Bukit Lawang - Orangutans!

 

At 11am the following morning we were on the steps of our hotel ready to go, and so was our jeep driver. That was a good start!!

3 hours later we were dropped in Bukit Lawang town. Bukit Lawang is a town on the border of the Gunung Laseur National Park. The National Park covers 7,927 km² in northern Sumatra, straddling the border of North Sumatra and Aceh provinces.

We had called ahead and booked accommodation and once we managed to convince the rabble of men in the carpark that we did not require their services in anyway, they pointed us in the direction of the Eco-Lodge. We had to cross over a bridge and there we were. It is absolutely beautiful, the huts are all set amongst really lush green gardens, backing right onto the jungle, with the river in front. As we walked up the path to reception there were at least 10 monkeys in the trees around us. We soon checked in and were shown to our hut, which was called the Butterfly room, what a good omen! To top it all off there were some lovely, tiny yellow orchids growing just in front of the balcony, it was totally serene and lovely.

 

 

 

 

That afternoon we had a young Indonesian man stroll up to the balcony and introduce himself as Hendri. It turns out that he is a guide, and he would like to show us the jungle. We had been warned that as there are about 140 guides and only maximum 30 tourists in town at one time, they can be quite persistent and annoying. As it turned out the men that met us in the carpark were guides, but i was firm and i thought they were ok, they are just trying to get work. Anyway as it turned out Hendri is in some way affiliated with the Eco-Lodge where we were staying, added to this his English was great, he has good knowledge of the jungle and he is a pretty funny guy. So we decided to book a days trekking with him.

Let me just clarify there are two ways to see the Orangutans here, one is to go to the feeding platform. This is based on the outskirts of town and is predominantly for the Orangutans that have been released into the wild by the old rehabilitation centre. The rehab centre ceased to function in 2003, so if there is a lot of fruit in the jungle the Orangutans are unlikely to go to the feeding platform. The second way is trekking in the jungle, now as previously mentioned i hate trekking!! Really, really hate it, its not just walking, it is like a cross country exercise at every step. You are either going up very steeply or down very steeply, over and under tree roots and it is nearly always really slippery. Added to this hundreds of mosquitoes and it being about 35 degrees, yes I know sounds like hell. Anyway there are certain things for which I will make an exception and seeing the Orangutans is definitely one of them. Being realistic we booked just the one day trekking, as I know that camping on top of all of the above may just tip me over the edge!

Seeing the Orangutans are not guaranteed, the population of Sumatran orangutans within Gunung Laseur National Park is estimated to be about 5,000 or 8% of the remaining population according to the World Wildlife Fund figures. Palm oil, an ingredient found in many everyday food and cosmetic products, is contributing to the rapid destruction of rainforests. Over the past few decades, oil palm plantations have rapidly spread across Southeast Asia and the palm oil industry has become a crucial source of income and employment for countries such as Indonesia. However, this development has come at the expense of Indonesia's tropical rainforests and peatlands, home to countless endangered species and providing crucial ecological services to millions of people. There is a huge amount of degraded land available for planting oil palms in Sumatra and Borneo, but palm oil companies can make a quick profit when they cut down rainforests and sell the timber, so the relentless deforestation continues. Official figures show more than half of Indonesias rainforest, has been demolished in a few years and permission has been granted to convert up to 70% of what remains into palm or acacia plantations. Indonesia's deforestation has been accompanied by rising violence. Last year, more than 600 major land conflicts were recorded in the palm plantations. Many turned violent as communities that had lost their traditional forest fought multinational companies and security forces. More than 5,000 human rights abuses were recorded, with 22 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

A couple of weeks ago The Guardian wrote a piece about this and quoted one Village Leader as saying "We would die for the forest if necessary. This is a matter of life and death. The forest is our life. We depend on it when we want to build our houses or boats. We protect it. The permits were handed out illegally, but now we have no option but to work for the companies or hire ourselves out for pitiful wages." Another said "We had all we wanted. That all went when the companies came. Everything that we depended on went. Deforestation has led to pollution and health problems. We are all poorer now. I blame the companies and the government, but most of all the government."

I feel very privileged to get the chance to see the forest before it is totally wiped out. I do believe that if it carries on the way it is going by the time Jack & Mollie get to go on their gap year, there will be very little to see here.

Later that afternoon, this lovely little bug arrived on the balcony, so there i was snapping away. Well as you can see he is hanging onto the camera cord, so i put him and the camera down on the table so that he could get off. And, it was horrible, the camera fell over and squashed him. I felt really bad about it, but at least he will live on through my photo on the internet.

Over the next couple of days we explored the town and surrounding countryside. There is a eco-trail that we walked and also took a little hike to bat cave. I know another cave, but for this one I just sat in the entrance looking at the monkeys, whilst Craig went exploring. He said there were a lot of bats, which you would hope being called bat cave. Other then that just a standard cave (I think I may have seen a few too many, to be honest!)

The town is tiny, with one main street than runs along the side of the river. There are a few restaurants, guest houses, money changers and thats about it. The town has been hit by tragedy in 2003 & 2007. A flash flood hit Bukit Lawang on 2 November 2003. The disaster destroyed the local tourist resorts and had a devastating impact to the tourism industry in the area. Around 400 houses, 3 mosques, 8 bridges, 280 kiosks and food stalls, 35 hotels and guest houses were destroyed by the flood. 239 people were killed and around 1,400 locals lost their homes. Local authorities and an environmental NGO attributed the flood to illegal logging. In 2007 a devastating fire erupted in Bukit Lawang village, starting in one of the riverside restaurants and ripping through a long strip of neighbouring businesses and family homes. Fifteen or more properties were burned to the ground. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt though of course uninsured homes and livelihoods; businesses with all their stock were completely destroyed. 

We got talking to the lady that runs Tonys restaurant, it is the cutest place, and she is the jolliest person in town. It looks like it is all made from trees, it overlooks the river and is like a little mini jungle in town.

The lady told us that twice she lost everything, once in the flood, when she lost her husband, and again in the fire. Each time she has lost her business and her home and only had the clothes on her back left. She then built everything back up from scratch, people here are very strong and resourceful, and some like this lady quite inspirational. In another restaurant that we popped into, we met Sipha, she is 16 months and the cutest thing. She is the niece of the restaurant owner and i couldn't help but get a picture.

Over those couple of days we regularly saw the monkeys and they would troupe past our hut, twice in the morning and twice in the evening. Just before I forget, i must show you the pictures of the hut, so up until now we have been paying on average $25 for a room, in a hotel. This is standard throughout Vietnam, and some of those rooms have just been poky box rooms with no window. The hut we are now staying in is £10, and is massive, look......

 

 So back to the monkeys, you can literally sit on the balcony and watch them play. They are long-tail macaques and people here call them chicken monkeys, because they are everywhere, like chickens. Anyway I think they are lovely, so I sent quite a lot of time taking pictures of them, so here is a select few, and a little video.

Then arrived the day of our trek, we had a hearty breakfast of pancakes, with chocolate and pineapple and off we went. We had been warned that there is no guarantee of seeing orangutans, but there are now around 700 in the National Park. Of the 12 released by the rehab centre, 11 have babies and one is pregnant, which is fantastic news. After about half and hour of walking we came across a group of people staring into the trees. When we looked up they were Thomas Leaf Monkeys, they are unique to the island of Sumatra. The species is considered vulnerable according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Due to loss of habitat, especially to logging and oil palm plantations, the population has declined more that 30% over the past 40 years. There were about 4 or 5 of them, with a couple of little ones. I think their faces look a little bit like Gizmo from the Gremlins. Now when you see these pictures you must remember that monkeys are usually quite high in the trees and I only have 5x zoom, but hopefully you get the idea!

Whilst I was falling in love with these cute monkeys, Craig said I think there is an Orangutan over there, as the gathering of about ten people staring into the trees sort of gave it away. Oh my god we just walked about 20 feet to another small clearing and there they were. There was a mum, with a little baby and her grown up baby. They were quite high up in the trees, but we could see them clearly, they are so beautiful. It made me a bit teary seeing them for the first time, i think just thinking about the fact that we could have wiped out something so amazing, they are totally breathtaking. They are like us in so many ways, and they are so big. They look too big to be sitting up in the trees, and they are so chilled out, moving very slowly and it seems only when necessary. Except of course the young ones, after a couple of minutes the grown up baby, who was about 5 years old, came down the tree right in front of us, and he just hung there, about 8 foot away. There was a group of people by then of about 12, he looked at everyone on the eye, as if checking us out. When he was satisfied he went back up the tree. It was a totally amazing moment, to look into his eyes, just like looking at another person. You may find I go on a bit about this, but when we set out on this trip we both had things that we really wanted to do and see, and for me this was pretty much top of the list. The other thing i was amazed by was the way that they move, most of the smaller monkeys you see jump between trees, but the Orangutans swing through the trees. That was one of those moments where it was like, I am really here in the jungle, in Sumatra looking at Orangutans in the wild, wow! It was like something out of the Jungle Book, and I did always love that film. Well I could go on forever about them, and i haven't stopped looking at the pictures since, but i will stop now. There are a few pictures and a very blurry, shaky video, but you get the picture, I saw Orangutans in the wild!

It was then time reluctantly to walk on, but within about 10 minutes we saw more, and we got to stop and watch them for a while, this time a mother and her tiny baby, with another single female. It was scary watching the tiny baby climbing around in the trees, he looked so small and shaky and he was really high up, but he didn't wander to far from mum.

After that I think i walked in a bit of a daze for a couple of hours and pretty soon it was lunchtime. We were served Nasi Goreng by our guide, and were joined by a couple of jungle tortoises, they can obviously smell cucumber from quite a way away.

 

 

 

During lunch we could hear monkey calls and Hendri said that they were Black Gibbons but unfortunately they did not head our way. During the trek Hendri had promised to show us some really big ants, and he was true to his word!



The weird thing is they dont seem to have the bad attitude that little ants do. Out of all the bugs in SE Asia ants are definitely the most annoying, dont get me wrong they are amazing. And some of the things we have seem them carry is ridiculous, but they are so irritating. Usually as soon as you sit down, they are on you, if you touch a tree with them on, they bite you. And if you dare to put down food or drink, it will take them seconds to be on it. These ants were different though, they seemed to actively avoid you, walking quite a long way round in fact to do just that. Also amazingly they dont bite, they sort of seem to me a bit like cartoon ants, almost polite I would say.

After lunch we made our way to a lovely little waterfall, and sat and watched the turtles for a bit.

 

 

After that it was a really long slog down to the river, as we are pretty lazy we had opted for the tubing back option, rather then walking. Now, very glad that we did, it was very cold, a little scary but very exhilarating, and we got dropped off in the river just below our bungalow.



Last but not least when we got back to the hut, we saw a couple of geckos, doing something I have never seen a gecko do, and we have seen a lot of geckos. I'll let you work that one out! Oh and a visit from an escapee sheep and her lamb.

 

 

The next few days were spent recovering from the trek, wandering around the town and eco-lodge, monkey watching and hanging out with Hendri and Wishnu.



Hendri booked tickets for us on a minibus from Bukit Lawang to Binjai and then the 12 hour night bus to Banda Aceh. Sounds pretty horrendous, but at the other end is the beautiful island of Palau Weh, so I am sure it will be more than worth it.

I am so glad that we came to Bukit Lawang and seeing the Orangutans was totally amazing. Did you know Orangutan means man of the jungle, and they really are so like us. As much as i dont want to end on a sad note, it was only when we were leaving that I realised the extent of the Palm Oil plantations. On the way to the village i mistook them for normal palm trees, but they are not. Hendri told us that the National Park is protected, so they are not able to log or plant palm oil within a certain radius of the park. But on most of the 2 hour drive to Binjai, that was literally all that we saw. They are a very ugly looking fruit that they extract the oil from, and apparently they drink so much water that they drain the land. They also have large spikes on them, so if the monkeys do go near them, they are sure to get injured. Its really sad, but its all about money and it employees a massive amount of people. The primary crop here used to be rubber, which is slightly less destructive, but then the people learned that they could get more for palm oil. This is just a small stretch of the road from Bukit Lawang to Binjai, but everything you see here is Palm Oil.