Back in January 2020 we were due for a visa run from Malaysia and I suggested Sumatra, right across the Malacca Strait, to see the orangutans. As I researched I found that unlike our houseboat trip up the Kumai River in Borneo, this visit to the People of the Forest involves hours of trekking through the rainforest on uneven and often muddy trails. Just six weeks earlier Jack had total knee replacement surgery, and while he was doing very well, we agreed a jungle trek might not be the best way to test the new equipment. We went instead to Singapore where Jack continued his rehab by walking miles a day, but mostly on dry pavement. A month after we returned we were locked down by the global pandemic and we had other things to think about besides Sumatra.
Flash forward four years and a second knee replacement and we find ourselves with no plans and eager for a bit of adventure after a couple of relaxing months in northern Thailand. Sumatra is back on the agenda.
Indonesia travel can be challenging outside the tourist hotspots. Transportation is often uncomfortable, sometimes even dangerous. Roads are bad, many places haven’t come to grips with waste management, the local diet has very little variation, and the currency is one of those with way too many zeros so you have to carry wads of bills just to get through the day in a cash only society.
We flew from Chiang Mai to Kuala Lumpur where we spent a week soaking up First World city life, then made the short hop across the strait to Medan, the largest city in Sumatra and third largest in Indonesia. It’s an unremarkable place, and we spent a day mapping out our time in Indonesia.
Bukit Lawang, the jumping off point for the orangutans, is only 90km away, yet getting there takes the better part of a day. There are several options for transport in various combinations of local bus, train and minivan but in the end we opted for a car and driver. Since there are two of us it’s only a few bucks more than public transit fare for two.
This turned out to be the first of four similar journeys in Sumatra and I herewith pass on my tips to anyone contemplating a similar itinerary.
The key to a successful journey in any vehicle in Indonesia is to remain loose limbed and refrain from looking directly out the front. Direct your gaze instead toward the side and appreciate the scenery as the driver veers around the most egregious potholes and, if you’re lucky, hits the brakes for the ones he can’t avoid. In general, expect the driver to have a lead foot both on the gas and brake pedals.
Try not to gasp every time your driver swerves away at the last possible second from a certain head-on collision with an oncoming truck while passing a motorbike overloaded with coconuts, timber, bamboo, market produce, or a family of six and learn to appreciate the musical quality of the signature beep-beeps your driver taps to warn vehicles that we’re overtaking.
Be mindful not to look down as you pass a section of road that has crumbled into the canyon below and save yourself the image of what it would be like to tumble into the abyss ending in a fiery Hollywood explosion at the bottom. You’re not wearing a seatbelt because either there isn’t one or it’s broken. The driver, you note, is buckled in.
Look instead toward the mountains ahead where in 45 minutes or so you’ll be flung left and right in your seat as your driver bosses the vehicle up ten or twelve tight hairpin switchbacks, many of them blind, then screams down the other side in an attempt to make up the time we lost behind a lumbering truckload of cement. This sequence will no doubt be repeated many times before you reach your destination.
I repeat, stay loose. Roll with it. I find deep yogic breathing helps.
We counted this driver as a particularly good one, or maybe the road was marginally better than expected, but all of our drives in Sumatra required a program of quiet recovery to bring our blood pressure back to normal.
We arrived in Bukit Lawang intact at the end of the road. Literally. The road doesn’t go through the village, or at least not for anything larger than a motorbike, and we still had a kilometer to schlep. Luckily a man on the street hoisted our duffle onto his shoulder and trotted along the river path all the way to our first night’s lodging at the far end of the village.
We had a hard time keeping up with him, and I stopped frequently to take photos and catch my breath. Bukit Lawang is a charming hippy village of guesthouses, trekking companies and restaurants, with a few bodegas and souvenir shops here and there. It’s as close as you can get to Gunung Leuser National Park where a lot of orangutans live.
The town has its own character and architecture and we loved the Jungle Inn, which I had only booked for one night.
Almost every guesthouse has guides and runs their own treks and we learned they don’t take kindly to booking lodging in one place but trekking with another company. That’s why I’d only booked one night at the Jungle Inn. I’d decided to book our trek with Sumatra Orangutan Explore because they’re known to be an ethical company, devoted to protecting the animals and the environment and we wanted to support them. Besides, the Jungle Inn was just out of our budget.
The next day we went to the chosen company and booked our trek. They found us lodging nearby and we reluctantly moved out of the relatively ritzy Jungle Inn (they have hot showers) to more modest but budget friendly digs. We have one more day to acclimate to the humid weather and explore the town before our trek.
