Photos

So lately we have been updating the blog a lot and i know its a lot of reading for you. So today we got only some pictures from our production. Hope you like them!

Chinese temple - Bali

Heart shaped dead bug

Mruvky on a rope

Nusa Dua - Bali

Orangutans in Bukit Lawang

Today we are going to continue about our Sumatra trip.
Bukit Lawang is one of the last places on earth where you have an opportunity to see orangutans in their natural habitat, so basically wild orangutans. This is the only place like this in Sumatra and there are only two in Indonesia.

Fun fact: Orangutan is derived from Indonesian orang hutan what means “forest person”. Indonesians really like to joke about it and when you ask if they like orangutans they will most likely say “no, no! I like orangkuta!” what means a city person.

Everything in Bukti Lawang is quite impressive. The main village is situated on one side of a very nice river. On the other side of the river is a rainforest with many jumping monkeys and very lively wildlife. It’s very peaceful and tourist friendly. The problem is that after some time living in Indonesia you will learn not to like tourists a lot. You yourself are a tourist but you don’t like meeting other tourists. That was a big problem in Bukit Lawang and don’t get me wrong it wasn’t “packed” with tourists, but they were there.

Because of that prices for accommodation and food are higher than normal what was a bit annoying, but after we told them we are poor students we bargained a good price.

 Rooms were beautiful with view of the forest, with monkeys jumping around the roofs and balconies and the sound of nature surrounding us.

Because we were in a hurry we had only one night in Bukit Lawang so after taking our stuff to our rooms we went directly to orangutan feedings which are held twice a day. On the way to the feeding station we met countless numbers of monkeys literally 10cm from us. We were lucky and two orangutans came for the feeding; mother and a child. They were magnificent and after half an hour of taking pictures we went back. After we came back there was a massive storm after which electricity blackout in whole Bukit Lawang occurred. Fortunately our Slovakian friends brought Slovakian alcohol so at least I had something to do!

Bukit Lawang is a must see place in Sumatra. It was one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Sumatra and I recommend it to everyone who is planning to travel around this crazy island. I regret we had so little time and couldn’t spend more time there. I would go back immediately if I had an opportunity.

Next destination for us was Lake Toba what is the deepest and biggest volcanic lake in the world.

Stay tuned!

few pictures from the volcano climb

at the beginning, 2/3 of our group

this is how the swamp looks during the day, we went through this during the night

our shelter, funny how it looks big in this picture (it was fucking small inside)

on the way down, this is where we got lost on the way up

gruppen sex

Crazy volcano climb, or how we almost died

I know most of you won’t even start when they’ll see the size of this entry. But I really think it’s worth it. It’s one of the craziest experiences I’ve had in Indonesia. So sit back and enjoy.

The whole story begins on Friday at around 5 p.m. We were supposed to go climb the Singgalang volcano with a group of Indonesian students from Bukkitinggi. They asked us if we want to come and we said yeah, why not, it will be a nice experience.

So Friday at around 16:30 it starts to rain heavily in Padang Panjang, from where we are about to take an ankot to Bukkitinggi where we are supposed to meet the others. We don’t like the rain and refuse to go in such weather. It’s normal because we are not prepared for conditions like climbing the volcano in heavy rain, we don’t have proper clothes, proper equipment for that. So we tell them not to wait for us and that we will come and climb the volcano tomorrow morning and meet them at the top because they wanted to stay there for two nights.

Now this is something I need to tell you about Singgalang volcano. We didn’t know much about it and we always wanted to climb Merapi not Singgalang. So we knew Merapi wasn’t dangerous and the trek was pretty easy. We didn’t know shit about the one we were about to climb. So we asked people around and, well the reactions were pretty similar. People are scared of that mountain. We were told that many tourists have gone lost, we were told stories about some people living in the forests of Singgalang kidnapping tourists and shit like that. The kidnapping didn’t scare us because we knew Indonesians like to exaggerate and make up stories. But getting lost on the way was real danger, it could easily happen to us. So they told us to always stick with the group and don’t split. Go with some guide or go with locals. Well we were naïve enough to go alone.

Another thing was that one girl told us that the trek is only about 2 hours. So even if you get lost, two hours is nothing and eventually you will find a way back. So the plan was to wake up early in the morning, take our stuff and climb the damn thing

So we did everything they told us to do and we ended up in some warung at the start of the trek. We had some nasi goring (fried rice) because we didn’t bring much food, only two oranges and some nuts. It was only two hours walk and the group was waiting for us up on the top of the motherfucker. So I was being friendly as always and started to talk to the oldest guy in the warung. He told me crazy stories about people getting lost and stuff and so i asked how you can get seriously lost in a two hour trek. Well apparently it was a 7 hours trek, but we didn’t believe him because the girl told us its only 2 hours.

So we started to walk. I was dead even before entering the forest. But yeah whatever. So we went to the last gate before entering the real trek. Guy asked us if we are sure we don’t want a guide. “Yeah, no guide, we are fine.” So the first part was this bamboo forest. It was steep, slippery and you had to crouch the whole time, so crouching for an hour and a half, leeches fucking everywhere. Then we started to see some height signs and we were on 1650m above the sea level. The goal was to get to 2800m and so we realized it WILL be around 7 hours trek.

Long story short, trek was shit. It was steep as fuck and it wasn’t like steep parts, it was always steep so my poor chopstick legs couldn’t go on without making breaks. I had damn bar on my back with 4 x 1,5l water bottles and 5 x 0,5l beer cans. The air was very thin so i had problems breathing.

So we were on the trek for about 6 hours so far and we all were very hungry. I had eaten one nasi goreng that day and was trekking for six hours. But we didn’t have any food! So we kept pushing it, until it started to rain. Not a normal rain, it was a massive rain and because the path was so steep it started to make these little waterfalls. It was pure slippery mud and we couldn’t go further. We actually couldn’t do anything, and going back seemed more dangerous. So we found this so called shelter and waited there for the rain to stop. But it wasn’t stopping and the time was running. We couldn’t risk going on in the dark because we had only one torch and the condition of the way up was total shit. But as I said it was impossible to move in the rain. So it got dark, but i mean Dark dark, pitch fucking dark. We were wet and cold because we were above 2400m. The shelter wasn’t very good because it was raining everywhere. We couldn’t make fire because it’s a rainforest you know. We didn’t have sleeping bags or whatever. I was falling asleep while standing, other guy was dying because his feet were freezing and last guy was trying not to collapse mentally.

We decided we either stay there and freeze or we try to move on after it gets a bit better. The problem was that we had only one torch. So we were moving extremely slow. Fog was everywhere we didn’t see for more than few meters ahead but there was basically only one path. But then we suddenly were in the rocky part and we were supposed to be following an electrical cable so we always were. The rocky part was bad because it was basically one big river and our shoes weren’t good enough for that kind of terrain. It was one big steep river. If one of us slipped there, he’d be dead. Bam, finito.

We had to move on because we were hungry and cold and we had to get to the camp. But because of the fog we lost the fucking cable. It was so obvious that we are lost. Nobody was freaking out but you could feel the desperation in the air. The volcano is huge; if you get lost you are pretty much done. So we were thinking about finding a bushes and cutting through them so we can sleep underneath them or whatever. But how would that help? In that time we were trekking for 9 hours. So guys said we better keep moving and staying is bullshit. What i didn’t like because you just get more lost if u choose the wrong way, but yeah ok. So we found the damn cable and nothing felt better than that. We were so relieved. Nobody said it but without it we’d be pretty much fucked. 2600m above sea level, soaking wet with almost 0 degrees throughout the night. Not good.

We kept moving it was still very slow and shitty but we finally got to the top. By that time we were hiking for 10,5 hours. So we went to the lake because there’s a lake on the top. We didn’t see others camping so we decided to just scream. It actually worked out and we saw them right across the lake. But didn’t matter! We could feel the warmth of the tent and sleeping bags, and taste the mie goring (fried noodles). Out of excitement we went the wrong way. And from rain forest it turned into hardcore jungle. I almost broke my leg like 5 times but we were close. We could see their flashlights, so I just said fuck it lets get straight to them. So now we have cuts and bruises everywhere, ruined every piece of clothes we had.

After that nothing special happened except there was no tent for us and we slept with 17 other people in one tent, one guy constantly farting right into my face.

Next day we climbed down from the volcano, exhausted, hungry, and cold with a story to tell. After this trip my legs hate me but worth it! The whole thing was kind of impressive because in the time of desperation we didn’t lose it. We kept pushing it until we got where we wanted to get. I’m actually proud of us.

 But I still can’t move from my warm, warm bed.

We are alive!

What's up?

We came back from the volcano today. It was horrible guys.

We almost died. I am not joking!!

But we were lucky and we are still alive. We didn't sleep much through the night so I am very tired to write the whole story, but it will be here tomorrow. I promise. It kicks ass.

So come back tomorrow to read how we almost died.

Oh how I missed you my dear bed.

Good night.

Climbing a volcano

Hey dudes.


Some of our Indonesian friends asked us yesterday, if we want to go climb a volcano with them today. And we said fuck yeah.


So we are packing our stuff right now and we will go up there soon. There are two volcanoes surrounding the village where we live now. One is called Merapi and is still active, the other one is called Singgalang and it is not active anymore. Today we will go to Singgalang and maybe next weekend to Merapi. Singgalang is also a little bit higher than Merapi. The elevation of Singgalang is 2877 m (9439 ft).


There should be a crater lake on top of Singgalang and locals say that it is very deep, so who knows what creatures live in the lake.


We are going to stay up there for two nights in tents so wish us luck.


This also means that there will be no posts until monday, but make sure you come back on monday for some fresh stories.


Hatatitla!

Sumatra trippin'

Today I will tell you something about our little Sumatra trippin’ we did few months ago so sit back and relax.

We started the trip from Padang which is a capital city of West Sumatra and we live around 1h away. We flew from Padang to Medan which is in North Sumatra. The point of this trip was to go to Bukit Lawang which is one of the last places on Earth where orangutans live in wild nature and then from there we went to Lake Toba which is one of the biggest and deepest crater lakes on Earth. And both of these places are near from Medan. So we went to Medan one day before we were supposed to meet our friends there.

One day before this trip I found one guy on couchsurfing and he told me that we can stay with him for that one night. So we arrived to Medan and took a really expensive taxi from the airport to the nearest shopping mall because it was the only name of something in Medan we knew. After few hours of waiting we met with this guy and went to his place. Little room somewhere in the middle of Medan but very nice. He did speak English and was an agnostic what is very rare in Sumatra hehe. Very cool guy. There was only one big mattress in the room but big enough for three people. So we were talking the whole evening about shit and then few minutes before we went to sleep he told us that he is George Michael. Another shock for us because homosexuality is really repressed in Indonesia. We are not homophobic but telling us few minutes before we went to sleep on one mattress that he likes bananas more than peaches is a little bit weird. He didn’t try anything during the night so both of us woke up in the morning without any trauma after ass rape.

the Great Mosque in Medan

Ok long story short, the next day our Slovakian friends came. One guy and one girl from Bali, another girl from Jogjakarta in Java and one girl who came to visit us from Slovakia. We were staying one more night in Medan so we found cheap hostel but for that price it was veeeery nice. Quick shower and lets go for beers. Wuhuuu. But there are not many places in Medan to drink because it’s very close to Aceh which is one of the most Islamic parts of the world. It took us some time to find a place with beers but we were successful.

Then after few beers we decided that we should go to Bukit Lawang early in the morning to be there soon. We arranged a car with a driver for the morning to take us there. We talked about the price before the drive but after we arrived to Bukit Lawang the driver thought that he could make some more money from us so he kept following us everywhere when we were looking for accommodation. I don’t like to admit it but that’s very Indonesian. They try to make as much money as they can of foreigners. Even if we say that we are poor student who study here thanks to Indonesian government and their money.

And I will write about Bukit Lawang tomorrow so you don’t have to read a lot at once. How nice am I to you ha?