Jungle Trek in Bukit Lawang

Orangutang, originally uploaded by jasonwmak.

The exhausting journey to Bukit Lawang consisted of a missed flight in Jakarta and a mad dash at the airport, then a four hour ride through traffic-congested Medan, some of the most demanding and pot-holed roads Indonesia has to offer, and a 20 minute hike in the dark through forest to our destination: Sam’s Guesthouse. The next morning, we joined Andrea, Dennis, and Peter to begin our three day trek into Sumatra’s beautiful but challenging jungles. Rinto and Wanda were our local guides; not only were they humorous and charming, but they were completely insightful of the jungle’s ecosystem and creatures, having spent many years working in the Orangutang rehabilitation projects. Though Wanda was a serial chain-smoker, following him through the jungle was a challenge for us. His tiny body allowed him to easily crawl under trees and scramble up hills.

This would be a lot more difficult than the brochure made it look. For the next three days, we climbed up and down the jungle mountains of Bukit Lawang and at night, slept along the river. After a grueling day’s hike, we’d chill in the rivers, catch fish, and watch the monkeys as our trek team prepared camp and dinner. We were quite lucky to have such a fantastic team. Not without dangers and surprises, on one occasion we ran into Mena, a semi-wild “aggressive orangutang”. Just seeing Rinto’s expression got us nervous as he yelled at us to quickly descend down the mountain as he distracted Mena with bananas (he didn’t end up giving them the bananas) On another occasion, we came across a family of black gibbons who were curious of our packs and if we had any food. We stood back and watched Wanda scare them away with a swinging hiking stick, so they wouldn’t continue to track us.

Each night’s sleep was filled with it’s own challenges. Sharing a bed with our creepy crawly friends made it a challenge for us to fall asleep and we were always grateful to see the morning. Meals were always delicious. One evening our team prepared the core of a banana tree into a stew for us. We also snacked on fish we caught from the river. On the second day we shared the river with a three foot long lizard and a five foot long python visited us at dinner on the final night back at Sam’s. Finally, on the last day, we packed up our gear in a series of tubes and rafted our way back to Sam’s guesthouse.

We treated our team to a chicken feast on the final night. Five chickens and vegetables for a trekking crew of 15 costs us around $60 and the team entertained us with guitars and bongos into the night, from Bob Marley to Indonesian pop, they knew it all.

Jennifer and I were quite touched by the people of Bukit Lawang. In 2003, a flash flood decimated the village and killed 280 people. However, when we visited, we were met by genuine and hospitable people (unlike the touts and scam-artists of Bali). Two of our trekking cooks and porters especially made an impression on us. Two young boys in their late teens or early twenties, always smiling and laughing, singing when they knew the words, and clapping their hands when they didn’t. These kids grew up in the poor villages and made a hard living by lugging camping gear up the river each week, we could see that they were just so happy with their lives and the opportunities they had to bring us into the jungle. For that we were so appreciative and envious of them. Bukit Lewang was a stop that we almost chose to skip due to the extra travel involved, however it is one we definitely did not regret coming to.