It all started when Lion Air misplaced my bag. After a brief stopover to change planes and admire the brown polluted skies of Jakarta (and be a bit smug that we weren't going to be staying there) we arrived at Medan airport in northern Sumatra. Well, "we" is me, Simon and Simon's bag. My bag didn't appear on the conveyor belt. But - no need to panic - we went along to the little Lion Air office to sort it out...
Being a westener, I expected them to quickly tap my name into a computer and then give me the bad news about where all my clothes were and how long it was going to take for me to be reunited with them. But it was not to be. In their tiny smokey office, the Lion Air dudes assured me that "maybe it's on the next flight from Jakarta". Doubting it, I tried to ascertain what would happen if this didn't turn out to be the case (i.e. when would phone calls be made or computer databases searched) but unfortunately this was beyond their english and way beyond my indonesian. So there was nothing to do but sit there and wait for the next flight from Jakarta.
Though delayed by a truly awesome thunderstorm, the next plane did eventually land about an hour later and the dudes started to offload the baggage. Having the luxury of being first in line by quite a long way, I took up prime position at the entrance to the conveyor belt and waited dutifully for my bag to not arrive. Just as I was deciding that I could probably stretch out my current underwear for an absolute max of two more days, one of the dudes looked at me from the other side of the plastic flaps, flashed me a big grin and then passed my bag right into my hands! I could have kissed him, but I settled for a loud whoop instead. I had pants again!
We were, however, still stuck in Medan. We had planned to catch a non-trivial combination of taxis and buses to get us to the village of Bukit Lawang - famous for it's jungle life - but our delay meant that we had definitely missed the last bus. The Lonely Planet Guide (may it be published forever) had told us that Medan is quite an unpleasant place to be, but we were stuck, so we changed our plans and braced ourselves for the city.
As it would happen, we had the good fortune to run into Thomas outside the airport. He's a guesthouse owner from Bukit Lawang who was doing some half hearted "tourist hunting" having arrived earlier to drop some guests off for a flight. Given that he was heading back anyway, we haggled him down to IDR 50,000 for taking the two of us back to his place. Which is a lot cheaper than all those buses. Winner!
Four hours of crazy driving and a KFC later we arrived at Bukit Lawang, still alive and with the intention of checking out Thomas' place. We had planned on comparing it with other places in the village before choosing our favourite and bedding down for the night. The problem was that it was midnight by the time we arrived and Bukit Lawang was in the midst of a power cut so everything was really dark. And it was raining heavily. And we had no idea where we were or where we could find any other accommodation because we had followed Thomas down a little street and across a rickety bridge, all in the dark. So, not being ones to gamble a good nights sleep for the sake of a bargain, we stayed at Thomas' Retreat. Luckily it was lovely, quiet, and pretty good value.
The reason we went through all this palava to get to Bukit Lawang in the first place was to see the village's most famous attraction - orang utans. The Sumatran ones aren't as big as their cousins on Borneo, but they're only semi-wild and are quite used to having humans around, so you can get really close. And they're amazing. The village used to host a rehabilitation centre but this has long since closed down and has been replaced with a simple feeding centre where the orang utans can come for a free meal if they fancy it. This is a sure fire way to see them. The absolute best way to see them, though, is by spending a day and a night in the jungle.
Thomas was quite keen for us to use his cousin as a guide for our jungle trek and was busy arranging it (without our asking him to) before we even got to Bukit Lawang. Being the British shoppers that we are, we wanted to look around a bit first and we didn't much like the feeling of being in a bind. But we were pushed for time because Thomas' cousin wanted a quick answer from us, so we launched an assault on the guides of Bukit Lawang that the Spanish Inquisition would have been proud of.
And that's how we found Omano at the Jungle Inn. Under intense questioning he offered us a slightly different experience to the other guides and his English was easily good enough for us to understand each other properly. He seemed more capable than Thomas' cousin and would do the trip for the same price of IDR 600,000. So it was a no-brainer really.
I did have second thoughts about Omano at first mind you. After we had paid half the money the day before, he came to our hostel early on the day of the trek to say that the other members of our group couldn't make it and we had to delay for a day. In a place where tourists are quite openly diddled by the locals, I did wonder if this was some kind of scam. But he seemed genuinely apologetic and promised us it would definately be on the next day or he'd give us twice our money back. I made him shake on that and comforted myself with the fact that I had a pretty good idea where he lived if I had to send the boys (i.e. Simon) round.
So to pass the day Si and I went to investigate Bukit Lawang's bat cave. This is a surprisingly long cave system which is refreshingly devoid of anything remotely resembling health and safety regulations. Many times you think you've reached the end but you clamber over one last slippy rock and find yourself in another huge dark tunnel with yet more screeching, flapping bats clinging to the ceiling. To be honest - even though I think that bats have had a bad press and are actually pretty cute - it was really spooky. It felt like we were caught in an episode of Scooby Doo. The best thing about the caves, though, was that on our way out we were lucky enough to see our first orang utans! They were just hanging around in the trees above and around the cave system. We didn't dare get particularly close, but it was amazing to see them, even at a distance.
The next day was our trek and Omano showed up pretty much on schedule with three French people who made up the rest of our party. We were also accompanied by a trainee guide called Rambo (I have totally forgotten his real name) who was lovely and had a penchant for making jungle hats out of leaves.
The trek was awesome, we saw so much that it would take ages to recount it all properly here. We saw many many wonderful Orang Utans, including Mina (the grumpy looking one in the photo) who famously makes up a primate mafia of one and attacks you if you don't give her food. We also saw thomas leaf monkeys, macaque monkeys, a terrapin, a tortoise (which peed on me), moniter lizards, ten zillion ants and ate a lot if random jungle flora, including seeds that make everything tast sweet. Simon ate termites, we both licked ant poison and I got bitten by a tiny but vicious leech who only lived to regret his mistake for another 10 seconds or so. And I was relieved to find that Omano was a great guide - he was a fountain of knowledge and really seemed to care about the wildlife.
That night we all slept in Omano's private and exclusive campsite spot alongside a picturesque river. We were watched all night by an orang utan and her tiny little baby. The freshly cooked food was amazing and the company (both French and Indonesian) was fabulous. The bed, on the other hand was absolutely bloody awful! But what's a nights sleep when you've got a thunderstorm and a jungle to listen to?
The next day we continued our trek up and down the steep clay hillsides of the jungle. After lunch, we came to the very same river that runs through Bukit Lawang and Rambo pulled some tractor tyre inner tubes out of his bag. Our whole company concluded the trip with an exciting ride down the rapids and we were delivered right back to our front door.
I loved Bukit Lawang, it's a really chilled out place, with enough interesting things to keep you entertained. And the people are lovely. If it wasn't for the call of a super-volcano then I would definately have wanted to stay longer.