Sumatra, Indonesia
Mother and baby orangutan in the Sumatran jungle
The lowdown
When we started to talk about and research experiences in Asia, we became very enthusiastic about the prospect of seeing wild orangutans. Not only are orangutans the most intelligent animal on earth outside of humans, but they are also our most distant living relatives. Orangutans (which means humans of the jungle in Bahasa Indonesian) are only found in two places – Borneo and Sumatra. We initially thought we would go see orangutans in Malaysian Borneo, but we later decided that Indonesian Sumatra was more ideal from a cost and activity perspective (trek vs. boat safari). We’ll have to visit Borneo another time!
After a fateful night in Phnom Penh, our friend Emily decided to meet up with us for a week in Sumatra before heading to Japan for her business school spring break. The next day, she pitched the idea to Gabby who was excited to come along. And thus, the Sumatra fearsome foursome came to be!
The four of us spent an insanely memorable week in Sumatra trekking in Bukit Lawang, learning about volcanos and sampling the street food in Berastagi, and having a random day in the odd city of Medan. Our time together in this amazing place was a highlight of our trip!
Day 1: Birthday (rice)cake in Bukit Lawang
Getting to Sumatra was an adventure in and of itself. Emily and Gabby made the 20+ hour trip from SF to Singapore to Medan, while we had a much quicker trip from Denpasar to Jakarta to Medan. All domestic travel, so should have been an easy travel day, right?
Wrong! We had a 70 minute layover which should have sufficed for a domestic flight connection. After 70 minutes was cut down to 55 minutes due to a late landing and then 40 minutes as we sat on the plane for longer than expected, we still weren’t worried about making the connection. By the time we got off the plane, we had about 30 minutes before our connecting flight and we quickly learned that we had to change terminals. In order to do so, we took a bus that led to a train that required us to leave the airport. By the time we boarded the train, our flight was already meant to be boarding. We were convinced we were going to miss it, ugh.
Two security lines later and a last call announcement over the speaker, Jessie channeled her inner Usain Bolt and sprinted to the gate as Doug recovered all of our stuff from security. Out of breath, she ran to the gate attendant, “Is this the Medan flight? My husband is coming!” “Medan flight is over there,” the gate attendant said pointing to a long line of people. Clearly not last call. Sweaty with a renewed optimism, we strutted onto the plane in disbelief at our luck. It ended up being our last AirAsia flight of the trip, so Doug bought some of their merch to mark the bittersweet occasion as we sang the last of “your love is a shortcut to heaven… doo dodo doo do.”
Travel fun aside, the best part of the day was reuniting (read: run hugging) with Emily (it was her birthday) and meeting Gabby! They landed a few hours after us, looking totally fresh and happy despite having made the day-long journey across the Pacific. Our first introduction to Sumatra was a very windy car ride to Bukit Lawang. We spent most of the four hour journey chatting and catching up on life, while Jessie and Gabby traded turns feeling very nauseous. When we finally got to Bukit Lawang, the picturesque origin point for our jungle trek, we were greeted by Nanda who would be our guide for the next few days. He led us to our place for the night in the dark – Green Travelodge – while we tried not to fall through the holes of the rickety suspension bridge.
Green Travelodge was a great accommodation. We had two separate bungalows with bathrooms and very few bugs, impressive given we were on the outskirts of the jungle. After dropping our stuff off, we sat down for a quick, but celebratory dinner for Emily’s birthday. It was a total feast with tons of rice, fish, fruit, and delicious small potato balls that would soon become a staple in our diet. A group of locals from the lodge serenaded Emily with Coldplay tunes on a guitar. The birthday girl got two cakes – one made of rice with the savory food and another real cake that Gabby carried out as we sang happy birthday. An awesome first night!
Day 2: See Mina, now we run! Hey!
It was a bumpy night’s sleep with background noise until 4am. At one point, Jessie woke up and deliriously thought the noise was orangutans. Doug sleepily corrected her that it was a man singing karaoke. We all woke up between the hours of 2am (Emily) and 6am. We enjoyed coffee outside of our bungalows, each having our own ‘I can’t believe we’re here, in the jungle and together’ moments. Nanda picked us up on foot and brought us to the Sumatra Orangutan Explore guesthouse for breakfast and a briefing that was punctuated by the sound of macaques wreaking havoc on the roofs across the way.
During the briefing, we discussed the plan for the next three days in the jungle and learned more about the animals that live there. It is the only rainforest in the world where rhinos, elephants, tigers, and orangutans co-exist (the former three live very deep in the jungle where park rangers rarely set foot, let alone tourists). The orangutans that we would (hopefully) see were semi-wild orangutans that were rescued, rehabilitated, and eventually released back into the rainforest in the early 2000s. Despite the rescue and rehabilitation efforts, Sumatran orangutans are critically endangered, with only 8,000 left in the rainforest. At the end of the briefing, we were presented with gifts from SOE – lemongrass soap, wooden orangutan key chains, and batik bags all made in Bukit Lawang. Souvenirs before we even started the trek!
After breakfast, we joined forces with a lovely Polish couple and started our jungle adventure with our trusty guides, Nanda and Diian. As we crossed a large suspension bridge, Nanda told us about the tragic flood that struck the village in 2003. He somberly mentioned that it had wiped out 90% of the houses and killed over 100 people, including some of his friends. We walked a little longer until coming across a rubber plantation that had been around since Dutch colonial times. Though the rubber plantations historically contributed to deforestation of the rainforest, they are the preferred option to palm plantations as they don’t harm the environment as much. Unfortunately, they are not as lucrative as palm plantations, leading many people to sacrifice the environment in favor of supporting their families (a difficult decision, no doubt, that has devastatingly led to the loss of 50% of the Sumatran rainforest in the past 50 years).
Shortly after entering the gates of Gunung Leuser National Park, we had our first wildlife spotting – a long-tailed macaque. Nanda affectionally referred to it as the “cheeky monkey” as they have sex over 25 times a day. We said goodbye to the cheeky monkey and came across a Thomas Leaf monkey (Thomas’s langur), a monkey with a mohawk that is endemic to Sumatra. Unsurprisingly (with a hint of sarcasm), the monkey was named after an American man named Thomas who “discovered” the monkey in Sumatra.
We spent 30 minutes getting accustomed to walking in the rainforest, looking up and around at the amazing scenery. Crazy vines, trees as tall as skyscrapers (or so it felt), and leaves in unfamiliar shapes and sizes surrounded us. We quickly agreed that we would be happy to trek in this environment even if we didn’t see anything beyond the two monkeys, though really were hoping to see an orangutan. Before long, our hopes became a reality as Nanda spotted a female orangutan. We craned our necks and saw the orange jungle human with her child in tow. And as the old bear camp song goes, we looked at her, she looked at us! Her movements were impressively graceful as she made her way across the canopy and oftentimes so humanlike. Wow. We had about five minutes with her and her young baby before she lost interest in us and moved on
We hiked for a little longer and then it was time for a break. As we sat down on the rainforest floor, Nanda and Diian pulled huge knives and whipped up a regal fruit spread with yellow watermelon, passion fruit, snake fruit, oranges, and bananas. With fresh energy, we continued our trek through the jungle for another hour until spotting another orangutan from far away. We raced up a steep part of the jungle so we could meet the orangutan at the treetops.
This female orangutan had a new baby that was barely distinguishable except for its hands holding onto the side of its mother. We had about five minutes with this orangutan and she put on a bit of a show – coming close to us and striking a yoga-esque pose between two trees. We all agreed that this was one of the coolest days ever and felt super lucky to have seen two orangutans and two babies (a rarity) on our first day in the jungle.
We spent a few more hours sweatily trekking, with a delicious nasi goreng lunch break in between, before reaching our campsite for the night. As we trekked, Nanda told us stories about some of the legendary orangutans in the jungle, including the world famous Mina. Mina is a semi-wild orangutan that is known to beg and bite. Because she was brought up in the feeding station, she is used to interacting with humans and smart enough to know how to get what she wants. She only approaches guides when there are tourists with them, and, if they don’t have enough time to run, she goes up to them and sticks her hand out to ask for food (guides are not allowed to feed orangutans), and if the guide refuses, she gives them a nasty bite. Nanda lifted up his shorts to show us evidence of Mina’s naughtiness.
When we got to the campsite, we couldn’t have been more excited to drop our stuff off and take a swim which would have to substitute for a shower. We hung our clothes up to dry (our clothes for the next two days), changed, and took a refreshing dip in the clear, cool, and calm river. The swim was followed by tea, coconut cookies, and some new card games spearheaded by Nanda. Shithead quickly became our favorite game. We also played some “thinking games” (aka brainteasers) with match sticks where Nanda would lay them out and we would have to move one or two (but no more) to solve a puzzle. Emily was amazing at the game, the rest of us not so much.
We were about eat dinner by the river just as it started to rain. We moved into the cooking tent and enjoyed an unbelievable spread of chicken rendang, tempeh vegetable curry, green coconut curry, “Indonesian spicy” sambal, prawn crackers, and rice served under candlelight. As we were eating, the rain got louder and louder. At one point, we looked outside and saw the river that had not only been transformed into a muddy, powerful force to be reckoned with, but had also risen to where we had been sitting just an hour ago. Yikes! Avoiding voicing the fear we were all feeling of the river flooding, we gulped down warm cups of tea, played a few more games, and ran back to our sleeping area (a platform with a mosquito net for each pair) trying not to get soaked. For the rest of the night, we played a new game – “tiger or thunder” – before falling asleep and crossed our fingers that the river wouldn’t overflow.
Day 3: Naughty Gibbons
We started off the morning by playing a new game – “stick or snake” – as the ground was still wet from the previous night’s storm. Though every stick looked like a snake, they were just sticks after all. We sat by the once calm again river, downing our cups of coffee and our breakfast sandwiches. We put on our still wet and newly smelly clothes from the day before, shrugging that this was just life in the jungle.
Day two of our trek began with an hour-long hike up and through the river. With our pants rolled to our knees and homemade bamboo walking sticks in hand, the four of us waded through the running water, careful not to lose our balance or our shoes. We spent most of the time laughing and smiling about how awesome it was to be in the middle of the Sumatran rainforest wading through a river. At some point in the river, Jessie got her first and second leech. A friend had warned Emily about the leeches before she took off for the trek, but they turned out to be no big deal. For some reason, the leeches were only drawn to Jessie…
When we reached the end of the river, we put our shoes on and hiked up the steepest part of the trek which had been rendered a bit dangerous from the rain the night before. Sweaty and now very stinky, we took a fruit break at the top of the hill and tried “PP” – pineapple sprinkled with passion fruit which became Doug’s favorite jungle food. We walked more and learned more about our surroundings – termites, a favorite snack of the orangutans, hornbills that are tragically poached, and some of the plants around us used as medicine by Sumatrans.
Then, we came upon a group of black gibbons – an awesome and totally unexpected sight (we didn’t even know there were gibbons in Sumatra)! As we gleefully watched, the gibbons swung around nearby branches, hung upside down, and just acted goofy. At first, Nanda and Diian thought this was the group of nice gibbons, telling us that there was also a group of naughty gibbons who occasionally terrorized guides and tourists. However, it quickly became apparent that these were in fact the naughty gibbons. Doug innocently reached into his bag to get a drink of water, causing Nanda to freak out (opening bags can trigger gibbons to approach people as they think there is food in the bag) and the naughtiest gibbon to descend.
The naughty gibbon came down from the tree and walked towards a group of tourists with its hands in the air and hips moving side to side in a comical display (which affectionately became known as the “naughty gibbon dance” or the “gibbon shake”). Though it was undeniably funny, it was also dangerous as gibbons have been known to take bags and slap tourists. We luckily got out of the situation unscathed.
The last part of the trek was a very steep downhill path with fixed ropes to help us get down without incident. We held onto the ropes and carefully made our way down, knowing that we were getting close as the sound of running water got louder. At the bottom, we said goodbye to our Polish friends (they were on a 2-day trek) and followed Diian down the side of the deep, wide river. He told us that we were going to use tubes to cross the river since our campsite was on the other side, which we thought was at joke at first. Doug and I loaded up on the first tube while Chef (who had gotten to camp early) used all of his might to drag us across the river current. Next, Emily and Gabby got their turn to cross the river just as it started to downpour. When they had made it across, we all hustled to our campsite to drop our stuff off and change into our swim suits.
We had another amazing evening of laughing, swimming, shithead, wildlife spotting (including a huge monitor lizard) and getting educated on rainforest flora. Hanging out on a huge rock next to the river and taking in the rain forest around us was a highlight of our time in the jungle. We had another epic dinner feast with an especially delicious pumpkin and cassava curry before turning in for the night. Again, we played “tiger or thunder” as lightning lit up the sky. Luckily, we were much higher up and not as worried about our campsite being absorbed in the river.
Day 4: Rafting back to Bukit Lawang and Berastagi fun
We all woke up surprisingly well-rested and ready to conquer our last day in the jungle. We took our seats on our favorite rock and enjoyed delicious banana pancakes for breakfast alongside a pack of gibbons up in the tree across the river. After breakfast, we made our way to a nearby waterfall for a “jungle massage”. Unsurprisingly, Jessie, but no one else, got another leech on the way up to the waterfall.
The waterfall was small but delightful. We were able to swim underneath it and perch ourselves up on the rocks between the falling water and the pooling water which did feel a little bit like a massage. After we were done with our waterfall antics, Nanda and Diian motioned for us to come over so we could get our jungle paint. Using burnt wood, clay, and rocks, they mixed colors and painted our faces. Doug got an orangutan on his back and we painted Nanda’s face like a tiger in return.
We enjoyed the last few hours at our campsite, soaking in the peaceful jungle vibes and savoring our last delicious meal in the jungle. When it was time to go, the four of us loaded into two inter tubes with Diian as the front captain, Chef as the back captain, and Nanda hanging on near the middle. The river was full of rapids that were white-water rafting worthy, so we were a little shocked to be going down in the tubing contraption. It ended up being one of the most fun parts of the trek. We died laughing the entire way down, as we got soaked by rapids and sung a jungle trek song to the tune of Jingle Bells (“Jungle Trek, Jungle Trek in Bukit Lawang; see the monkey see the birds see orangutan… hey!”) Our faces hurt from smiling by the end and we were very sad to get back on land.
We changed into our PJs, collected the stuff we stored at the guesthouse, said our thank yous and gooodbyes, and piled into a car headed to Berastagi, a small town in Sumatra. The ride to Berastagi was much easier than the one to Bukit Lawang with beautiful mountain scenery and far fewer turns. After a few hours, we had arrived at our home for the next two nights – Kaesa Homestay – where we were very warmly greeted by the owner, Kaes, with a big smile and hot cups of tea.
We really didn’t know what to expect from Berastagi (there’s even less information about it online than Bukit Lawang), but we got excited about our time there when Kaes gave us the lay of the land. He told us what and where we should eat (street food was plentiful) and even had a guide on hold for a sunrise trek up the volcano the next morning in case we were interested (we were). We walked into town for an early dinner at Jodha, one of Kaes’s recommendations, where we had martabak telur (spicy veggie omelette), roti cane (roti with cane sugar), and nasi goreng bombay (spicy, curry-esque nasi goreng which was everyone’s favorite). For dessert, we went to a pitu bamboo stand and washed the sweet coconut cane sugar dish down with masala chai from the friendly Indian man next door.
Day 5: Volcano 101 with the professor
We woke up at the ripe hour of 4:00am to meet Emily, Gabby, and our guide outside for a trek up Mt. Sibayak. When we met Emily, we learned that Gabby had gotten sick in the middle of the night – what a bummer! Sad but still committed to hiking the volcano, the three of us met our guide, Geleng (later we would learn that geleng meant small man, he was indeed small), and drove to the base of the volcano trek.
We hiked for an hour in the dark, accompanied by a pack of dogs that once saved Geleng from a sun bear (this guy had some crazy stories). As we walked, Geleng taught us all about the volcano and some of his adventures over the years, including camping out for multiple nights to find a tiger that was reported to be on the volcano (there was no tiger). He was passionate, kind, and generous and, though a small man per his namesake, a force to be reckoned with.
As the sun started to rise, the visibility didn’t get any better. It was so foggy, but we still thought it was pretty cool to be on a volcano so weren’t complaining. We saw a handful of bright yellow, crystallized, smoking sulfur deposits and a small pool of boiling water on our way down to the caldera of the volcano (the place where the volcano erupts). After a few minutes roaming around the caldera, the fog started to lift and we were able to see the full scope of where we were. It was incredible and one of the highlights of our time together!
We hiked back up to where we were earlier and got an amazing view of the caldera from above. We decided to go a little farther to the summit which required some legit bouldering. Lucky for us, we had unwittingly trained for this moment at the climbing gyms back in Chicago. The view from the summit was even more amazing with the caldera below us, the jungle to our left, and clouds all around. As we hiked down the volcano, we were amazed to see what we had been unknowingly surrounded by a few hours earlier. We had even walked through a cave!
Geleng’s generosity became even more apparent when we stopped at a point in the forest near the entrance. He took a bag of chicken and rice out of his bag and whistled. A dog came running out of the thick brush and chowed down on the food. We learned this dog was the mother of two of the dogs that had come with us. He feeds her whenever he walks up the volcano (most days) so she has enough energy to care for her new puppy litter. Pretty amazing!
We passed up an opportunity to go to the hot springs (they looked like a few swimming pools with hot water so we didn’t feel like we were missing out on much) and opted to have coffee with Geleng at a hole in the wall instead. Here, we learned more about Geleng and his passion and commitment to learning English. Everyday, he writes down five new words and memorizes their meanings as a way to continuously learn. As a result, he had one of the best lexicons we had heard from a non-native English speaker particularly when it came to synonyms for “great”. Extraordinary, awesome, splendid, wonderful, fantastic – you name it, he knew it! We left him with the word superfluous as one of his five for the day.
After an epic morning adventure, we returned to Kaesa around 11am and had a delicious, traditional Indonesian brunch. We mostly chilled for the rest of the day, dropping our laundry off in town (just over $3 for at least 5 kgs of laundry…), hanging out at Kopita Berastagi and planning future travel (Taiwan for us, Italy for Emily), and loading up on whatever bland foods and electrolytes we could find for Gabby, who was still feeling shitty but a total trooper. We really enjoyed spending time in Berastagi – it was a quaint town with incredibly friendly people and plenty for us to do.
One of the less fun activities of the day, albeit an adventure, was going to a local clinic to get Gabby checked out. Kaes, our homestay host, kindly drove us to the clinic where his friend worked as the doctor (we joked that he was the mayor of Berastagi because he seemed to know everyone, he seriously corrected us that he had only been the deputy mayor). We were in and out of the noisy, two-bed clinic (noisy because the door was left open out the highway, not because there were many people in it) relatively quickly with a medicated Gabby.
For dinner, Doug and I made our way back to the street food market and opted for another one of Kaes’s recommendations Jodha. Jodha specialized in martabak – a delicious sweet or savory spongy pancake dish we had eaten a few weeks back in Jogjakarta. Doug had a chicken one while Jessie took down a peanut, chocolate, and cheese (it was surprisingly delicious) martabak, waiting for a veggie one that never came. A delicious ending to our time in Berastagi.
Day 6: Medan mansions and malls
We excitedly packed our bags with our fresh laundry and made our way to the dining table for one last breakfast at the homestay. The crew was back in full force for one last day in Sumatra together! After saying our goodbyes and taking a mandatory selfie with our friend Kaes, we loaded up in the car and started the three hour drive to Medan. Emily and Gabby taught us a word game – GHOST – which kept us occupied for most of the car ride.
As a treat after the rustic accommodations of the past few days, we had booked a night at the Marriott for our last night in Sumatra. Stepping into the lobby was like total culture shock – huge ceilings, marble floors, impeccably dressed staff – and we must have looked out of our place with our muddied jungle shoes. We adapted to the high life relatively quickly, sitting in the executive lounge, downing much longed for Coke Zeroes, and playing a few rounds of dhumbal while waiting for our rooms to be ready.
Though Medan didn’t appear to be the most happening city at the outset, we were excited to explore. Our walk to the Tjong A Fie mansion didn’t instill much confidence about the city’s character as we passed more than a handful of abandoned buildings and very few other people. Doug and I were particularly enthusiastic about visiting the mansion given its relation to the Chong Fatt Tze mansion, another Peranakan mansion that we visited in Penang. We had a lot of fun walking around the spectacular house and remarking on how odd the guided tour was. Our guide gave us very little context on the history of the mansion or its proprietor, but rather pointed out random things in each room, ‘that’s his third wife’s vacuum,’ and offered to take photos of us.
Next up on the quirky Medan tour circuit was lunch at Tip Top – a restaurant and ice cream parlor from the Dutch colonial period. The restaurant had a limited menu, but what we ordered was solid and our stomachs were happy. On our walk back to the hotel, Emily suggested that we check out the mall, suggesting that maybe that’s where all of the people were. She turned out to be totally right – it was packed! We wandered around in awe at the brand new mall and all of its offerings, remarking on how we had been in the jungle just two days earlier. We took it easy for the rest of the night, preparing for our morning flight to Singapore which would be yet another culture shock.
