INDONESIA - SUMATRA: BUKIT LAWANG AND GUNUNG LEUSER

July 2-3, 2023

We left Tangkahan at about 2:30, this time in a 4x4 with no AC, and it took us 2.5 hours to get to the EcoLodge at Bukit Lawang. The roads were bad but there were some paved stretches in groves of palm oil trees. Palm oil has replaced rubber, tobacco, and cacao as the area's #1 export. The palm oil acreage is mind-boggling.

We made one stop to get a drink and use a bathroom. It was a pretty spot for a drink, but not a very pretty squat toilet.

We made another stop because a truck had jack-knifed on the road, and another truck was trying to pull it out of the way.

We arrived at the Ecolodge Bukit Lawang ("Gate Hill") at about 5:00. We had a beautiful, light, modern room with a view of the Bohorok River. However, like our previous room at Tangkahan, there was no AC. I took the first photo below from our balcony and the second from ground level. The river looks pretty small, but in 2003, this river experienced a large-scale flash food that killed 242 people.

As this is an ecolodge, it makes sense that our room and its accoutrements featured environmentally friendly materials like bamboo.

Signage outside the lodge reminded guests how long their discarded trash (including orange peels) takes to "disintegrate."

The lodge, also built of sustainable material, was very unique.

We met our guide Ardian at 7:30 for dinner in the Kapal Bambu ("Bamboo Boat") Restaurant inside the above lodge. It serves locally-sourced organic food, some of which is grown in a garden on the property. We both had passion fruit juice, and Bob added a Coke Zero.

At a Mexican restaurant you might get chips and salsa. At an Indonesian restaurant, the equivalent is fruit on a banana leaf.

I had Mie Goreng Jawa, or fried yellow noodles with vegetables and egg. The chips, which look like chicharrons, are made of tapioca.

Bob had Crispy Cheese Potatoes, which were very thinly sliced potatoes smothered in mozzarella cheese.

He also tried Gado Gado, a mix of vegetables and spicy tofu with peanut sauce.

I didn't note in my journal whether or not we enjoyed the food. I think it was pretty good, but not really a stand-out meal.

We were pretty tired after our jungle trek and the long drive, so we headed up to bed. Unfortunately, it was the end of the weekend, and our neighbors were very noisy--perhaps drunk--and were shouting, laughing, and moving around until after 3:00 AM.

I got up, showered, and plugged in my European hair dryer. *POOF* - no electricity. Another day with wet hair in a ponytail. We got ready in the dark and went down for breakfast at 6:30 AM. I ordered a pancake, which turned out to be a crepe with fudge sauce. Delicious. Bob had the "American" breakfast, which was eggs and toast.

We met Ardian and our local guide Rondee (which he told us was pronounced like "ronning" and I think was supposed to be Randy) at 7:00 AM and were the first guests on the trail. Ardian brought a bamboo hiking stick for me that ended up making such a huge difference to my knees that I think I will get a collapsible hiking pole for any future trips with hiking involved.

We asked if the hike would be strenuous, and they said, "Oh no. It is just flat and easy to walk." Yeah, right. The first part was at least 150 stairs leading up up up. It doesn't look that steep in the photo, but the cumulative effect got to both of us. The rest of it had plenty of steep sections as well.

Luckily, the scenery was beautiful. We seemed to be moving through multiple climate zones.

Before long we saw our first monkey--a Thomas leaf monkey. I wish I had a better photo. They have a white mohawk with a black stripe down the center of the mohawk. Pretty cute. 

Then we passed through an area with lots of rubber trees--not planted in rows like an orchard, but sprinkled about as they naturally grow. Rondee showed us how a leaf is made into a funnel and stuck in a tree trunk. The thick liquid sap, called latex, drips slowly into the leaf, which funnels it into a coconut shell on the ground. No plastic here. It seemed very primitive, but Indonesia is the second-largest rubber producing country in the world, topped only by Thailand. I am sure there are areas where the rubber harvest is more sophisticated.

Each night men remove a thin layer of bark from the trunk in a downward spiral. The spiral frees the latex, which runs down the trunk, through the funnel, and into the coconut shell. Stripping the bark this way does not affect the life of the tree. Over a period of 20 to 30 years, a single rubber tree can produce 130 to 330 pounds of rubber.

Then, about 15 minutes into our trek, we saw our first orangutan. Rondee was pretty excited as we were the first people on the trail. We watched her for about 15 minutes, enough time for another group to come join us.

Sumatran orangutans (pronounced oh-ron-goo-tahns by the locals) are critically endangered. Females have a baby only once every 6-8 years, which is the amount of time a young orangutan needs to learn forest survival skills. They are the only Great Ape found outside of Africa and are the largest arboreal mammals in the world. We learned that they share 96.4% of our human genes, and they spend most of their lives in the forest canopy, where they build a new nest to sleep in just about every single night, and maybe a few more during the day for naps.

I know this is overkill on videos, but this was our first experience with orangutans in the wild. It was so much fun! 

We passed through a property called Bukit Menday Guest Houses that had individual cabins. It looked like a fun place to stay.

We hadn't walked very far past the lodges when we came upon another orangutan. Rondee stuck a banana on a protruding tree branch to entice this one down from the tree tops. Isn't the coat a gorgeous shade of red-brown? And they are so graceful for being such hulks.

It was almost as much fun watching Bob watching the orangutan as it was watching the orangutan itself.

Can you tell that we were pretty star struck by these incredible beasts?

I mean, really, how could you not be?

We came across this sign with the heading "Forbidden."  The list includes:

- Cutting down trees

- Hunting animals

-Throwing garbage

- Picking plants, etc.

- Entry without permission (Criminal Code 551)

No problem. We just followed Rondee. We knew he wouldn't lead us astray.

We had been walking for some time, but we were just now at the entrance of the Gunung Leuser National Park, six million acres (or 3,060 square miles) of "one of the richest expanses of tropical rainforest left in the world, and the last remaining stronghold for the Sumatran orangutan" (from a sign at the entrance). It is the largest wilderness area in Southeast Asia, and together with the Kerinci Seblat National Park and the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Here the warnings and instructions were given in both Indonesian and English. I did note that "visitors should not be closer than 7 metres from orangutans at any time."

This sign, however, says "Visitors are forbidden to be closer than 10 m to . . . orangutans." I think 10 m sounds like a better idea.

With so few non-native visitors, it was interesting to see this sign in English. Clearly it is here for the foreign tourists. I read that tourism is very important not only economically, but ecologically as well because tourist money is incentive for the local population to preserve the flora and fauna of the region.

The ranger at the site asked how many orangutans we had seen so far. When we said three, he said a few days ago no one saw any all day long. Rondee was clearly proud. He was an excellent guide. Although not always easy to understand, he was incredible at spotting animals. He was also patient and willing to repeat information, and Ardian was also helpful in translating. 

Beautiful. Quiet. Peaceful. Hot. Humid.

We came upon a steep metal stairway leading up to a canopy walk. The metal steps and walkways were rusty, but Rondee said it was safe to go up. Bob stayed below, but I tentatively made my way along part of the walkway. It was a l-o-o-o-n-g way down.

One of the cool things about going up on the canopy walk is that I got a view of an orangutan nest from above. As noted earlier, they build three or four of these EVERY DAY, never sleeping in the same one twice. That's a lot of building (and napping).

I love these next three photos. The jungle has its own version of booby traps. Every step has to be carefully placed.

Someone explain this twisty vine tree trunk to me. How does nature create something like this?

Whenever Rondee spotted an orangutan in the trees, he got as excited as we did, sometimes pumping his fist and saying, "Yes! Yes!"  Can you see the one in the photo on the left? They were always very high up and not easy to spot.  When I zoom in on another photo, you can see that there were three orangutans!

Every now and then we came upon a rest area with a roof. I'm sure these come in helpful in the event of an unexpected deluge. Bob was sweating again like he had the previous day and looked like he'd been caught by said deluge. But as always, he was happy and upbeat about what an amazing experience we were having.

Even Bob's shoes filled up with sweat. You can see his wet footprint under the shoe. (We took this picture when we got back to our room.)

We were rejuvenated and rehydrated by the delicious snacks Rondee brought: passion fruit and bananas. Another group stopping for snacks had some dragon fruit and we swapped some passion for some dragon.

That may have been the rest stop where Bob made the mistake of taking off his hat and putting it on a rock. I think those ants could have eventually made off with his hat if they wanted to. They were enormous.

Bob, kidding around, asked Rondee if he eats the ants. Rondee said yes and put one in his mouth, laughing at us when we gasped. Then he opened his mouth and the ant crawled out. Ewwww.

We watched this orangutan for a while. She moved slowly, kind of like I would imagine a sloth moves..

Compare that to this one. Maybe the slow one is the tired mother and the fast one is the annoying teenager.

Altogether we saw EIGHT orangutans on this trek, quite an astonishing number. Bob and Rondee were both over the moon. At the end of the day Bob tipped Rondee $50, one of our bigger tips of the trip.

But back to the trek. It was time for lunch, and Rondee had brought that too. We had sliced pineapple drizzled with passion fruit, and rice with chicken and a fried egg and the ubiquitous tapioca chips.

I'm always on the lookout for interesting mushrooms. These, with their distinct rings, look like sections cut from a tree.

Near the far point of our trek, we came across a large brown bird whose loud, obnoxious calls we had been hearing all day. Rondee told us it was a Sumatran peacock pheasant (aka bronze-tailed peacock pheasant), but Bob says it is a Great Argus.

It was really long, and its feathers resembled scales. It has a distinct scalloped tail that splits into two peices and a rather fuzzy head. It is a bizarre bird and different from anything we had ever seen before.

I was lucky to be filming when it belted out one of its plaintive songs, a serenade meant to attract a mate.

One of the last animals we saw was a long-tailed macaque playing in a tree. 

We were happy to get back to the lodge, and when we saw this woman and her load, our backpacks felt much lighter.

We enjoyed two Coke Zeros with ice in the lodge. Soooooo good. 

We returned to our room, got them to turn the power back on, and gathered up our dirty, sweaty clothes to be laundered overnight. (We ended up paying about $4 for 7 shirts, 4 pairs of pants, and 1 pair of socks.) We each took a shower, and Bob laid down for a nap, but it was so hot, so humid. Eventually we went back to the lodge for a banana split. It wasn't quite Baskin-Robbins, but it cooled us down.

Later we met Ardian for dinner.

I ordered chicken with rice roasted in a banana leaf.

Bob had pizza. He was already tiring of the Indonesian fare.

The power in the lodge went out FOUR TIMES during dinner. Apparently it was a property-wide problem.

Coming next: Heading to Java