Bridges and Monkeys
Travel Journey
Well I'm almost 2 flights out of 12 down! I never really realized how far away Indonesia actually is from me. Many of the connections from Canada go through Hong Kong which means a long layover in Vancouver before I even leave the country. I thought that a break during the travel would be a nice treat. And it truly was. As well I was a bit concerned with making sure I made all my connections to meet up with the group in time.
When we land in Indonesia we land in Medan, in Sumatra, and then depart directly from the airport to Bukit Lawang for our 3 night stay. It's a 4 hour drive and if I miss the group at the airport I have to find my own way to the hotel.
I'm not sure if anyone has heard but I've been getting a lot of random Indonesia stories in the news. Last week there was a man in Indonesia who was killed and eaten by a python. I would like to say that this was on a distant island but before this incident the last victim who was killed was a security guard in Bali. Where I will be. But we aren't visiting that particular island so I'm hoping no snake sightings.
We flew from London to Kuala Lumpur on Malaysian airlines. They have a bad reputation for having planes disappear in the sky but I was really impressed. They fly the large airbus with 2 levels but it was a nice spacious plane. An impressive amount of leg room and space in general. Also, the flight attendants have some impressive hairstyles. I couldn't figure out a way to get a discreet picture but I was so tempted. The one lady had this impressive chignon that lifted several inches above her head. And it was still pristine looking 13 hours later.
After a quick run through the terminal we transferred for a quick 1 hour flight to Medan for the beginning of all the excitement.
Day 1
We have arrived in Bukit Lawang. What a journey. But I am 4 flights down and have been in 4 countries in less than 3 days. It feels really good to be back on solid ground.
It was an odd sort of drive. Bukit Lawang is only 100km away from Medan. But it was well over 3 hours to get there. Mostly because while it is paved roadways they haven't had much maintenance at all over the years so it's really slow going as the road has disintegrated badly over the years. So it was a slow and bumpy ride.
I've had a few random discoveries. The biggest shocker was the toilet at the airport in Kuala Lumpur that was a squat toilet. They did have western style ones as well but I wasn't expecting it for some reason.
Indonesia has 6 official religions and Sumatra is primarily Muslim. Many ladies had head coverings and we passed a lot of Mosques. And a new one for me having never visited a Muslim country before was the call to prayer. Which you could hear in unusual places depending how far away you were.
The drive to Bukit Lawang was mostly through palm oil plantations. They have multiple acres of them. Some you could see from the air and they were huge. What is also really impressive is how precise they are with planting them. They are in nearly perfect rows spaced apart and it was a bit of a optical illusion sometimes. And we spotted the occasional monkey running around amongst the palm trees.
Bukit Lawang is a small village on the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park. After getting a chance to walk around it was bigger than expected but still fairly basic. A lot of open air homes built with tin roofs and small in size.
The river goes through the town. The side of the river we stayed on was accessed by bridges only. It was a bit scary. It's a wooden bridge that shouldn't have more than 6 people. All the bridges had limits to how many people could cross at a time and it swayed a lot with more people. Thankfully we didn't have to go across that often. Or with our luggage. So happy they drug our bags across for us.
We stayed in an Eco lodge. Which was lovely with immediate access to the national park. The only catch is that it didn't have much in the way of amenities. It said cold water showers only but for some reason our block of rooms seemed to get hot water in the afternoon. Which was nice as it was ice cold, not lukewarm as I was expecting. No air conditioning either. Just a semi useless little fan hanging from the ceiling. And it was a tropical style shower, with the entire small bathroom being the shower. You learned quickly to leave items that you wanted to stay dry outside of the room. But it was clean and had all of what I needed so I was content.
The water in Indonesia isn't drinkable which is typical. They would however provide you with ample clean drinking water at the restaurant and you would see a lot of people carrying around the carafes provided to get more water. And they were very happy to fill drinking bottles as well.
Indonesia also has a risk of malaria so it was a round of malarone pills to be on the safe side. And mosquito nets over the beds here for us. I did get the impression that all the hotels would have them but this was the only one that did. I also appreciated the nets as our room was filled with little geckos all over the walls and ceiling at night. The net added a bit of protection from them landing on us as well.
Our group is 10 people. All English except for me. And Terry and I are the youngest by a few decades. Which is never surprising. And we have 4 single travelers so it's a mixed bag on this trip. And for a change we have two tour guides on this trip. Ellie for the first 4 days in Sumatra and then Wira for the remaining 10 days.
Once we arrived we had a leisurely walk around the village. Back over the bridges again as well. We did a circuit through the village and as it was a weekend it was pretty busy. The stores were all open and there were people everywhere. And on the way back we had our first monkey sighting! I'm so excited now but the sheer volume of monkeys made me less excited towards the end of the trip.
Now just to rest up for our first orangutan hike tomorrow!
Well I'm almost 2 flights out of 12 down! I never really realized how far away Indonesia actually is from me. Many of the connections from Canada go through Hong Kong which means a long layover in Vancouver before I even leave the country. I thought that a break during the travel would be a nice treat. And it truly was. As well I was a bit concerned with making sure I made all my connections to meet up with the group in time.
When we land in Indonesia we land in Medan, in Sumatra, and then depart directly from the airport to Bukit Lawang for our 3 night stay. It's a 4 hour drive and if I miss the group at the airport I have to find my own way to the hotel.
I'm not sure if anyone has heard but I've been getting a lot of random Indonesia stories in the news. Last week there was a man in Indonesia who was killed and eaten by a python. I would like to say that this was on a distant island but before this incident the last victim who was killed was a security guard in Bali. Where I will be. But we aren't visiting that particular island so I'm hoping no snake sightings.
We flew from London to Kuala Lumpur on Malaysian airlines. They have a bad reputation for having planes disappear in the sky but I was really impressed. They fly the large airbus with 2 levels but it was a nice spacious plane. An impressive amount of leg room and space in general. Also, the flight attendants have some impressive hairstyles. I couldn't figure out a way to get a discreet picture but I was so tempted. The one lady had this impressive chignon that lifted several inches above her head. And it was still pristine looking 13 hours later.
After a quick run through the terminal we transferred for a quick 1 hour flight to Medan for the beginning of all the excitement.
Day 1
We have arrived in Bukit Lawang. What a journey. But I am 4 flights down and have been in 4 countries in less than 3 days. It feels really good to be back on solid ground.
It was an odd sort of drive. Bukit Lawang is only 100km away from Medan. But it was well over 3 hours to get there. Mostly because while it is paved roadways they haven't had much maintenance at all over the years so it's really slow going as the road has disintegrated badly over the years. So it was a slow and bumpy ride.
I've had a few random discoveries. The biggest shocker was the toilet at the airport in Kuala Lumpur that was a squat toilet. They did have western style ones as well but I wasn't expecting it for some reason.
Indonesia has 6 official religions and Sumatra is primarily Muslim. Many ladies had head coverings and we passed a lot of Mosques. And a new one for me having never visited a Muslim country before was the call to prayer. Which you could hear in unusual places depending how far away you were.
The drive to Bukit Lawang was mostly through palm oil plantations. They have multiple acres of them. Some you could see from the air and they were huge. What is also really impressive is how precise they are with planting them. They are in nearly perfect rows spaced apart and it was a bit of a optical illusion sometimes. And we spotted the occasional monkey running around amongst the palm trees.
Bukit Lawang is a small village on the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park. After getting a chance to walk around it was bigger than expected but still fairly basic. A lot of open air homes built with tin roofs and small in size.
The river goes through the town. The side of the river we stayed on was accessed by bridges only. It was a bit scary. It's a wooden bridge that shouldn't have more than 6 people. All the bridges had limits to how many people could cross at a time and it swayed a lot with more people. Thankfully we didn't have to go across that often. Or with our luggage. So happy they drug our bags across for us.
 |
| The slightly scary bridge we had to cross |
The water in Indonesia isn't drinkable which is typical. They would however provide you with ample clean drinking water at the restaurant and you would see a lot of people carrying around the carafes provided to get more water. And they were very happy to fill drinking bottles as well.
 |
| Beds all protected from the mosquitos |
Our group is 10 people. All English except for me. And Terry and I are the youngest by a few decades. Which is never surprising. And we have 4 single travelers so it's a mixed bag on this trip. And for a change we have two tour guides on this trip. Ellie for the first 4 days in Sumatra and then Wira for the remaining 10 days.
 |
| Monkey shot, There are several hidden around me here |
Once we arrived we had a leisurely walk around the village. Back over the bridges again as well. We did a circuit through the village and as it was a weekend it was pretty busy. The stores were all open and there were people everywhere. And on the way back we had our first monkey sighting! I'm so excited now but the sheer volume of monkeys made me less excited towards the end of the trip.
Now just to rest up for our first orangutan hike tomorrow!
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