Welcome to the Jungle

On arrival in Sumatra we were collected by our driver and taken to the riverside jungle of Bukit Lawang. Our guesthouse was at the end of the village with beautiful views over the rushing river and the steep jungle on the opposite bank, where we could see monkeys and even a monitor lizard swimming through the current. We spent the late afternoon relaxing and having a few beers with three pretty lively Australian women, Rachel, Tash and Jude, who were spending their holiday in Sumatra to celebrate Tash's 50th birthday. They were loads of fun and we planned to catch up with them for more drinks later that evening, but Cat started to feel unwell and began vomiting, a truly unpleasant experience for her. The next morning however, despite our rooms location beside a waterfall and the accompanying dampness, she felt fine again.
After breakfast we walked up the river for around 45 minutes and caught up with our tube riding guides who were busy stringing together 4 tubes for our ride down the river. En route we saw a group pass over

some rapids and one of the tourists fall out of the tube. He was wearing a life vest and easily pulled himself back in, but it made us wonder about the safety of taking a small child on them. As we passed more and more rapids, this concern grew bigger! As our guides strapped the tubes together they assured us it was safe and that no one would fall out - necessary as we had no life jackets! Reassured by their confidence, we hopped in and off we went, a guide at the front and rear with their poles to steer us clear of rocks, Pedro and Flora in the second tube, and Cat in the third. True to their word, the guides ensured we rode safely down the river and were never in any danger. Despite the lack of danger, it was fast and fun and we got saturated. Flora really loved it and wanted to do it again. Once we returned, we strolled into the village along the river bank for lunch, and got stuck in a little restaurant serving great food by a torrential rain storm.
The following morning we set aside the day for a full day trek in the jungle to try to find our reason for travelling to Bukit Luwang - the beautiful Orangutans. We set off after a hearty breakfast, and with shoes provided by our guide with moulded studs. We were joined by Oneta, an American, who Flora loved. We began our trek by walking through the village, across the river and through a rubber plantation before actually getting into the jungle proper. To our surprise, up one of the rubber trees was a pregnant mum and her child. They seemed pretty nonplussed by the presence of a

dozen or so tourists marveling at them. We watched them for around half an hour before heading into the jungle, which was beautiful, steep and quite tough going, especially for the little legs of Flora. We stopped part way through for a delicious snack of watermelon, passion fruit, bananas and tangerines and then continued on our search. Just when it seemed we might not find any orangutans in the jungle itself, we happened across a mum and baby in the trees. They were incredible; so beautiful, so calm and tranquil. Just swinging from tree to tree. The baby was only little - maybe a year or so old, with loads of fuzzy orange fur. So cute. At one point, the mum came down from the tree to almost ground level. Flora gave her a stick, which she took from her and then promptly threw it away. The experience was really quite magical. After a significant time watching this mum and baby, we headed deeper into the jungle to look for more. We came across a fairly menacing looking Baboon. We decided not to hang around and moved on

to a spot where we had a delicious jungle lunch provided by our guides, before continuing our trek. As we headed out of the jungle, Flora understandably began to get very tired. It was a pretty steep decline out of there, and by the end she had really had enough. Given the trek was seven hours long, she was a real trooper. We eventually returned to our guesthouse very happy with our jungle experience.
The following day was the rugby world cup final between England and South Africa, so after lunch in the village we spent some effort trying to establish a good enough internet connection and find a streaming site. The first half was pretty frustrating viewing as our guesthouse restaurant was full of people on their phones. So at half time we gave up and went to the restaurant next door, where we found a retired English couple who had a great stream going. Unfortunately the game was both a bit dull and result disappointing....ah well. After dinner there, Cat took Flora home whilst Pedro stayed to watch Liverpool play and win in the final seconds of the game against Villa, along with some Norwegians, who turned out to be Lutheran missionary doctors living in Medan.
On our last day in Bukit Lawang we walked back up the river and found a swimming spot to enjoy. The water was pretty chilly and fast flowing, but it was really refreshing, and we did a fair bit of trying to teach Flora rock skimming. We then headed back into the village and had dinner and drinks with the Australians and Oneta. It was lots of fun but we had to bid them farewell not too late as we had an early start to the airport the following morning.
The journey to the airport is not something we would like to repeat. Our driver was fast, aggressive, evidently late to collect some tourists, and even had road rage at one point, getting out of the car to potentially have a fight, despite being totally in the wrong. His driving was so dangerous we felt lucky to arrive to the airport in one piece.