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Hanna goes Asia
I'm lying. Actually I'm back in Medan already but I didn't have a chance to update while in the woods:) So many things happened, let's see if I can remember everything at once.
Starting from Christmas eve, it was really good in the end. I managed to skype, got myself a ticket almost out of the country (I'm departing to Batam on 30th, an Indonesian island 30mins ferryride away from Singapore) and the party we had was really nice. More bulehs (foreigners), less locals. I'm really happy I got to spend Christmas in such a lovely company:D
On the early morning of 25th a bunch of us took a bus to Tangkahan. It was about 6 hours, the last hour or so on this tiny road completely in the woods. After we crossed a river with a small raft, climbed up a hill and arrived in a small guesthouse in the jungle<3 Pretty soon after we went to the riverside to swim. beautiful torquoise water, which was soooo nice and cold after sweating in the bus! And so much fun swimming against the stream:D There was a small hotspring too, on the other side of the river. It was just a little hole in between the rocks, love it! While playing in the water I jumped off a cliff again, and the second time I did it I didn't jump far enough and hit my ass on a rock in the bottom. Typical! Well I guess it's good to get more battlescars:P Then we swam down the river to a small waterfall. Such a nice massage:D
At night we had a campfire party next to the river, the local boys were playing guitar and singing, and I sang along too in the English songs. And of course it was with adorable broken English! It was so nice, they were all singing with such heart and giggling freely like children when some of them made a mistake. I loooooooved it! Then climbing up to the guesthouse in the total darkness..
On umm Sunday we went to see some elephants, and we got to gave them a bath in the river! Amazing scrubbing their thick skin:) There were 2 babies too, about 3 months old. They were so happy and playful, totally stole my heart! Then we tubed (similar to rafting, but it's done on inner tires of a tractor) down the river to this gorgeous waterfall. To get there we walked up a smaller part of the river (walked in the water). It was again, amazing. Too bad I don't have pictures since my camera wouldn't have liked the tubing so much... I'll have the memory just for myself this time:P After we tubed further down and trekked back to the guesthouse. In the evening we had another party, though I didn't join much in the big one but enjoyed more quiet conversations and chilling in the nature instead. And slept in a hammock listening to the sounds of the jungle. During the stay I had so many fulfilling childlike feelings of pure joy and happiness.. I miss it so much already. If life was all about happiness and play, I would move there right now!
So the remaining 7 of us (me, Daryl, Ines from Germany, Manu from France, Pang from Thailand, Mihaelina from Poland and Belen from Argentina) headed towards Bukit Lawang in the morning of 27th. It's another small village, main attraction there is the orangutan sanctuary. By the way, I love the term orang utan, in Indonesian orang means people and utan jungle:) The first day we just walked around a little, swam in the river (it was more like dipping since the stream was so powerful all around) and chelaxed. Early in the morning we bought ourselves permits and went to the sanctuary. We climbed a long way up and into the forest. It was unbelievable, we saw quite a few of them (they're wild, but some of them are also fed by the rangers and they have names). A mother and a baby, young female, and a pretty aggressive dominant male (it's the maiting season:P). It was so cool to see how they move in the trees, swing, hang upside down, how long their limbs are and how orange the fur, and how expressive they are and how much they look like us. While walking down a young male came down and hung on the trees just above our path. Saw him so close, he was checking us out as much as we were checking him out:D Ama f***ing zing! We had to walk right under him to go down. It was time to leave them alone. I have no pictures of them since the camera permit was a lot, we only got it for Pang. I'll get some from her though.
After the urangutans Daryl, Ines and I decided to head to Medan already. I was running out of cash since I hadn't seen an ATM since Christmas eve, so I pretty much had to go:P And anyway it didn't seem worthy to stay after seeing the people of the jungle, the place itself wasn't that special. Or at least it didn't seem so after Tangkahan. Actually I wanted to go back to Tangkahan for one more night but it was too much of a hustle plus it definitely wouldn't have solved my cash problem...:D I just really really wanna go back:(
So right now I'm in Medan, crashing at Ines's campus (she's an English teacher). One more day here and then I have to leave Indonesia behind already... Already!
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