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The next day we headed back to the airport for what is definitely the shortest flight either of us have ever been on, taking about half an hour to get over the sea to Medan, in North Sumartra. The fasten seatbelts sign hardly went off. We'd read all sorts of negative things about Medan in guidebooks and online, so were pleasantly surprised to find it was no worse than Jakarta, but was no more interesting than a stopover. That night we ate at the nearby market, and Martha when asking for something without meat accidentally ordered what was seemingly a dessert as a main, but it was delicious all the same. Apparently our Indonesian still needed some work.
The next morning we faced the challenge of getting to Bukit Lawang. Arriving at the bus station we were immediately claimed by about five men desperate to help us onto a minibus. After arguing with them for a while we decided we had no choice but to believe them when they said the big public buses (which our guidebook told us should cost about 50p) no longer existed. Instead we would have to take a mini bus for about £5 each. At this point we cracked out the haggling skills we'd been honing over the last month, trying to get the price down. We argued with them for so long that a mini bus came and went, but eventually we agreed to pay £6 for the two of us. As we drove off we almost lost a pair of Sofia's shoes, which the guys must have untied as they attached our bags to the roof. With all our possessions, but considerably more paranoid than before, we set off for the three hour drive to the jungle. We drove through an astonishing number of palm oil plantations as we bumped our way along the windy road. As we went the bus picked up and dropped off locals everywhere and they astounded us with the number of people they could fit into such a small space: when seats were short, another was just added from the side of the road.
We finally made it to Bukit Lawang, which is a small village set on a jungle river, and found the place we wanted to stay. That afternoon and much of the next day were spent relaxing in our beautiful room and watching the crazy torrential rain from the hammock on our balcony. We also organised the jungle trek we would do, which proved harder than imagined when we realised we didn't have enough cash on us. A guy from our hotel offered to drive one of us to the nearest ATM, 10km away, so Sofia climbed on the back of his motorbike and drove off. During the next two hours Martha sat in the hotel room gradually becoming more and more anxious, while Sofia went on a futile search for any ATM in the area that would accept our cards. Eventually she gave up and we resigned ourselves to using the money changer in the village, for a steep price.
On Sunday we set off at 8.30am with our guide Ero for our day trek into the jungle. Despite the fact that it wasn't that hot and we were in the shade of dense trees, we were soon drenched in sweat. Apparently the jungle is pretty humid. For the first half an hour we saw no wildlife, but then a white gibbon started making a lot of noise, so Ero changed direction to follow the sound. So did all the other groups of tourists in the jungle that day, and we suddenly all converged in the same place. The gibbon stayed hidden in the tall trees, but we did go right up to a group of Thomas-leaf monkeys, which Ero assured us were much friendlier than the Maccaws we'd seen in Ubud. We moved on slightly further to a place where one of the guides had spotted an orangutan high up in the trees. The next hour was spent milling around while the guides proceeded to do all the things they were not supposed to do: call out to the orangutans, tempt them down with food, climb in the trees to get them down. Finally, when we were completely ready to give up, a mother came right down with two young orangutans. We were assured that the guides' behaviour was fine as these were semi-wild orangutans, raised in the old rehabilitation centre that made Bukit Lawang famous and released into the wild when it shut. Several photo opportunities later, we went around the corner to find a black gibbon and a Thomas-leaf monkey hissing at each other.
We walked on further into the jungle, stopping for fruit and lunch and bumping into the same groups of people over and over again. We made some steep but thankfully brief ascents where all we could do to stay upright was cling to the vines and roots around us. We saw another group of orangutans, this time when we were the only ones around, and this group included a male so we approached with much more caution. The day ended with a swim in a waterfall, then rafting down the rapids back to where we were staying.
The next day we faced the 10 hour journey to Lake Toba, the largest volcanic lake in the world, which has an island the size of Singapore in it. This put New Zealand's Singapore-sized lake to shame. We got a boat across at six in the evening to Tuk-Tuk, a little peninsula off the huge island. This peninsula is so small that on our first day we accidentally walked around it twice. Part of the main reason we'd wanted to visit this lake was that both Martha's parents and Sofia's dad had been there decades ago when they were in Indonesia. Ironically, Martha's mother had fallen very ill there and after spending about 24 hours in Tuk-Tuk, Martha herself came down with a bad case of food poisoning. The next day was spent taking it slow, and the only thing we did was move to a slightly nicer place for Martha to recover in.
The culture in this small area is very different from the rest of Sumatra. The Batak people are majority Christian (due to one very succesful missionary) and produce a lot of wood carvings as well as living in the very unique Batak houses. These are raised up, with tiny doors and ornate carvings all set under a sloping roof. On our first evening in the new hotel we watched a traditional dance and music show which sounded more like something from South America. Deciding we needed to catch up on the sightseeing, we rented a moped on Thursday morning and drove to some stone chairs on the main island which were supposedly of interest. It turns out they really are just stone chairs, though there was a traditional Batak house which we could walk through. We drove back to Tuk-Tuk, Sofia really gaining confidence with the moped as we were finally on decent roads, and made it back to our hotel in time to say goodbye to Ruth, who was finally giving up on following us around Indonesia. Our last day in Tuk-Tuk, and our last free day in Indonesia, was spent by the pool as we grabbed the opportunity to tan before going home. At dinner that evening we made a list of all the other places we want to travel to, having without a doubt caught the travel bug.
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