So I continue where I left off on our Indonesian trip, last time I showed the fantastic sights and experiences of Samosir Island on Lake Toba. We stayed there for three days.

Anyhow. We left early on the Thursday (saturday was our flight back to Singapore), first taking the ferry, then a private car waited for us in the harbor town of Parapat. The car would take us about 7-8 hours north on Sumatra to the National Park of Bukit Lawang. We were accompanied by a dutch couple in their 50s-ish, quite cool to meet such random people and they were maybe bit more life smart in the way that they seemed more cautious about how they went about things. Power to the young, wild and free and all that.

We arrived in Bukit Lawang, after another crazy ride where our driver among many things drove on the wrong side of the road to pass a police car with sirens on.. We seriously wondered about what kind of errands the police take on themselves when so many things just seem to run it’s own course. Road safety is for sure not one of their main duties.

In Bukit Lawang, everything worked out like all the other things on our trip. We had nothing booked, didn’t know what to expect but somebody met us at the car park. We had no idea who this was but he was really nice, we talked for a bit and I asked for the cheapest room that was in the village. We kind of decided on spot to not only do the day-long jungle trek the day after (Friday) but go for the night stay too. This resulted, for sure, in one of the most adventures experiences ever for us.

So the next day started out with us leaving our things with the guy that fixed the room, the paperwork for the trek, he got us guides and also promised to fix a ride for us on the Saturday to the airport. all set and away we went.

The trek was quite a challenge with steep hills up, and then downhill on nothing you would call roads or even pathways. And then up again, and then back down. Like a teasing voice in the distant we could hear the water run down the river not far away from us, and then the sound went away as we walked away and came back again later. But we never really saw it through the think jungle. In that tropical heat it was very inviting though. But the trek was overall amazing. We saw all of the parks monkeys, which seemed to be unusual ‘cause even the guides was photographing one of them. At lunch we sat down and was slowly surrounded by monkeys. They walked around us on the ground and some were even jumping between trees to form a quite formidable circle around us. It must have been at least 25 monkeys. And some of them came really, really close. Watch pictures below, I almost got to shake hands with one but I think it would result in a bite oof my hand if I had reached further.

After getting chased down by a orangutan that wanted us to leave its territory we climbed down a hill, and in the middle of the path there was another orangutan standing. Two guides from another group that we stumbled upon had to keep them away from us while we climbed past it – within arms length. Crazy!

After the little dramatic end adventure we finally got to the river, with tired legs but with a feeling of superstars, like Rocky when he finally reaches the top of the stairs. Top of the world. But a hundred times better. We were once again as far away as possible from whatever modern society we associate with. The scenery was breathtaking. The river, the jungle climbing and surrounding above us. We jumped in the streamed and cold river to reduce the amount of nicely sticky mud and sweat we were soaked in.

Later we got served dinner on the riverside, sitting there with our group of six other backpackers, our two guides and the two chefs. They had set up small tent huts in the forest, totally in the open but with roofs. That was our sleeping spot for the night and it was for sure one to remember with the sound of the water, animals, insects and nature around us.

In the morning, after a hard surfaced sleep but with easy minds we rafted down the river back to the village. The stream was so strong at one point that our guide fell into the water, kicking me in the face and with his stick hitting Franzi in the back of the head and me on the knee.. Fortunately he got up pretty quickly with no injuries and we were also okay. The sun came out, the stream was calm for a little while and we started singing the fitting song ”Don’t worry…. be happy”.

So everything was all good, and so much better than that.

Good song to get in the mood for the pictures