Message Stick

Heading off to Indonesia was Mark’s idea and something I was a little concerned about. Sumatra has had numerous natural disasters of late and with our track record it didn’t seem like the best place to visit. I couldn’t have been more wrong however and for me this has been the absolute highlight of the trip so far. Landing in Medan we saw a country that was  far more similar to India than any other on this trip, making us feel right at home. The general standard of living was  nowhere near as high as in Malaysia and the costs of food, transport and accommodation reflected this. We boarded a cramped  minibus to Bukit Lawang, a town on the edge of the jungle that was devastated in 2003 by flooding. The area is famous for jungle treks and one of the few places on earth to see wild Orangutans. We were soon accosted on route by ‘Jungle  Man’ Thomas who became our local guide and insisted Mark ride the remaining journey up on the roof of our bus  like a real local.

Our two day, overnight in the jungle experience began early the next morning and after an hour we were all about ready to collapse and die. We’d not expected the terrain to be so hilly, nor such a lack of trails. It felt like a true Tarzan experience though, swinging on the vines clambering through the densest jungle imaginable.

During a brief rest stop we munched on some local fruit and saw our first  Orangutan ‘Sandra’ with her 6 month old baby. They were so beautiful and we felt really honoured to be experiencing this in such an intimate way; just us and our two guides. They gracefully swayed through the canopy towards us  and accepted the bananas we placed in the trees for them. I had a massive lump in my throat and was so pleased we’d been able to live out Pauline’s ‘Judith Charmers’ experience on her behalf.

The jungle was abundant with wildlife; snakes, spiders, bees, gibbons and macaques. Thomas described much about the flora  and fauna to us. Every time he stopped to explain somthing we had a chance to catch our breathe before heading off again. After lunch we were visited by ‘April’ our second Orangutan and she allowed us to get  much closer. At times she ate fruit from us that we held between our teeth - though she may have just wanted a cheeky monkey kiss.  Once all the fruit was gone she also ate my left over rice directly from the Banana leaf I held out for her. This made all of the hideous physical activity to get here worthwhile.

Our camp was described as a tent but a plastic roof would have been more accurate. Nevertheless we kept dry when it rained and were fed and watered until ready to explode. By 7pm it was pitch black outside and we whiled away the hours playing silly games. We all slept fairly lightly, trying to not imagine what may be crawling across us in the night.

Tying several tractor inner tubes together our guides constructed an inflatable raft. We all climbed on-board and floated back down the river to our hotel through raging rapids. It was a bit like a water ride at Alton Towers and definitely much easier than the getting there. Back on shore we were filthy, smelt disgusting and totally exhausted but felt it was one of the best experiences of our trip so far.