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

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?