Sumatra

Sorry this is a long one...we have been writing as we go, but this is the first we have had access to WiFi.

Sulwesi to Sumatra, day 8

We spent most of the day traveling. Who knew getting from one island to the next in the same country would be so involved! We road a boat from Lembeh Island back to the mainland. Then this incredibly crazy (female) Indonesian driver took us on the ride of our lives. We were literally white knuckled and sweaty from our nerves! 2 hours later we miraculously arrived at the airport. A word about driving in Sulwesi: the roads are paved and really nice, there are 4 motorbikes to every car and there seems to be no real “driving rules” for motor drivers. Sometimes they were helmets, sometimes they have 3 small children on the back of their motorcycle, sometimes they pass cars kamikaze style on the right and sometimes on the left (everyone is supposed to drive in the LEFT lane here). Anyway, you can imagine that these motorcycles are really the wildcards of driving here. But our lady driver was something else. At one point she was driving in the middle of the road to pass a motorcycle while at the same moment another motorcycle was coming at us in the opposite lane, luckily they both moved to the edge of their sides so we could go in between them! The worst moment was when we were (briefly) stuck behind a cement truck on a single lane road, but there were several cars between the truck and us that were also waiting. The first straight shot of road, our lady takes off like a bat out of hell…Jeremy and I exchange glances that mean “are you believing this!?” so she flies by the first 2 cars, passing them in the wrong lane, she hasn’t even passed the cement truck when another vehicle starts to come towards us (we are completely in the wrong lane at this point). So our lady, very nonchalantly, slams on the breaks, gives a few polite beeps and squeezes back in between the car-to-car traffic in our lane. This kind of move would have left any number of people yelling and gesturing wildly in America, but here they all seem to accept each others insane driving habits and just give these little polite beeps from time to time!? I should note that there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of standards or directions while driving, during the entire two hours of driving we passed 2 traffic lights and 3 traffic signs that were only this “!” …that might have something to do with it.

Anyway, we flew to Singapore, then took another flight to Sumatra and are now an hour closer to you! Sumatra is only 11 hours a head of Eastern Standard Time. We got picked up by a guide from our Sumatran tour and taken to this “fancy” hotel, by Indonesian standards. It was the first night we haven’t slept in a mosquito net and we had a/c! Tomorrow we leave at 9 am to drive to Tangkahan to stay in the jungle and do some elephant trekking.

Welcome to the Jungle, day 9

We have been hoping that our main guide for our 8 days here would speak some decent English. We experienced all types of fluency (or lack there of) with our dive crews and were really hoping to have someone that could tell us all about what we see. We met Edy this morning in the hotel lobby, after a breakfast of fried rice and eggs. He is enthusiastic and is really easy to communicate with! YAY!

We rode in a car 4 hours passing all kinds of palm and rubber tree plantations. The last hour in the care was unpaved and seriously rough…we were both a little sick by the end of it. Finally, at the end of the road we stop at some random and makeshift looking visitor center. Our driver, whose name is Jiya, says, “its like the Guns-n-Roses song, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’”! Jeremy in his best (which is bad) Axel Rose impression sings “You know where you are?” and Edy breaks in with his best Axel Rose impression, “You’re in the jungle, BABY!” Too funny…apparently, Indonesians love ’80 hair band music; strangely enough we heard a bunch of in Sulawesi!

We “sign in” and then the driver says he will see us tomorrow. So we grab (what we now understand to be way too much stuff) our bags, I have a big pack on, Jeremy has an even bigger pack, and dear sweet Edy is carrying our awkward small but freakishly heavy pull-along suitcase. We start winding down some incredibly steep stairs, I am panting and sweating and thinking to myself “breathe, breathe” when we come out at the shore of this river, which is maybe 50 ft across. There is no apparent indication of how we will cross it, just that clearly our destinations is on the other side (which appears to be more hellish steps…up this time). Anyway, we notice this totally rickety looking covered raft thing that is floating on the water and these skinny logs that lead out over the water to this raft. Packs and all, we walk out over these little logs and get onto the raft. Then the guy “driving” the raft lets go of a rope and we swing to the other side of the river (where more skinny pieces of board are waiting for us). These people have rigged this raft to be anchored to the shore and work on a pulley system of sorts so the raft just swings back and forth all day as people need to cross the river! 

On the other side we climb an obscene amount of steep stairs with our luggage. We are literally wet from sweating and both breathing hard. We pass a few structures that, at that point, we would have been happy to stay at (anywhere that would end this hiking bit). But we keep going and going and I am grateful to have sneakers on, although our guide is carrying our most obnoxious piece of luggage and seems to be doing quite well in his plastic flip flops. We finally arrive at this place which is as Robinson Caruso as anything I have ever seen. We are in this small, open-air, restaurant with bamboo tables and chairs and all around is this massive jungle. Turns out this place is on the side of a cliff overlooking the river we crossed earlier. Way down below we can hear and see this beautiful clear river going past. It is outrageously beautiful! They tell us “this is where you eat” (!!!) Then they take us to this great bungalow that is also on the side of the cliff overlooking the river and surrounded by the jungle! We have our own little balcony and hammock!

After much deliberation “what are you wearing to ride the elephant?” “I don’t know, I’ve never ridden an elephant before” we put on what we believe to be acceptable clothes when riding an elephant and go back to the beautiful eating place. We try to order 3 different things that are not available until after 6pm, the waitress tells us that they only have electricity from 6-11pm each day. So we have fried rice. They also tell us that if we want to order chicken for dinner, they need 3 hours advanced notice…we suppose to kill the chicken?!

Eventually we walk down those damn steep stairs again and wait by where the raft thing was and we see elephants coming up the river towards us! 5 of them to be exact. We climb onto this holding area and they walk past and we just jump aboard. Our elephant was Augustine and she was 37 years old! The elephant people have 7 elephants and a 5-month-old baby elephant. Every other day they do these trekking tours, but otherwise they use the elephants to patrol the jungle and address “illegal jungle activity” and poachers. The elephants are native to Sumatra and are smaller than their African relatives. There are still quite a few wild in the jungle around here, we saw this mashed down area of the jungle and our guide told us that last week a wild Sumatran elephant crashed through their camp!

Riding the elephant was surreal, although slightly uncomfortable as it was like riding a really wide horse. Augustine kept trying to stop to eat plants and our little elephant driver kept getting off to encourage her to move forward. Each time he got back on her, he would give her a command and she would raise her right leg. He stepped on her leg and then said whatever “higher, higher” is in Bahasa language and she raised her leg (and him) up until he could jump on board! We spotted all kinds of wild Long Tailed Macaque monkeys eating in the trees as we walked up the river on the elephants!

Once we got to their “home” the 5 elephants joined the remaining ones (and the baby) for a swim. They actually go completely underwater! Then we got to clean them and feed them and one of them even gave Jeremy a sloppy kiss! Their trunks are amazing, and they are so dexterous with it, just like an arm with a hand at the end instead of a snout. It was an incredible experience.

We hiked back to camp and our guide said, “put on your swimsuits and I will show you the waterfall and hot springs”. All day we passed people in the river, swimming, bathing, and washing their clothes. So we did. As we were walking back down to the river after changing, we spotted a new kind of monkey-the Thomas Leaf monkey, which are grey and white and have the most incredibly human face! Once again we were surrounded by monkeys! The guide said “they usually don’t let you get that close!” Just another day in the jungle with random wild monkeys all around! The waterfall was sooo cold and refreshing and then we swam over to these huge rocks on the side of the river….it started to smell like sulfur and we knew we were getting close to the hot spring. It was just this little hot hole in between the big rocks, and poured really warm water in the river! Then it started to rain….then it became an all out rainforest down pour. There was this spectacular thunder and lightening and we could see the river swelling and getting stronger! We raced to dinner in the rain (having ordered our chicken 3 hours prior) and went to bed in the jungle in the rain! We are blessed!

In the Jungle, day 10

This morning, I wrote for the blog while Jeremy took some photographs. Unfortunately, the huge thunderstorm we had last night left the river raging and brown this morning. We had pineapple pancakes for breakfast then Edy took us to “butterfly beach” where we saw 10+ different kinds of butterflies…and there were long tailed macaques in the trees beside us. Then we took a quick swim, not too long because Edy gets freaked out when the water is not clear…he says he is afraid of pythons ever since he came across one on a trail that was eating a deer! Then we packed up, showered and ate lunch before leaving this part of the jungle. We were mentally preparing ourselves to haul all our stuff up the winding and steep stairs up and out of the jungle when Edy casually mentions that we “will take the high bridge out”. So we took a straight line to a narrow, moving suspension bridge 50ft above the river….SO MUCH EASIER THAN THE STAIRS! Whew! Then we got into a 4x4 that was waiting for us and drove for 3 hours on impossibly rutted and terrible dirt roads.

Now we are in Bukit Lawang, the home of the endangered Sumatran Orangutans. We are in a little guesthouse overlooking a different river. There was an incredible thunderstorm again tonight. We were eating dinner at this little place overlooking the river and we had to move tables further away from the river because the rain was coming in on us! We have seen so many monkeys climbing on and around other “hotels” that we are keeping our balcony doors shut so we don’t have any visit us in our sleep! Tomorrow we will trek through the jungle for “4 or 5 hours”, looking for orangutans and whatever else we can find.

In the Jungle, day 11

We packed up our things and separated a small amount to take with us into the jungle. The items we didn’t need…you know, like our flippers, we left at the bungalow where we stayed. After breakfast, we started trekking. Edy told us a few things before heading into the jungle: 1) “it is many steep up and downs in the jungle” 2) “I am wearing these [ridiculous plastic] shoes that have no traction (think: jelly-shoe meets a croc) instead of flip flops so you won’t feel bad in your hiking boots” and finally 3) there is a really mean orangutan named Mena that has attacked Edy on two separate occasions. Mena is a legend around here, everyone has heard of her, and everyone is afraid of her. Almost weekly there is a new report that she has attacked a guide or tourist. Indonesians tried to take her further into the jungle away from people, and she broke through her crate/cage twice. When she sees a tranquilizer gun she climbs high into the trees.  So Edy is actually bringing a “friend” (basically a bodyguard) along just in case we run into Mena. This friend will carry fruit and other tasty smelling things and if we see Mena, we will go one way and this guy will tempt her the other direction. Edy says “its lucky for us, she bit a tourist yesterday and she is usually happy for a week after an attack.” The name “Mena” strikes such fear and trembling in the people around here that we are more than just a little nervous.

Almost immediately into the hike we realize that Edy was downplaying the “steep up and downs”! We were literally climbing straight up or rappelling down the mountain on whatever roots or vines we could grab! Did I mention it was over 85 degrees out? Suffice it to say we were sweating and breathing hard when we took our second break of the day. About 5 minutes into our break, we are sitting down eating these lychee-like fruit called rambutans when Edy stands up all freaked out and says “there is an orangutan, put your packs on!” and points (this is the 5th orangutan that we’ve seen at this point). This orangutan is seriously moving fast through the trees and right at us. Edy yells to his friend “it’s Mena” and to us “run”! Miraculously we were on as close to a level grounded path as we came across all day…the better to run from a crazed orangutan. Jeremy said, “Liz, I have never seen you run so fast!” Anyway, about 3 minutes into our mad-dash in the jungle, our “friend” (i.e. sacrifice) is long gone with Mena and we seem to be out of her range. We stopped for lunch about 30 minutes later (Still no sign of our friend) when finally our friend arrived and explained that he offered Mena bananas in exchange for his life. Whew!

not Mena, but another oragutang with her baby

We did some more of the straight up/straight down trekking and then finally arrived at our “campsite”. Expedition Jungle (the group we booked through) had already sent a cook ahead of us and he had already set up camp by the river and was furiously cooking when we arrived at 3pm. We swam and explored around the river and saw several huge monitor-lizards, which is some cousin of the komodo dragon. They look like small alligators but with a freakishly long tongue that sticks out all the time like a snake. The lizards were a little creepy; I might have even told Jeremy “if one of those would have swam by us while we were swimming I would have died.” Eck!

Eventually, Dani, our cooking guy, tells us that dinner is ready. He has been cooking non-stop since we arrived over a fire with a wok, occasionally he went to the river to rinse out the wok and start a new dish. So we sit down by the river and he lays out this ridiculously delicious spread…a curry vegetable dish, a sweet and sour chicken, and a spicy tofu dish…with rice of course! We told him that it was the fanciest food we had ever eaten while hiking. He said “no problem!”. For dessert we had fresh pineapple and peanuts. What a treat! Before we were chased inside our makeshift tent, we saw some Thomas Leaf monkeys and said “we hope they don’t come sleep with us…” When we got into our “tent” which was a 3 sided (huge) plastic bag, stretched out over bamboo, Dani said he had some tricks to show us. Basically we relived summer camp glory days all over again with songs, card tricks, and trivia questions- around the candle. Dani was quite a character! Then we slept on the hardest ground EVER! We had Indonesian sleeping pads under our sleeping bags, which were basically like laying on a tissue they were so thin. Although the ground was hard; we were so tired from our up and downing and the river was such a nice lullaby that we slept pretty well.

In the Jungle, day 12

We woke up to monkeys all around our tent! We got up and it was sunny, so we laid the tissue-like sleeping pads down by the river and laid on our backs watching the monkeys in the trees above us. Dani made us a delicious omelets/toast breakfast and then we wrapped all of our stuff in plastic and tubed down the river! Soooo much easier than the up and down trekking! On our way out in the tube, it was more like white water tubing-Dani used a long bamboo pole to stop us from careening into huge rocks. He began singing a song about Bukit Lawang (the place we were) to the tune of Jingle Bells!

After arrive back where we kept our flippers, we jumped into the sidecar of a motorbike and rode 15 minutes to a village where we stayed with an Indonesian family. This family lives in a really nice home, by Indonesian standards. They have 4 rooms, and rent 2 of them out (one was ours). The two rooms that they rent out had balconies that overlook rice paddies as far as the eye could see. The family of 6 shared the smallest, windowless room. Although the house was big, they had no furniture so we ate and talked on the floor. After lunch we learned how to grow rice. We got barefoot and climbed into this rice paddy, which was a field of mud up to my knees. It was actually kind of pleasant and since you were so far into the mud, and the planting surface was knee-high; it didn’t require as much bending as planting tomatoes. It does require a freakish amount of patience and gentleness, as you first dig up the tiny growing plants from a small patch that works a little bit like an incubator. Then after gently digging them up (while preserving the roots) you plant them, 3 or 4 tiny pieces of grass-like stalks at a time…in the mud. Edy said he was impressed with us as we were planting for an hour. He said, “most westerners want to see for about 10 minutes, get a photo, and then they are done.” Of course we were inspired to leave a different impression so we wanted to keep working but Edy said “no, we will work again tomorrow morning when it is cooler.” So we took a bucket shower and visited with the family.

The financial situation between Indonesia and America is more than striking, it is absolutely humbling. We brought coloring books and crayons for the 3 boys and a small rattle for the baby girl and you would have thought we had given them an ipad by American standards. The little 5 year old could not believe he had an entire box of 26 crayons all to himself and he just kept coloring page after page after page. The mother, Anna, said that they never had crayons before because they are too expensive. This family owns their home, but rents the land around them to farm rice. In addition to farming, Anna’s husband is a guide like Edy when it is high tourist season. They also have additional income from the room renters. The family of 6 lives on $50 a week. It seems like even the hardest working people in Indonesia only make just enough money to scrap by. We probably had more clothes and crap in our backpacks than this entire family owned. As I said…humbling. We are in Indonesia during Ramadan, the most sacred holiday in the Muslim faith, which lasts about a month. During this month, Muslims fast all food and sometimes even water while the sun is up. So the family gets up early in the morning (think: 4am) and the mother makes everyone food. They do not eat again until the sun goes down around 5:30pm. Mothers and small children often do not fast, which is the case for Anna and her 3 younger children. Her oldest son, who is 12 years old is fasting this Ramadan for the first time. At night before we went to bed, we heard the local Mosque singing/praying the Koran. Most Mosques in this area read the Koran out loud since so many villagers cannot read.

The next morning, Anna made us eggs even though her family eats rice 3 meals a day. We took a walk with Edy to see more rice patties. As we neared a field where an old woman was working to harvest the rice, she said “look here, a snake!” and we weren’t quick enough but apparently it was a cobra. Then Jeremy and Edy had a conversation like this: Jeremy: “I’d like to see a cobra, these aren’t the spitting kind right?” Edy: “yeah, they spit.” Jeremy: “but they eat mostly mice and birds, they don’t attack humans, right?” Edy: “yes, they have been known to attack humans.” Edy must think we are really special.

After our walk we talked Edy into letting us work the rice field again, American pride you know? So he had a good laugh (so did Anna I think) about the “American rice farmers.” We thought we were getting good at it, but on our way out we saw two Indonesian woman planting 4x faster than we were….we need more practice I guess. Then we took another bucket shower and packed up and headed to Brastagi, a town at the base of two volcanoes…Mt. Sibayak, which we will be climbing tomorrow and another volcano, Sinabung. On our way up and up and out of the low jungle into this cooler higher elevation by the volcanoes, we passed roughly 30 baboons, known locally as “pig tailed macaque” because their short tails stick up. In total we have seen 6 six different kinds of primates since arriving in Indonesia! Currently, we are in a fancy hotel again, which feels especially extravagant after staying with Anna’s family-even though it does not have hot water. Now, you are officially up to date, thanks for enduring this long post.  We will hopefully post again this weekend.