Sumatra

Our final stop in Indonesia brought us to North Sumatra, which also took us across the equator. Our southern hemisphere adventures are over already!

With a brief overnight stop in the hectic city of Medan, we made our way to the jungle town of Bukit Lawang. There are three ways to get to Bukit Lawang: private car, shared 'tourist minibus', or public bus. We opted for the tourist minibus, which was probably the best option: our driver said that the two public bus companies are fiercely competitive, and will try to aggressively overtake their rivals when they see each other on the road. He also said they don't care about hitting pedestrians or bikers, because it's taken as the cost of doing business in their insurance. He told us all of this with a chuckle, reassuringly.

We met a (very tired) French couple who had just spent 56 hours on these public buses to travel the length of Sumatra. Chelsea took this as a cautionary tale, while Dan (inexplicably) thought it sounded like fun. Clearly he hasn't learned anything from the +20hr stints we spent on Australian coaches just last month.

The attraction of Bukit Lawang was a multi-day trek into Gunung Leuser National Park, an enormous swathe of jagged hills draped in dense rainforest. Sumatra is one of only two places in the world where wild orangutans still live (there is a bigger population in Borneo), so we spent two days hiking through the jungle and sleeping in tents for a chance to see them.

En route, we saw: gibbons, macaques, hornbills, jungle squirrels, giant geckos, and a hell of a lot of bugs. Multi-lane highways of ants and termites, hundreds of butterflies, stingless bee colonies, plenty of mosquitos and flies, strange spiders, and a handful of very friendly leeches desperate to give us a little kiss.

And of course, we also got the main attraction: orangutans! Mothers and babies, swinging through the trees, eating mushrooms and termite nests. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We came out of the jungle by riding an inner tube down the river – we had no idea it was such a common form of transport before we got here. Currently we're on our way to the airport to finally leave Indonesia and move onto country #4.

Our Indonesian has come along in leaps and bounds over the last month, and luckily the language is almost identical to Malay apart from a few words, which should mean it will be useful for a couple more weeks until we get to Thailand. And then nowhere else, unless we come back in future - which is not out of the question. This is a brilliant and beautiful country, with so much to offer beyond Bali. It's bustling and chaotic and enormous, with complex multiculturalism and incredible (spicy) food – even on a vegetarian diet. The people are open, friendly and have a great sense of humour. And, of course, it's very affordable 😅 we'd highly recommend, and will happily share tips if anyone wants to visit.

For now though, aku cinta Indonesia, selamat tinggal!Читать далее