Amazing Indonesia - Part 1

North Sumatra was very high on our to do list as we both really wanted to see our furry ginger cousins the Orangutans (along with Borneo is the only place in the world you can see wild Orangutans!). It was surprisingly only an hour flight to Sumatra from Kuala Lumpur. Before we knew it we where through and waiting for our beasts of backpacks. We got chatting to Laura and Si, a lovely newly married couple from London who had arranged to be picked up by a tour company in Bukit Lawang. We joined them on a 100km journey which took 5½ hours – the roads were quite special!

Outside our room...

Bukit Lawang...

We eventually got there and what an arrival it was, we where greeted by the pouring rain, a few stray dogs and cats and a rickety rusting rope bridge with gaping holes that would take us over the rapids of the river below. The place we would be staying was the Wisma Family Guesthouse. The four of us dumped the bags in our rooms and headed for a few well deserved Bintangs.  We decided on the 2 day, 1 night jungle trek with our guide Donny (who said he was a junior guide when David Attenborough filmed there?). This would mean a higher chance of catching a glimpse of our furry ginger friends that we had travelled so far to see. We were so excited!

The next morning, the start of the trek was really easy and a well-trodden path led us into the jungle. ‘This is going to be a waste of time or a really easy stroll through the jungle’. After 15 minutes though we hit the real jungle to see the first of the ‘semi wild’ Orangutans and an emotional time it was.  There were two, one female and her little baby swinging through the trees.  As Lee snapped away I could only stand with a tear in my eye and pinch myself that we were among these amazing animals that shared 96% of DNA with us!  Another 10 minutes later we met Mina an Orangutan known by the rangers as the naughty one so we had to stay quite far back as she had a habit of grabbing tourists bags and biting them.  Luckily she was too busy playing with a Thomas Leaf monkey to take any notice of us thank goodness.  The Gunung Leuser National Park is lots of really high jungle covered hills and river valleys so we started the first climb of many to get deeper and deeper into the jungle in search of some wild Orangutans.  It was not easy but the worst was getting down the hills, it was so slippery and all fears of the creatures that live in the jungle soon left us.  We had to fall onto trees to stop us from slipping, abseil using random branches, dodge the termite trails and keep looking for signs of blood on our legs because of the abundance of leeches!!  
Wild Orangutans are pretty rare to find especially on a 2 day trek but coming to the end of the day we saw 4 wild Orangutans, mainly thanks to the fruit trails they leave behind – amazing! It was the toughest trek we have ever done especially in the humidity of the jungle and Laura beat me too it having a massive strop, which we all laugh at now! 
We finally arrived (mostly on our arses) to the most beautiful campsite, welcomed into the camp by jungle juice cocktails on the riverside and we had a gorgeous swim before a feast of a meal and even a couple of beers.  Si’s guitar-lele had joined us so Donny picked it up and sang us Jungle Trek to the tune of Jingle bells! – we will post it on YouTube! Surprisingly we slept so well under the stars with only a thin sleeping bag between the jungle life and us!  
The next day we had the choice of having an even harder day trekking back over the hills to the village or a stroll in the shallow river back.  We were there to see the wild Orangutans and surely it couldn’t be worse that the previous day!!! so we opted for the trek.  Well, it wasn’t quite so similar as the guide (Donny) lost our trail and his assistant (Denny) had to create a new one using a machete.  He headed down a pretty much vertical hill, slipping and sliding down the bank to the river and we ended up having to do the rest of it by water, waist deep – one could say it was quite refreshing and quite practical to remove the leeches from our bodies.  Simon even managed to get one on his back!

We arrived back safely and completely chuffed that we did it and even saw wild Orangutans, White-Handed Gibbons and a loving pair of huge Hornbills in their nest as well as lots of other monkeys and jungle wildlife. It only took a bit of blood, sweat and tears! (Literally)

Before and after the strop :)...

We loved Bukit Lawang so much we stayed an extra night and decided to go to the feeding station.  This is what most people do when they come to Bukit Lawang.  It truly is a wonderful experience but in no way can it be compared to the seeing them wild in the deep jungle.  These Orangutans are semi wild and are reliant on the fruit and medicines the rangers provide.  The short trek up you can see the old cages where the rescued Orangutans used to live and it was so nice to see them not in use today.

These are some of our best shots of them in the wild and at the feeding station.

All in all we saw about 8 Orangutans, our friend Mina was back who was well be behaved although we did have to run a few times.   The feeding station is great as you get so up close to them and you can study there behaviors and personalities as they munch and spit out their bananas, protect their babies and scratch themselves – it was so frightening to see the similarities to humans.

During our visit we just so happened to be staying at the same place of a very inspiring lady, Dr Fracine Neago.  As she put it she is a very young 86 year old! 

She has done many unbelievable things in her life, spent 6 months in a cage with Orangutans to study behavior, set up sanctuary’s in Sumatra and Borneo and the first person to teach sign language to an Orangutan!  We had to google her to believe it – don’t you love her url www.noahandhisark.com!  Can you believe it, at 86 she was there to sett up another sanctuary in Sumatra. She is at the stage of raising funds and staffing.  Any travellers out there that have time for a bit of volunteering I suggest you get in touch francinengapp@yahoo.com.

Our next stop in Sumatra was Lake Toba 200km away/10 hours by car.  It is one of the deepest lakes in the world set in the collapsed caldera of an extinct volcano surrounded by huge mountains (Lonely Planet!). We stayed in Tuk Tuk the most developed part of the island in the middle of it.  As the sun set we got a ferry from the harbour or Parapat.  It took us about an hour and on request it leaves you off right outside your hotel.  We had done no online research so we had to pick one from the lonely planet and we got a cracker!  

Our home in Tuk Tuk...

Hariara has around 8 lake side bungalows with a private garden at 100,000Rp (£5) per night, air con and hot water.  It being low season we had the whole place to ourselves for 4 nights.  The only downfall being that there was no internet.  We had a 12km morning excursion to find an internet/games shop so we could check in on our next fight and print our boarding passes.  That’s all we pretty much did for the 4 days, walked, ate at Jennys restaurant and the one next door, swam in ‘our’ lake, played pool at Mamma Saza’s, hand washed about 6kg of clothes and read our books, bliss! The Batak people are really friendly too and no one bothered you as you walked the streets. Unfortunately we just missed Simon and Laura on the island but we are looking forward to catching up for a drink when we get home – enjoy Oz!

We had to stay the last night in the harbour town of Parapat back on the mainland as we were getting a car to the airport at 5am.  It is such a dump – if you can help it do not stay here, rooms are double the price and disgusting.  There was one café/kids toyshop that had wifi so we spent most of the evening there drinking beer to avoid going back to the room. Lee bought even more fake DVD’s for our collection!  The highlight of Parapat was receiving a text from Kendra and Gwill with news of the arrival of a beautiful baby girl, Seren.  Congratulations to you both!

We only had 10 days in Sumatra and it was wonderful. We would have loved to spend some more time here but we had flights to catch. Next stop Bali for some surfing action.

Bali

There are no flights direct from North Sumatra to Bali so we got the 2 cheapest possible via Kuala Lumpur with AirAsia.  Our cheapskate planning backfired as we got lumbered with buying another tw visas at $25 each! Damn it, more research is required on entering new countries!

We stayed on Kuta beach which is essentially Benidorm for the Aussies. It was funny to hear the street vendors shouting ‘g’day mate’.  We stayed just off one of the backpacker streets Poppies Lane 1, in a hotel called New Arena Hotel. It had a gorgeous swimming pool, basic rooms but cheap enough and only 5 minutes to the beach. 

We found a great restaurant called Bamboo Inn with a great menu and really cheap – highly recommended.  Poppies lane 1 and 2 are quite nice too with bars, restaurants and you can buy pretty much anything you want.

There isn’t much to do there other than eat, drink and surf.  So that is exactly what we did.  We also visited a Carrefour for a toiletries restock and a freshly baked baguette with ham and cheese – heaven. It would have been rude not to hit a MacDonald’s which we haven’t seen in a while!  We also had a lot of planning to do as we are booked for the Gili islands at Xmas and there was so much we wanted to fit in until then.

Surfing was fab, I ended up getting a body-board as I knew I would just get frustrated not being able to stay up!  I could remember the lesson we all had for Bennet’s Hen in Newquay so I was surfing those waves.  Lee had a surfboard and I was pretty impressed that he managed to get up pretty easily and stay up sometimes!  A great morning which abruptly ended when Lee came up to me with a snapped board.  This was going to cost big!!! our hearts sank. There must have been something wrong with it in the first place so I got a bit ratty and was sent away.  Lee as always, calmly negotiated a fair price for the damage which fortunately happened to be all the wet money he had in his back pocket (around 20 quid). This was our budget for the day gone so we spent the rest of the day by the pool planning.

There is too much to write in one go for our Indonesian adventures, this is Part 1 of Indonesia, Part 2 will follow soon.

To be continued…

Malaysia truly Asia...

China town KL...

It was time for our first AirAsia experience! To our surprise everything ran really smoothly and the plane was nice too. We got to KL in no time at all and found our way to Chinatown. After fighting our way through the crowds on Jalan Petalling Street we found our Hotel. ‘The Oasis Guesthouse’ think of a luxury hotel with beautiful plants and water features. Well it was nothing like that at all. More like a wet cardboard box just big enough for a double bed with a shared bathroom 100m away. Susi was not happy particularly being right next-door to reception. You could hear everything including the night market activities and the 'Malaysia Truly Asia' advert blaring out repetitively every 2 minutes

We decided to give it a go and rough it for once and headed out for a wander around and with some sunlight remaining we found yet another Reggae bar just round the corner and soon found out how much pricier Malaysia was going to be. “£2 for a half pint, you must be joking”. In Malaysia most prices are given as the price++ meaning you have to add on government tax. So a drink might be advertised as 10 ringgit++ but really its closer to 13. It caught us out a few times before we learned to ask for net price!

Techie heaven, Low Yat Plaza...

The next few days where spent exploring what KL had to offer. We found Low Yat Plaza, it is KL’s biggest electronic goods mall. Both in gadget heaven we spent a couple wandering around. I came out with an iPad Mini (to replace the iPhone and Kindle that was stolen a few days earlier) and Susi thinking she was being left out bought herself the new iPod Nano!!! To celebrate we had a couple of drinks and headed up to Little India for a curry. We found a place down a backstreet and it was full of locals and what a fine choice it was, not only was it delicious but it only cost us 22 Ringgit (about £4.10), at least the food was going to cheap in Malaysia.

Sunset over the mosque in KL...

The cool architecture of KL...

Our next day was an action packed tour of KL highlights including a hop on hop off bus ride all around the city. It was an open topped bus with English speaking tour guide and it was a really good way to see the city if you’re on a tight schedule (recommended to us by Susi’s Mum and Dad). The bus takes you all around the city past some amazing architecture, loads of shopping malls, parks, the palace, temples, the national Mosque, museums and of course the impressive Petronas Towers. 

What the hell is that!!!

KL Bird Park...

We even went past the Medical Centre where Susi would be having a check-up. After a couple of hours we decided to finish the day by heading back over to the Park to go and see the Bird Sanctuary. Apparently it is the largest covered free flight bird sanctuary in the world with over 3000 varieties of bird species. It is definitely worth a visit. We thought it would take us an hour to walk around but instead we spent about three hours there in total just before it closed. It is an impressive space and really nice to see the birds walking and flying around you instead of in cages, for obvious reasons the birds of prey are kept in separate enclosures but it is still really cool.

Susi getting festive in Times Square KL...

We had another couple of days in KL exploring the impressive sights and shops including one afternoon in Times Square Shopping Mall which had a 12 screen cinema and a theme park inside! As the weather was pretty rubbish we decided to hit the Cinema and go and watch Hunger Games 2, which was really good. It was strange sitting watching it in English in another country when all the locals where laughing at random bits of the film???

Our next stop in Malaysia was the Island of Penang. 

Bev and the Beards...

This sleepy little place has some amazing street art and fantastic food. We stayed in a place just off Love Lane called Star Lodge, which was really nice and came complete with a bathroom! (It is quite common in touristy areas to have a shared bathroom). Just down the road we found a really cool little place that was essentially an off-license. On an evening the owners set up tables and chairs outside. It was here that we randomly bumped into one of our tubing buddies from Laos Bev and some new bearded friends. (Enjoy Sumatra Bev!) 

The weather was really nice the first couple of days so we took advantage of this and hopped on the local bus visited the national park on the western coastline. It was a good little trek climbing up and down banks and avoiding the monkeys and ants and had a bit of beach time too.

Trek through Penang national park...

We also walked around the city taking in some of the sights and looking at all the street art. One of the highlights of Penang though was the food, we found a little man selling bhaji’s and samosa’s that where a great starter. We found an Indian restaurant that’s open 24 hours a day that did the best chicken tandoori. On an evening the streets are lined with food stalls serving local delicacies.

Some of the fantastic street art of Penang.

Best food so far...

Nightlife in KL - Changkat Bukit Bintang

KL stop no.2, with a night spare we headed back to KL but this time avoiding the Oasis we opted for a room near Jalan Bukit Bintang. It was a place called Checkmate Guesthouse that had little rooms but they where clean and had a bathroom. We should have stayed in this area before as it is so convenient to get anywhere in KL. After Susi's routine checkup at a very posh medical centre we where ready to head to Melaka. We where pleased to learn that Melaka is another sleepy little town with a really nice little riverside feel. What we didn’t realise is that on a weekend Melaka becomes tourist destination no.1 for anyone with a bit of money in Malaysia and Singapore. Every guesthouse, hostel and hotel was full. We wandered around, lonely planet in hand trying every option they had. Luckily we found somewhere in little India that only had two rooms left.

Dodgy advertising...

Jonkers walk is in the middle of Chinatown in Melaka and is a big street market with some really cool stuff but also a lot of crap. It does however have a really good atmosphere and some really lovely street food. We found a place right at the end that had Karaoke for the Chinese over 70’s. We took our seats, had some really nice food and some cracking entertainment. Everyone was singing and clapping along so it must have been good. The stage had some really dodgy advertising though!

You really can't go anywhere...

The best way to see Melaka is to cycle it so for our last day we took a couple of bicycles and headed out to explore and to buy some bus tickets. Our bus station was located 5km away along a busy road and was located next to a huge Tesco’s (bigger than the one in Bangkok) so we bought our bus ticket and went over for a bite to eat and a photo opportunity. We had a good old ride around and along the nice riverside. We stopped off at a nice tandoori house and cycled as far as you could go up the river.

In a nutshell we had less than two weeks in Malaysia but think we got to see some really cool parts. Malaysia seems pretty laid back especially after Vietnam and it has some great things to see and do – the people are super lovely too! With a bit more time we would have liked to stop off in the Cameron Highlands and try to get to a few more islands in. Next time!

Now though its time for some jungle trekking with our ginger furry friends in North Sumatra, Indonesia…