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. 

Tangkahan, Sumatra - Indonesia

The Republic of Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world (277,749,853 people) behind China (1,411,750,000 people), India (1,392,000 people), and the United States (335,167,000 people) and ahead of Pakistan (220,425,254).  However, it is only the 14th largest country in terms of land area while the United States is third. Indonesia is 64th in population density per square mile (380) while the United States is 148th (91). Indonesia consists of more than 17,000 islands and has four of the 13 largest islands in the world (Borneo 4th with 288,868 square miles, Sumatra 6th with 171,068 square miles, Sulawesi 11th with 69,761 square miles and Java 13th with 53,589 square miles which are collectively called the Greater Sunda Islands). By comparison, Great Britain is 9th with 80,823 square miles. 

The island of Sumatra is tropical, hot and humid. Tropical rain forest used to cover the island, but it has lost 50% of it in the last 35 years. The equator crosses Sumatra at its center (see the map below at 0 degrees). Medan, the largest city on Sumatra with a population of 2,435,252, is the fourth largest city in Indonesia and the largest outside of Java. It is located in the province of North Sumatra. Tangkahan is a 3 hour, 15 minute drive from Kuala Namu Int'l Airport outside Medan, which we flew into. 

Malaysia is to the northeast and Java, just a portion of which is showing, is to the southeast.   

Many species that endeared me as a little boy to Sumatra are now critically endangered, including the Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran elephant, the Sumatran rhino and the Sumatran orangutan. 

The jewel of Sumatra is the Gunung (Mount) Leuser National Park ("Gunung Leuser") which covers portions of North Sumatra and Aceh provinces. It is named after Mount Leuser, within the park boundary, which is 10,232 feet in elevation, and Gunung Leuser covers 4,925.6 square miles. It contains the largest wilderness area in Southeast Asia.

We planned our trip with Adventure Indonesia and I'd let them know I wanted to visit Gunung Leuser by the town of Bukit Lawang because I'd read that was the best place to see Sumatran orangutans in the wild. I'd also indicated that I wanted to see Sumatran elephants and Adventure Indonesia recommended a a day in Tangkahan to see them. They booked us in the Jungle Lodge in Tangkahan and I read that it had a river next to it and was in a beautiful setting. I looked up Tangkahan on-line and found it was just a 50 minute drive northeast of Medan, nowhere near Gunung Leuser. I imagined it as less rural with less opportunity to see wildlife than Bukit Lawang. So imagine my surprise when we got to Sumatra and I learned it was a 3 to 4 hour drive to Tangkahan and when we got to Tangkahan that Gunung Leuser was just across the river. I couldn't square that with what I'd learned previously and it was only in preparing for this post that I discovered there were two Tangkahans, the one by Medan and the one by Gunung Leuser. 

I did lots and lots of searching looking for a map of Gunung Leuser that showed where Tangkahan and Bukit Lawang were in relation to it. I finally found one on a travel website that I can't find again. Note that both Tangkahan and Bukit Lawang are on the eastern edge of Gunung Leuser, west of Medan and that Tangkahan is north of Bukit Lawang. 

Audley Travel notes that Tangkahan is a small rural village on the edge of Gunung Leuser that is more isolated than Bukit Lawang and less developed. If I'd known it was next to Gunung Leuser and that it was more isolated than Bukit Lawang, before going there, I would have had a completely different perception going in. It was not until we got to Bukit Lawang, later, that I was surprised by the much more substantial and commercial town and a reversal of thoughts between the two towns started to stir in my mind. 

 

The first thing we did when we got to Tangkahan was go to see the Sumatran elephants. They are captive and kept next to the Batang River near the confluence with the Bulah (Bamboo) River. We crossed over a very long bridge over the Batang and walked down to the Batang where the elephants, nine in all (seven adults and 2 babies) were in and next to the river. 

The bridge over the Batang River.

Elephants seen from the bridge in the river.

We had an opportunity to wash them with scrub brushes, touch them and feed them bananas and sugar cane. They sprayed us with water from their trunks and used their trunks to try and get bananas and sugar cane from us. Until Covid the elephants were giving humans jungle rides and that has been stopped. The washing and feeding has continued. 

I loved the large male elephant with tusks and had an opportunity to feed it and feel its trunk. 

Judy and I had an opportunity to wash and feed a mother and baby. 

After finishing at the river, the elephants were led to a large enclosure where their legs were chained and they were given additional food. 

After finishing with the elephants we walked the bridge back over the Batang.

The elephants in the enclosure as seen from the bridge.

We drove to the Jungle Lodge which required another walk over a long bridge over the Batang and then a fairly lengthy walk to a building overlooking the Bulah River, a short distance above the confluence with the Batang. We were given a room overlooking the Bulah where we saw Southeast Asian water monitors in and near the river.

Southeast Asian water monitors in and near the Bulah. They are the largest lizards in the world after the Komodo dragon. They can get as long as a Komodo dragon (10 feet), but don't have the weight and heft. 

We only had electricity during the evening at the Jungle Lodge to power our electric ceiling fan, cold water for a shower and a very nice meal that we could choose from a fairly extensive menu. 

The next morning we were taken by a local guide on a hike. We walked on the hill above the Bulah a ways toward the Batang and then started to walk down to the Bulah. Our guide pointed out long-tailed macacques jumping from a large tree on the far side of the Bulah, over the Bulah and landing in a tree on our side. After several jumped I was able to get the camera ready and got some decent photos of one of the macacques mid-air on a jump. 

Flying across the water through the air.

Landing in a tree and grabbing hold. 

At the Bulah we removed our shoes, walked barefoot across the river, then put our shoes back on. We began a trek up the side of a relatively steep trail into an extremely dense rain forest. It had rained during the night and the vegetation was soaking wet. Not too far into our hike our guide spotted some monkeys in the trees. I did not get great views of them and was only able to identify them when I got home. I couldn't understand our guide's English. We saw the same kind of monkey the next day near Bukit Lawang, Thomas leaf monkeys or Thomas's langur. We watched them quite awhile, climbing through the wet vegetation to get close and get better shots. 

Thomas leaf monkey or Thomas's langur.

We continued our hike up the side of the mountain and we could hear gibbons whooping away further up the mountain, although they sounded pretty close. I believe they were Sumatran white-handed gibbons. Our guide said we would need to hike to the top of the mountain and he knew I didn't have it in me. I was sweating profusely from every pore in the muggy heat. 

Our guide pointed out leaches on our legs and hands. They are found on wet leaves and jump onto people. They are thin and tiny, then latch onto a human and start sucking out blood, but you can't feel them. When they get enough blood they get engorged and quite large. We both got a number of them on us and Judy found one that had found its way through a vent in my shirt and was attached below my armpit. When I got back to the Jungle Lodge later that day I had about five large bloodstains on my shirt from the leeches. If you wash off the blood it just keeps bleeding. You have to let the suck sites coagulate and leave them alone or they keep bleeding for days. I was not pleased that our guide did not recommend that we pull up our socks over our trouser legs to help prevent the leaches from getting on our legs. We saw that as common practice among the guides near Bukit Lawang and I believe our Tangkahan guide did it as well. 

During our hike we crossed a number of small streams and heard more gibbons, but saw no more wildlife. Our guide pointed out many trees and plants, many of them used for medicinal purposes by the locals. We eventually made our way back down the mountain to the side of the Bulah where another guide had a wonderful lunch spread out for us at the side of the river, including fruit, sandwiches and chicken. After lunch we crossed over the Bulah in bare feet and eventually back to the Jungle Lodge where we showered, packed and started our drive to Bukit Lawang. 

Our guide told us that they sometimes see orangutans and that he has seen one wild elephant in the jungle. The Sumatran elephants are extremely rare and the captive elephants are the only reasonable way to see them.