After saying goodbye to Penang, we set off on a tiger air flight to Medan. We were a little apprehensive though as we had heard some in different rumours about Indonesia with stories of terrorist sectors in aceh, north of where we going first and also warnings of kidnappings etc. With that in the back of our minds we set off anyways knowing that this could still be an amazing place to travel!

We had organised a transfer to the guesthouse and thankfully we did. The drive from the airport to the guesthouse took around 4-5hours on a single road whuch was more like a dirt track, this took for ever and you couldn't sleep on it due to all of the pot holes and obstacles in the road! Medan was crazy though as we had to drive through the centre! It was also a little nerve wracking as our driver told us to lock our doors!

On arrival to Bukit Lawang my first honest reaction was: random and a little dirty. However as we walked further into the village it was a little dirty but also beautiful underneath. That may seem obvious as we are in the jungle but it truly was stunning and the dirty patches were more down to local businesses.

The first day we checked out what treks and activities we could do. The guesthouse had a list of all the local activities we could do and the prices. It was going to be an interesting few days! So the place we were staying was surprisingly nice. We had a view on the river with the jungle directly opposite. It was stunning however it turned out that the monkeys enjoyed the view too as we would wake every morning to find left over bits of fruit and lots of monkey poo on our balconies! The highlights however proved to be the activities.

We extended our stay as not to rush everything in one day. Our first activity was the feeding platform which proved to be a real winner as we were very lucky in seeing up close mother and baby orangutans as well as 3 others! It was amazing to see these so close and were both made up after these encounters yet we both knew there was more to see if we wanted it! So we chose to do a half day trek in the hope of being lucky.

Our guide was the owner of the guesthouse and had trekked for 15years as a guide but had lived there all his life. We headed up accross the same river as the feeding platform to follow a trail which at times disappeared. We had to pull ourselves on a dingy using a rope to get accross the river. Our guide was forever moving off the beaten track to find new ways of making us luck silly. The guys who walked around the jungle semed to do this with ease with one wearing sandals and the other bare footed!! Where we were falling over and sliding with all of our nice hiking gear on! Boots and all! It was on this trek we were fortunate enough to see gibnons, maccaws, thomas leaf monkeys and of course, very luckily, more orangutans! Particularly a moment when a male orangutan decided to spook us off hy climbing down his nesting tree and approach to come on to the ground. Males and wild orangutans very rarely if ever go to the ground where there predators are but this one could sense people watching so Took exception to this and began to chase us away. Great experience and worth the money to lawang alone. The trek finished midday with a night music doo on in the jungle. We stayed for a while and ate there but the place felt like a working mens club as there was 2 maybe 3 women sat down watching including sam!

We were really enjoying the jungle except for a few things. The first night I woke up with a nasty set of bites around my lower back and on my legs. Our room consisted of a four poster bed with a netted curtain around so the first thought was it couldn't be mosquitos. However, Sam did not have the bites and she had slept in her sleeping bag liner whereas I had slept on top of mine feeling confident about the netting! It turns out after questioning the locals, that it was most likely ant bites. On further inspection of the bed each night, we found ants! So wrapped up tightly afterwards!!

Power cuts became regular and water stoppages mid-shower for Sam, became frequent but I quite enjoyed this as it added to the feel of a jungle. Searching around by torch is also a nuisance but exciting t the same time!!

Anyway, enough of the negative. The final full day we used to our own enjoyment, a cooking class. We found a lovely cooking class run by the rainforest guesthouse. The woman, called Neela, allowed us to take notes, pose for photos and get really stuck into cooking. We chose our 3 courses the day before as were to eat our 3 course meal after. All for 100,000 each! Not bad at all. We had a starter of Potato cakes, a main of Semur Ayam and a dessert of Banana Fritter. We cooked, chopped and ate the lot. We learnt the correct ways for batter, spicing and especially how to make our own coconut milk which was a surpirising treat.

The last night we relaxed and packed for our ongoing flight out of Sumatra to Jakarta. Here we were in 2 minds as to go to the capital or on to Lake Toba. How we wish we had done Toba...