Bukit Lawang, Sumatra - Indonesia

On July 2, after a hike into the tropical rain forest above the Bulah River in Tangkahan, and a much needed shower, we drove south about two plus hours to Bukit Lawang and checked into the Bukit Lawang Ecolodge. Similarly to Tangkahan, it required a walk along a bridge over the wide Landak River which deposited us onto the Ecolodge grounds. However, unlike Tangkahan which did not seem like a village, but a scattering of houses, Bukit Lawang is a legitimate town with paved streets, restaurants and lots of hotels. As I indicated in my last post, I was a little surprised, I was expecting it to be more rural. Compared to the Jungle Lodge in Tangkahan, these rooms were luxurious with more modern construction, continuous electricity, warm water, lawns, trees and flowers, and of course many more guests. We were on the second floor of a complex and had a river view, but instead of looking straight down at the river, it was some distance away and fenced off from the property. 

The Eco Lodge is right next to Gunung Leuser National Park ("Gunung Leuser") and the main trail that leads into Gunung Leuser goes through the Eco Lodge grounds. We met our guide, Randi, who instructed us to have breakfast at 6:30 a.m. the next morning and we would leave at 7:00 a.m. for a hike. 

Bukit Lawang is the best place to see Sumatran orangutans in the wild. In 1973 a Swiss organization set up an orangutan rehabilitation center there to rehabilitate and introduce into the jungle orangutans that had been in captivity. The orangutans were taught the skills necessary to survive in the wild, quarantined, familiarized with the local habitat, and then integrated into the semi-wild orangutans in the area. Rangers monitored released orangutans and feeding platforms were set up to feed the orangutans. The area got saturated with tourists which made it more difficult to rehabilitate the orangutans and further the carrying capacity for orangutans was reached, so the rehabilitation center was closed in 2002. The prevalence of orangutans made Bukit Lawang a popular tourist destination, one of the most popular in Sumatra, which is the reason I wanted to go there. 

The next morning we had breakfast and met Randi along with our other guide who accompanied us our entire time in Sumatra. The trail into Gunung Leuser started right outside the restaurant and started quickly uphill. The sweat started pouring out of all my pores and continued all day. My camera and lens were damaged the day before on our hike in Tangkahan. Between the extreme amount of water on the plants from a downpour the night before and my intense sweating, my camera started acting funny and the automatic focus would not work. It was even a challenge to use manual focus as at times the lenses would go into electronic spaz attacks and move in and out continuously. As we got to the top of the hill we got into a grove of rubber trees and Randi showed us how drains inserted into the trees leaked white streams of rubber that emptied into coconut shells on the ground. 

Pretty quickly Randi motioned us over to a monkey in a tree. It was still quite dark, but a Thomas's leaf monkey was standing on a nearby tree and others were nearby. It is also known as the North Sumatran leaf monkey, as it is endemic to North Sumatra, and Thomas's langur. It is a beautiful monkey with a black mohawk lined by white stripes on each side and white circles around the outsides of its face. It is grayish black with a white belly and black hands and feet. I'd read that Bukit Lawang was probably also the best place to see this kind of monkey. 

The first Thomas's leaf monkey. 

The terrain evened out a little bit as we reached the top of the hill and we eventually got into a palm oil plantation. Indonesia is the world's biggest producer and consumer of palm oil and provides half of the world's supply. Palm oil is used for cooking in developing countries, in food products, detergents, cosmetics and more and more in biofuel. Oil palm plantations covered 30 million acres in Indonesia in 2016 and now cover much more than that. In 1900 forest covered an estimated 84% of Indonesia, an estimated 420 million acres. By 2000 it was down to 250 million acres. By 2012 Indonesia surpassed Brazil for the rate of deforestation. Several of our guides noted the negative impacts on wildlife and the environment, but also noted that it has improved the economy for locals who can make money by harvesting the palm oil and even by growing the palm trees on their own land. 

The trees in the neighborhood of the palm oil plantation and rubber trees are not as thick and it is easier to spot wildlife there, and once spotted, to get photos. That was the case for our first leaf monkey, and also the case for our first orangutan. Randi spotted a young female orangutan about 30 yards off the main trail and we spent about 20 or 30 minutes following it and taking loads of photos. At one point he put a banana on the side of a tree near Judy, which she didn't see, and she turned around to see this orangutan descending down the tree near her quite quickly. She let out a yell and ran away from the tree in hyper-speed. It was a fun moment. The guides use telephones to communicate with each other and let them know where orangutans have been spotted. Eventually we had another guide with about 15 people come up for their turn with the orangutan and all of the people took away some of the fun of it. 

So we set out again leaving the group behind. We eventually came on a more remote lodge, further down the trail, which apparently has a private road up to it. As we passed on the other side Randi spotted two more orangutans, a mother and youngster, near a ramshackle hut, up in the trees, although these trees were a little more dense. We initially saw the youngster and soon mama came swinging through the trees into the picture. Again we had a lot of time, just by ourselves, to savor these incredible views. Mama started to descend lower to the trees on the other side of the shack and I followed her. She eventually got lower and lower until I was within about ten yards of her. Randi waived me away, to give more distance. It was incredible. Mama and youngster had some interactions that were fun and eventually the large group that came to our first sighting came to this one as well and we left. 

The youngster.

Mama getting pretty close. 

Mama and baby together. 

We hiked some distance further and eventually came to an arch proclaiming the beginning of Gunung Leuser. It was actually quite a distance from the Eco Lodge and Bukit Lawang and we'd seen three orangutans and Thomas's leaf monkeys before getting there. We had a snack in a little covered pavilion just inside the park, which included bananas and water. From there on in the rain forest got much thicker and the trail more uneven as we were often walking along a ridge. The rest of our hike became more of a blur as we encountered more and more groups of guides and tourists, like ourselves. When orangutans were spotted there were now 20 or 30 people looking at them and it got harder and harder to position for good photos. We eventually saw five more orangutans, two of them twice, including at least one young male. However, between the more dense foliage and greater difficulty in getting good positioning, my photos are pretty bad. The one below is by far the best.  

Young male orangutan. 

Randi showed us a beautiful common sun skink along the trail

Common sun skink

and we spent quite a bit of time watching a great argus, a huge peacock type bird with a very long tail and a blue head. It let out a very loud call, like a peacock, which startled me and which Judy got a video of. 

Great argus

At one point we hit a semi-clearing with about 50 people milling about. There were orangutans in the trees, Thomas's leaf monkeys climbing through the trees, a long-tailed macacque very close and standing in a small tree and a pig-tailed macacque that came wandering through, the only pig-tailed macacque se saw and I wasn't able to get a photo.

Adult Thomas's leaf monkey.

Young Thomas's leaf monkey.

Long-tailed macacques

Randi was amazing in identifying animals. We talked to a guide that a few days before had seen no orangutans and we felt blessed to have seen eight. I was sweating profusely, my shirt and pants were dripping wet. Randi could see I was struggling and suggested we go back. To make it sound better, he told me that no one was reporting orangutans further in. We took a different route out and saw more long-tailed macacques as we got closer to the Eco Lodge. 

We were scheduled for another morning hike the next day and later that evening I told Randi we would pass. We'd seen more than I'd expected this day and I was really wiped out. I took a cold shower at our room, turned on the ceiling fan and tried to cool down laying on the bed. We went over to the restaurant and drank fruit drinks, soda  and water and ate fruit. 

As I look back, these two days hiking in Gunung Leuser really dehydrated me as I was sweating so profusely. I have done lots of hiking over the years: week long backpacks in the Sierras, climbing 14,000 foot mountains, hiking in the hot desert, but I have never come anywhere close to sweating as much as I did on the hikes in Gunung Leuser outside Tangkahan and outside Bukit Lawang. Admittedly I am older, much heavier and not in as good a shape. I believe I was approaching heat exhaustion. Several days later, in Surabaya, Island of Java, I got a fever which lasted over three days and forced us to cancel our visit to Sulawesi and spend an additional two days at that hotel. It was not until I really started to drink more and more that I was able to break the fever and start feeling better. We had some amazing experiences in Gunung Leuzer, but I came away with a greater appreciation for the power of heat and humidity to wreak havoc on the body.