Month: July 2016

Day 82: Tangkahan & Medan

We had an early 6AM pick-up from our hotel, as we had an 8AM date to give some elephants a bath at the Tangkahan conservation center on the other side of Gunung Lesuer National Park. It was a long drive on a poor road covered in pot-holes (our driver humorously referred to it as the “jungle massage route”). We arrived a bit early, so we had time for breakfast at a restaurant in the park, during which time our driver insisted that we try Indonesia’s favorite fruit: durian. We had seen durian fruits throughout our trip, but due to their notorious reputation as “the world’s stinkiest fruit” we had carefully avoided them. Now, we were stuck – we had half an hour before our activity started, and a very friendly local buying a durian just for us, saying, “You never know, if you never try!”

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of smelling durian, let me tell you that once you have experienced the smell, you will never forget it: it’s like rotten garbage and sweaty socks. In fact, most of the nice hotels in Southeast Asia (including the Marriott in Surabuya) have signs prohibiting guests from bringing durian into the building due to the offensive odor. As far as the taste goes, people either love it or hate it.

 

Lindsay’s first taste of durian fruit

OK, neither of us *loved* it, but the taste is much better than the smell – kinda like a cross between an over-ripe mango and over-ripe avocado, with a tiny aftertaste of puke. Honestly, I could learn to like it, if I ate it often enough.

After breakfast, the elephant handlers opened the elephant enclosure and led a small parade of about a dozen elephants (including three babies!) down to the river where they were prepped for their morning bath. Bath prep includes – and I am not kidding – the park ranger STICKING THEIR ARMS UP THE ELEPHANTS ASSESS TO PULL OUT INDIVIDUAL CHUNKS OF SHIT. When we asked why the rangers do this, they told us it’s because the elephants can get constipated from all the fruit the tourists feed them. I suspect they want to give the elephants enemas because they don’t want them to crap all over the tourists while they are washing them in the river. Whatever, glad that *duty* was not part of our tour activity. Instead, we were handed some scrubber brushes, and all we had to do was help wipe the mud off the elephants’ backs as they lay in the river for us.

 

A parade of dirty elephants heading down to the river for bath time

 

Park ranger pulling poops out of an elephant’s ass. And you thought *your* job was ad? Dirty baby elephant is still really cute, tho.

 

The elephants lay down in the river so Igor can scrub their backs

 

Igor is having so much fun cleaning the elephants!

 

After the tourists are done washing the elephants, the elephants get their turn to wash us, too!

 

Look how clean she is!

 

Rubbing some “good luck stones” on the elephant to get a little of her luck to go with us, giving them some snacks in return – bananas & sugar cane sticks!

 

Lindsay feeding a beautiful bull elephant

 

Igor gets a kiss in exchange for his treats!

 

Clean-elephant salute!

After the washing and feeding, we opted for an additional elephant ride through the jungle. The jungle paths were muddy and steep – Lindsay had to close her eyes a few times as it was like riding a really slow roller coaster. Our guides took us across the river and into a meadow were the elephants got to forage for a “second breakfast”, before returning to the park entrance for lunch.

 

Taking an elephant ride through the Gunung Leuser National Park

 

Heading across the river, via elephant-back

 

Walking through the bush with our guides leading the way

 

Our elephant steed stopping for a snack – such a good girl!

Feeding our girl a little snack of leaves

 

After watching the elephants chow down, we got a little peckish ourselves! Fried noodles and cucumber juice – delish!

It was long and bumpy road back to Medan – we were very happy to check into the JW Marriott and unwind. But our day wasn’t over yet – we had one last task before leaving Indonesia: to get Lindsay some hiking boots! We still have a lot of trekking coming up in the next few months, so the sooner we find a couple of boots for her, the more time she has to break them in!

The mall, unfortunately, did not have any camping stores, so we did a Google search and found a store called “Cosina” which sells trekking gear – according to Google it as only a 20min walk from the Marriott, so we headed out on foot (despite the Concierge ‘s advice that we take a cab). It was NOT a 20min walk – it took us at least an hour walking along a very busy road in the humidity, doubling checking our directions on very weak cell data and asking direction from local street food stalls, before we finally found it. Turns out Cosina is an Indonesian trekking brand – boots, backpacks, clothing, camping gear – everything! Lindsay tried on two pairs, and picked a new couple of boots that cost a bargain price of 900K IDR (USD$70.00).

 

The sales team at Cosina – thanks for the new boots!

Day 81: Jungle Trek – Day 3

Our final day in the jungle actually didn’t include any trekking, as we would be returning to the village of Bukit Lawang by tubing down the river. We had a very leisurely morning, during which time Leli and Chandra decided to give all the tourists jungle-makeovers. After a short walk to a waterfall for some swimming, we had our final jungle lunch and headed back to town, singing our favorite jungle song:

Jungle Trek (set to the tune of “Jingle Bells”)

Jungle trek, jungle trek, in Bukit Lawang!

See the monkeys, see the birds, see orangutan, hey!

Jungle trek, jungle trek, in Bukit Lawang!

See the monkeys, see the Mina – everybody run!

Our final campground – a much larger set-up, complete with a jungle toilet up a small hill. Igor and I couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be a sit-down or squat, and we didn’t want to ask, because we had already used it. Let me put it this way, Lindsay didn’t sit on that thing – good thing she has good balance.

 

All our cloths hung out to dry from our sweaty, sweaty hike the day before

 

It’s a great morning when you get crepes for breakfast!

 

Leli and Chandra decide to play dress-up with Patrick, and turn him into a “jungle boy”

 

Leli getting very creative with the body paint

 

Lindsay is Leli’s next makeover project – he turns her into a cat!

 

Swimming in the waterfall, where Igor is crowned King of the Jungle!

 

Our final jungle lunch – with lots of FRUITS!

 

We saw several monitor lizards swimming across the river throughout the day

 

This isn’t us, but when it was our turn to head back, we packed up our stuff into waterproof garbage bags, strapped them on to a raft of inner tubes, hopped on board and headed downstream. It was about an hour long ride, hitting a few rapids along the way – definitely a great way to travel in the jungle

 

Final views of Gunung Leuser National Park

While our tube-ride back to Bukit Lawang was pleasantly sunny, a gentle rain started to come down as we headed back to our hotel. Just like the day before, it turned into a full-on downpour by dinnertime, this time preventing us from meeting up with Patrick & Jan for a farewell beer in the village. Instead, we had a quiet dinner at the Orangutan Hotel, and washed our dirty, dirty clothes in our room.

Desperately trying to dry our laundry using our ceiling fan in the jungle humidity

Day 80: Jungle Trek – Day 2

Lindsay and Igor turned out to be the early-birds of our group – while we woke up naturally around 7AM (it was already light out, and Lindsay needed to use the “jungle toilet”), the Germans and our guides were still snoozing until around 9AM. No matter – a pack of curious macaques across the river started eyeing our camp and watching them slowly make their way over to our side to steal some leftover rice from last night’s dinner was a very amusing way to spend the morning.

 

Igor enjoying the sights of the jungle with a morning cuppa

 

Lindsay waiting patiently for the monkeys to cross the river

 

Thieving macaques!

 

Breakfast in the jungle

The first part of our hike led us through the shallow waters of the river – thanks to our stop at the shopping mall in Medan, Igor and Lindsay had good river shoes. Our German friends had both brought flip-flops, which quickly ripped on the slippery rocks, sending both guys into the river.

When we reached the uphill section of the trail, we had a small traffic jam with another trekking group. Since the trail was incredibly steep (70-degree angle – no joke!!!), we waited at the bottom to give the other group a good 45min head start so we wouldn’t bottleneck in a bad location. To pass the time, Chandra hacked up some stray bamboo walking sticks to make “jungle trumpets”! For the next two days, our group was the annoying bunch tooting loud blasts as we tramped through the trees.

 

Jungle arts & crafts – making bamboo horns!

 

Finally reached the top! Seriously – it was like scaling a cliff-face! Thankfully the trail is covered with sturdy tree branches to hoist yourself up

 

Rewarded with lunch at the top of the hill

 

Admiring the flora – a parasitic fig tree whose roots are strangling it’s host tree

 

Thick fig roots – we each had to take a turn climbing the tree

So, we’d had a very good day up until this point, but we hadn’t seen any orangutans yet. While we were sure to see some by the end of the day, could anything really top yesterday? I mean, seven orangutans, including Juney who just milked it for the camera? How could it get better?

Meet Jackie:

 

Jackie – Bukit Lawang’s friendliest orangutan

Jackie is a semi-wild orangutan who – unlike the aggressive Mina – has a reputation for being a bit too friendly. We were warned that she may try to hold our hands – as if that would be a bad thing! Sure enough, after posing for a few pictures Jackie came thundering down from the trees with her little baby in tow and made a beeline for Lindsay’s arm!

 

Taking a picture with Jackie

 

Jackie’s older daughter, who was born in the wild and therefore doesn’t have a name. She’s probably around 7-8 years old. She’s curious about tourists, but keeps her distance

 

Jackie coming down for some one-on-one time

 

JACKIE IS HOLDING LINDSAY’S HAND, OMG THIS IS SO MAGICAL!!!!!

 

OK, it’s been a few minutes – I’d kinda like my hand back now…

 

Guys. She won’t let me go. And she keeps trying to put my hands in her mouth – oh shit, she’s going to bite me – give her some fruit, NOW!

So Jackie is a very clever ape – she has discovered that she can hold tourists hostage (we are so easy to catch, because even when pre-warned, we all secretly want to hold hands with her!) in exchange for fruit and sugar cane sticks by threatening to bite their hands. Chandra and Leli assured us that she never actually bites anyone, but when your fingers are in her mouth, you still get nervous!

 

Chandra and Leli did eventually bribe Jackie to let me go, but not without first getting a group photo

 

Jackie’s newest baby – SO CUTE!!!

 

Jackie had a fierce grip! And she desperately needs a manicure – her nails left a mark on my arm! As soon as she let go of me, she picked her next victim from a new group of tourists

As we continued down the trail toward our campsite, we had one more orangutan encounter – this time with Sooka. Our guides didn’t tell us much about her, they just told us to not make eye contact and walk past her as quickly as possible.

 

Sooka – a surly orangutan – not a favorite of the local guides

Our final camp was not as secluded as the first – this is the main camp that almost all the trekking groups visit (especially 1-night treks). This would be our jumping off point for the river tubing the next day. There were 3 other groups on our side of the river, and another 3-4 on the other bank, so we had a fair amount of company as we jumped in the river for a cool swim.

Unfortunately, the sky opened up and it started to pour right around dinnertime, so we had to forgo a bonfire that night. Our group made the best of it, especially since Leli and Chandra had placed a beer order for the tourists and we each had a double deuce bottle of Bintang! The jungle boys pulled out a deck of cards and proceeded to dazzle us with various magic tricks – “Jungle Magic!”

 

Campground by the river – we were by far and away the rowdiest group, thanks to our jungle trumpets!