man about forest
after a couple of days of blissed out laziness in danau toba the harsh realities of tran-sumatran travel loomed into view on wednesday morning as we stepped off the ferry at parapat. despite a trio of ready made attractions in north sumatra there remains no easy way of connecting the dots, with journeying from one place to the next always requiring a detour via smog filled medan. we had already knocked berestagi off the itinerary for precisely this reason but there was no avoiding it when making the journey across to bukit lawang. we actually managed to argue a pretty good rate on an air conditioned 4x4 which was heading that way so avoided having to revisit the worst excesses of sumatran public buses, but having negotiated what we had presumed would be the hairiest section of the journey with relative ease we arrived at the northern bus terminal to find no minibuses for bukit lawang in residence. ignoring the plainitive claims of a couple of touts shouting that the last bus had departed and we should book a private taxi all the way we pressed on, but soon realised that there did appear to be a relatively strong chance that there were no more pubic buses heading our way. ignoring the touts, on principle more than anything, we ventured out further and eventually found ourself squeezed into an opek, a hollowed out minivan which was making the short hop over to bukit lawang, stopping at every street corner in the hope of enticing in an extra passenger or two with the promises of rust and loud bollywood tunes. after a stop start (and stop and start again, repeated ad inifinitum) journey we finally arrived at bukit lawang and checked into a little homestay on the river just in time for another monsoon downpour to hit.a quick word on riverside living. having stayed in a couple of beach shacks in my time i have always loved and romanticised living by the water: the gentle, repetitive lap of water on the shore is both soothing and soporific and lends itself perfectly to tranquility. rivers, however, are different beasts. no gentle lap or repetitive motion, just the constant, surprisingly loud, sound of water gushing over the rapids. this is both relentless and noisy but, more problematically for those of weak mental fortitude like myself, also means you need to get up to pee every ten minutes, negotiating ants and mosquitos for a psychomatically induced and consequentially pathetic trickle. beachfront, good; riverside, the jury is still out.
the reason for our ten hour jaunt to bukit lawang lay in the gunung leuser national park just across the river from bukit lawang, home to the sumatran orangutan. regardless of just how unnecessarily difficult the journey had been, the bugs traipsing around our bed and the 6.30am blasts of bass heavy bollywood hits, as we watched the first of these fabulous beasties swing in above our heads on thursday morning our feeling that it would be totally worth it was instantaneously confirmed. it's hard to do justice to these creatures by word (and there are many, many photos to come) but their expressive faces and incredible dexterity constantly amazed, as they gambolled up, down and across the forest canopy, a bizarre juxtaposition of human and animal eating etiquette as they elegantly peeled bananas before stuffing them into their faces. after an hour at the feeding station for the semi wild orangutans who are being rehabilitated prior to return to the wild we headed off into the jungle. it was a long, sweaty trek made infinitely more difficult and tiring by the rain the night before turning the tracks into slippery mulch but we were fortunate enough to see a couple of sets of orangutans in the wild as well (including a famously agressive beast from who we had to beat a hasty, if clumsy, retreat). hot, sticky, rustic, deet-infused days though they have been, bukit lawang's most famous residents lived up to their reputation and made the journey to this rural backwater a massive highlight of this trip (and dare i say it better than pandas?)
back into medan now but straight to the airport as we jump on a flight to penang for some electricity, massages and lots and lots of food...
posted by bicrom @ 11:01 am
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