Minibus on route to Bukit Lawang
I took a couple of photos on the bus during the journey. Here is one of a field which contains some kind of food. Note that the are strings running along the field. II saw this in the Philippines also. Apparently, these scare away the crows from eating the food (The crows are too savvy for the scarecrows but this seems to work!)
the lines of plastic scare away the crows
There seems to be lots of flowery designs on the streets. They seem to brighten up the street anyway!
Medan
View of a field just outside Medan
I heard that this was a predominantly muslim country but there does seem to be quite a few christain churches dotted all over the place.
A church hidden amongst the palm trees!
The following house looked like there used to be a row of houses but al of them fell down just leaving this one behind.Subsequently, I saw quite a few houses like this one. They look a bit odd as there seems to be plenty of space to build a wide house but it seems that they built upwards instead of outwards.(from a western perspective!)
common enough style of house over here
loads of rice fields as far as my eyes can see
Nice contrast of colours in this pic!
I think this is a corn field
Anyway, the journey to Bukit Lawang took around 2 and half hours. Once we arrived at the bus terminal , I hopped out and noticed that the was a table tennis table out in the open air. yay! So, I had a quick game of table tennis before talking to one of the local toursit guides.He recommended that I should try the 3 day 2 night trek so I signed up for that one and grabbed a room down by river that flows through Bukit Lawang. The river itself flooded in 2003 and scores of people were drowned during the floods. In 2005 the Indonesian government built a bridge for the Bukit Lawangians. I walked over the bridge at one point and noticed that there were a couple of planks of wood rotting/missing from the bridge so if you ever come here, be careful when crossing the bridge!
View of the house where i stayed and the jungle in the background
View of the river
Anyway, as I was getting settled into my rrom , I heard a bit of a commotion outside whereupon I saw that there was a badminton court. I have dabbled with badminton during my time so I decided to ask for a game.
The fabled badminton court
After about 5 minutes of playing with the locals, I started thinking to myself...either the locals are REALLY good at badminton or I am quite useless! To be honest, I think it was a bit of both! At one point,I went to smash the shuttlecock and I was sweating so much , i lost the grip of the raquet and it flew out of my hand ,past the guy on the other side of the court (just avoiding the 6 people watching the game) and landed a couple of feet from the river. I have never seen people laugh so hard at my 'shot'! I thought to myself, 'take it easy or you might accidentally hit someone with the raquet'. After this, the guys just served really easy serves to me , you know the ones where you hit the shuttlecock really high in the sky so your opponent has all the time in the world to hit it! This continued for maybe 7 minutes while I struggled to hold onto the raquet!.I think it was around this point when one of the lads politely told me to sit down! It was nice to play the game but my 'skill level' was not on the level where it was enjoyable for the other lads which was a pity.
Anyway, i should be talking about the trek in the jungle so I will do that now!
The path of no return...well....until you return!
As we entered the jungle, We passed by a Cocao plant.
Cocoa plant
but I wasn't here for the cocoa. It wasn't too long before we got to see a glimpse of the 'punky monkey' sitting down in the trees.
Contemplating life
Really long tails
I wanted to see some Orangutans.It did not take too long before One of the orangutans noticed us from his spot in the trees. My guide Sepri was telling me that this particular Orang utan was not unfriendly so it was ok to take shots but be ready if they start to become unfriendly and run in the opposite direction fast!
By the way, There were signs entering the jungle about the decline of the Orangutan
So , I was not able to feed the Orangutan . This was fine for me when I saw the size of the creature staring at me from the trees!
I am only going to take a few photos Mr Orang utan!
He really has powerful arms and legs
Maybe, I should start running about now
That's a better viewpoint for you AND me Mr Orangutan
(The beard looking hair on his face indicates he's a male orangutan)
I'll be off in minute and you can have your territory back again Mr 'tan!
After staring at the Orangutan for quite a while (I am not sure if I was staring at him or he was staring at me)we decided to make a move to try a catch a glimpse of some white gibbons.So, we swathed through some dense jungle (seethe way I am building up the tension?? yeah, me neither)
I think they need a gardener to clean up this place!
The white gibbons make a really loud noise when trying to attract the other white gibbons.They never come doen from the top to the trees though.This makes it very difficult to catch a glimpse of them.Here is a shot of them from a distance of (I would guess) around 50 metres.
At this point,it felt like the animals were looking at me just as much as I was looking at them. The punky monkey seemed to be following us!
He looks like a gremlin!
mmmm mandarins
smile for the camera...1,2,3 cheese!!!!!
we decided to leave the punky monkeys and try to find some other animals. I noticed that there was one particular insect that seemed to be crawling all over the jungle. The insect would bite but could not sting. here is a close up of the insect.
These insects were everywhere in the jungle (specifically on the bag that I was carrying)
This is all mine, There better be no intruders on my land!
This is the position the orangutan takes before going for a pee and before you think it...yes, I did but no I was not standing below the orangutan at the time, phew!
I think he sees \senses\smells us
I think now is the time to run!
After gettting a warning from the Orangutan, it was time for some passion fruit.
So many seeds!
(My leg looks as hairy as the Orangutan!)
I guess I should show a view of the location where we ate some fruit. It was hard to get the light right for the shot as some parts of the jungle were quite dark!
Blinding sunlight....don't look too closely at this picture!
While eating the passion fruit, we noticed 2 pairs of orangutans (mothers with babies) in the trees and I waqs able to get a couple of pic of them. Actually, I forgot to mention ,at one point, ealier in the day while we were looking at one orangutan, he suddenly ran up the tree. A lot of the wildlife started making noises and my guide started running towards higher ground.I did not know what was happening for a minute but then Sepri told me there was an earthquake. Personally, i did not notice it but I was the only one in the whole area not to notice it and freak out!
Baby orangutan with mother,
Note: the mother never holds the baby, the baby always clings to the mother
I think I might have angered this Orangutan by just being here!
A tree view of a creepy crawly
Lunch time consisted of Nasi Goreng wrapped in a banana leaf. Everything seems to be wrapped in banana leaves around here!
yummy food!
I was joined by a visitor at one point.
Hey, that's my tomato
Mother back with baby (and tomato) chilling out
It's still a mystery to me how the baby seems to hang on!
One is an animal who grunts a lot and smells a bit...
the other is an Orangutan
Maybe, I should get out of the way!
At this point , it was time to head to the river and cool down/observe some lizards. The water was not too deep at some parts so it was fine to just sit in it and get sunburned (probably!)
some water
When sitting in the river, be careful no lizards bump into you!
All the animals seem to show that territorial pose quite often!
He looks a bit like a small dinosaur!
Our hotel for the evening (the kitchen is the other tent)
Move one stick from one part of the left hand side of the equation to another to make it a correct equation!
evening dinner
After finishing up the evening dinner, it was time for bed. I was not sure what to expect as I had never slept in the jungle before but it wasn't too bad .The sekadas were not too loud and the rain hitting the tent was a soothing sound (especially as I was sitting on the inside of the tent!)
The next morning started with a banana pancake drenched in condensed milk.
Full of Bananity goodness
This part of the river is deep\safe enough to swim in
The tent (The bamboo sticks are left behind but the chef (Wak) takes his plastic cover\roofing with him and places it on the next set of bamboo sticks (that we are going to stay this evening)
After the swim, it was time to explore again, An orangutan came pretty close to me with her baby at one point.
High Five!
If you ever come to the jungle, watch out for a leaf that looks safe but is essentially a thorn bush which will stick into your clothes\skin.
The guide told me that there is no poison related to the leaf so that's a relief!
After a couple of hours, we noticed a pair of black gibbons.The black gibbon is not as shy as the white gibbon and does not have any problem coming down from the trees.
yes, we are friendly too!
This guy wants to investigate the weird looking animal walking around the jungle
There is that stance again!
Looks like the guys want to go for a dance!
break it down!
looks like they are playing cards now!
Look! Thats a royal flush. I win!
No, You cheat! I am out of here!
That gibbon is such a drama queen!
I am the winner!!!
I only cheated a small bit. hahaha!
I am the animal on the left
I have been told that you can make bamboo soup but unfortunately, it is not on the menu today but we can use ferns from the jungle that look just like this!
mix this in with some vegetables and cook, bagus!
We stayed at this point by the river on day 2 (there is a strong enough current here)
Unfortunately, there were a lot of jagged rocks in the river so swimming was too dangerous but bathing in the river was fine.
Try walking on these rocks with no footwear on! ouch!
My bed is the one on the far right of the tent (I used my bag as a pillow)
Sepri told me about a lot of interesting facts about the jungle and beyond the jungle also. (95% of which is unrepeatable!) Here is a flower , when crushed can aid .....a man when....aaaaaaaaa,,,,,trying to conceive.
If you (where you=man) crush the yellow part and put it....emmm....somewhere...then if you want to procreate, you have a better chance of procreating. (That last sentence was a difficult sentence to write! )
Cool looking frog
The second nights dinner, sardines were on the menu today along with tofu , them leaves mentioned earlier and some crackers to go with the rice
After the dinner, I decided to stay outside for a while and stare at the stars. This was cool once i made sure that i didn't walk into the river! Then, the bed was calling!
The following morning I got up to the vision of a family of makaks gathering at the river.
These guys are hanging around the camp as they know there will be some food soon!
The makaks tend to hang around in families waiting for humans to throw out the breakfast to them. So, They had to wait 20 minutes before any food would arrive at their feet.
At one point, I had to go to the toilet.As I was in the jungle, I had to find a quiet place away from the beaten track and let nature take its course.As I was in the process of such course, I felt a pain on my achillles heel, I looked down and from my viewpoint, it looked like some kind of insect had bitten me. I flicked it quickly off my foot and proceeded to finish my business. A couple of minutes later, i looked at my heel and there was blood everywhere . At that point, i felt a pain on my other leg. I had a closer look at that leg and noticed that what I had thought was an insect was in fact a leech.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! All I could think of was that scene in 'stand by me (you know the leech scene--- [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OP4cZM-Y54] eep!!!)'. Luckily enough, there were no more leeches on me so That was a HUGE relief!
would you believe the batteries in my camera ran out at this point so i did not get the time to shoot the rafting in the tube downstream all the way back to the homestay! I had already taken a pic of the tube the day before, so I will describe what happened.
I sat in the central (big) tube while the 2 guys (who kneeled in the other 2 tubes) paddled down the river to our finishing point.
My transportation downstream!
To be genuinely honest , although the jungle trek was cool, i think i preferred the craic\fun around the table tennis table (especially when my patented top spin shots came off!!!)
At one point, I saw one of the lads (standing by the table) limping badly and I assumed he had twisted an ankle. He saw me looking (it's not just the locals who stare!!! I must remember to stop staring!) and then showed me one of his kneecaps. He was on a motorbike in Medan 2 years ago when he got knocked off his bike by a car. His knee looked pretty bad to me. He was telling me the Indonesian doctors told him that they would have to amputate but he didn't want that so he headed to the witch doctor instead who gave him some liquids. I don't think any amount of liquids would be able to fix his knee though. He seemed like an interesting bloke who just wanted to practise his English (That is REALLY common over here!) He nearly keeled over when I told him I was 36. [Over here if you are not married by 25, people assume there is something wrong with you (I have been told enough times!) ] so when I told him I was traveling alone at 36 , he really looked shocked. To be honest, he asked me to guess his age and I said 18. He was 30!!
World championship of table tennis (Bukit Lawang edition)
Later that evening, i attended a barbeque which took place right beside a meeting of all the local guys associated with the treks. I don't know about meetings back home but this one was a humdinger. The arguments were flying all over the place! Then, my guide from the trek (Sepri) played some Bob Marley music and everyone seemed to chill out quite quickly. Bob Marley really is a legend!!
Anyway, it was time to move on to the next destination Berestagi\Brastagi so I grabbed my gear around 9 the following morning and took the local bus to Medan and back out of Medan to the volcano in Brastagi!
great post!
ReplyDeleteSo its not just squash that you throw the racquet around the place. Time to change that grip of yours Johnny Boy!
Thanks Phil!
DeleteThat only happened at most 3 times while we were playing squash :-) + I did my best not to lie down on the court in between points!
I was sweating too much to be able to hold on to the badminton racquet (I am sticking to that excuse!)