us! Luckily our accommodation had arranged a driver for us (we heard him shouting ‘Carly Carly’ and we set off to Bukit Lawang (aka the jungle!)).

The drive to Bukit Lawang was very interesting. Medan seemed rather crazy in every sense of the word. There didn’t appear to be any road rules – at a crossroads all sides go at once! There were motorbikes everywhere and Dave said it reminded him of India in many ways. Our driver could speak a little English and said that Medan has a population of 6 million people, which helped explain the craziness! That’s almost as many people as London, but they all drive motorbikes like maniacs and live in little one story detached homes.

Thankfully it started to quieten and 2 hours later we reached Bukit Lawang, a lovely little village in the middle of the jungle and right next to Gunung Leuser National Park. Neither of us knew what to expect from Sumatra and were pleased with what we found. Everyone said hello to us on arrival and we had to cross over a rickety swinging bridge to get to our accommodation (Eco Lodge). We were both extremely hot and went to our room to try to cool off. We had gone for the cheapest room, at just 5 pounds each per night. We were so hot that I thought I would go to reception to ask if there was a more expensive room with air conditioning. The look the receptionist gave me and the hysterical laughter of the old Indonesian man next to me took me right back down to earth – of course they don’t have air conditioned rooms!!! In fact, many people here do not have running water and we saw them all taking their kids down to the river to wash their hair. I sheepishly went back to the room and lay down to cool myself off!

Another incident occurred later that night when we were sleeping. I awoke to hear someone or something moving my backpack around the room. You can imagine the fear that this would have given me in the middle of the night on my first day in Sumatra. We peered through the mosquito net and then plucked up the courage to get out and turn the lights on and had a look around but couldn’t see anything. I assumed I must have imagined it. Then, an hour later, there was even more noise. Again, we got up and had a look. We discovered that my half eaten cadbury’s dairy milk had been moved our of my bag and to the other side of the room. We also discovered a rat running across the room a hole in the wall! By this point, at 3am, I was just pleased to know what it was and went back to sleep, hoping that the rat wouldn’t crawl onto the bed. That will teach me to leave food out in the jungle!!

The real adventure begun the next day, when we met with our guide, Silo. We had this guide to ourselves for the next two days and were hoping to see orangutans in the wild. We set off into the national park and were not disappointed. In fact, we felt a bit like David Attenborough!!! After 20 minutes of entering the park Silo told us to keep looking around for orangutans and we eventually spotted a mother and baby swinging through the trees. We watched in awe for quite some time as they swung right by us and didn’t mind us being there at all.

As discussed earlier, it’s rather hot and the hike became tougher and tougher.  They don’t really have defined paths here and you literally have to cling on to the trees next to you as you walk along, as the ground can be quite slippy with leaves and rocks. Further along the track Silo said, “oh look – here is a gibbon” as the large black creature swung towards us. Then another one came, and another one and a mother with its baby. Priceless!!!!

The hike continued, up and down, up and down, hotter and sweatier, hotter and sweatier. We have decided that it’s definitely the most challenging hike we have ever done. We came to a little stream with a water fall where we were planning to eat lunch, when a huge mother and baby orangutan peered out of the bushes and swung down to see us. This was most definitely the highlight for us. They stayed really close to us for ages and were unbelievably cute to watch. The mum kept cuddling and kissing the baby, which was a very young tiny one. Our guide told us that they had named the mum ‘Suma’. We saw her gather some food and wander around a bit – at one stage she came so close to us (2 metres) that we had to move away. It was brilliant!

We couldn’t have our lunch for a while thanks to the rude intrusion of the orangutan , but managed to eventually before tackling a very difficult steep downward track through the trees to our camping area, by the river in the jungle. It had been wonderful, but exhausting and we enjoyed a relaxing evening. Silo cooked some really nice chicken nibbles, as well as vegetable curry for us and then showed us some of his card tricks! It was good fun and we enjoyed finding out more about living in Indonesia. Then we retired to bed, which to my alarm was not in a tent but outside with all the creatures including ants the size of spiders and zillions of mosquitoes. It was certainly an experience – I think we may have got 1 hour of sleep altogether!!!

The following day we awoke in the beautiful jungle amidst gorgeous sunshine and went for a swim in the river (which was very clean I might add!). It was lovely to sit and eat breakfast by the river. We even saw a water monitor (aka massive crocodile/dinosaur looking lizard thing) go by. As if we hadn’t had enough adventure, part of the outing was tubing back to Bukit Lawang. This involved tying 3 rubber rings (actually car/tractor inner tubes) together. Dave and I sat in the large middle one and Silo and our porter sat on the other two. They paddled us back through the rapids with 2 giant sticks!! It was crazy and we were laughing to ourselves saying “what on earth are we doing now???!!!”. Hilarious – health and safety executives in the UK would have gone nuts if they had seen anyone doing such a thing!

After a good night’s sleep (well kind of!) we wandered around Bukit Lawang for the day and discovered that Sundays are extremely busy in this jungle village. Apparently people turn up from Medan for the day and there were hundreds of them, mainly children, in rubber rings gliding down the river rapids! It was a crazy but lovely sight. Once again we were treated like celebrities. All the children wanted to say hello to us and various families wanted their photos taken with us! I’m expecting this treatment everywhere now ! We also visited the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and it was great to see the good conservation work that they are doing.

All in all this was the most adventurous thing we have done by far. We are so glad that we came to Sumatra. We have learnt a lot about the people here and the tough life they lead. Seeing the wild orangutans and gibbons was something that we never thought we would do – it was an extra component to our trip which we added to our itinerary while away. We have had a fantastic time!