Birthday Orangutans in Bukit Lawang

Before we even decided to quit our jobs and go backpacking, we’d both spoken about our desires to visit more of Indonesia. We’ve both been here before and loved it. For me, the lush green jungles are just as amazing as the underwater, with so many endemic species on land, and some of the best untouched coral reefs in the world. But it’s a harsh land, and a ring of fire rules the country, with 3 earthquakes a day on average, and several active volcanos, it’s very volatile. But that’s also what we came to see, and Dave’s fascination with volcanoes will, I’m sure, determine many of our activities.

We flew from Kuala Lumpur to Medan, on the island of Sumatra, on a cheap AirAsia flight, which landed very late at night, especially since we were delayed a little. We got our visa on arrival in Medan, which was very straight forward, then got a grab from the airport to Medan city, which took about an hour.

We didn’t plan on spending any time in Medan, just leaving straight away, but we were so tired on the first day after a long day of travelling the day before, and still hadn’t fully decided where to go or stay, so we stayed one day in Medan to get on top of things. We planned our itinerary for the next week for so, went to the mall to get SIM cards and cash, and caught up on some sleep.

My birthday was fast approaching and the original plan had been to stay in Malaysia and visit the Perhentian Islands, which is exactly what I did for my birthday 10 years ago! But I did not expect them to be so popular now and we literally couldn’t find any available accommodation on any online booking sites…! Apart from one fancy resort at £300/night, which at one low point, I did seriously consider as a birthday treat for myself 😂 but remembering that 2 nights here could be the equivalent of one whole month in Indonesia, I think I made the right choice…

So we thought again… The flights to Medan were cheap, and we’d wanted to start our trip in Indonesia here anyway, so we looked at the possibility of trekking to see orangutans on my birthday instead. And luckily, everything aligned! So our first stop in Sumatra was Bukit Lawang.

We actually found that the most cost effective way to get to Bukit Lawang was a Grab (like Uber) taxi, which cost us RP 311,000 for the 4 hour journey!! Which considering the distance/time/state of the roads, is insane! (The tourist bus was RP 300,000 each!!!, and the public bus would have been RP 100,000 each and we would have needed to get a taxi to the bus station anyway… A private grab door to door made perfect sense).

We arrived in Bukit Lawang, the gateway town to Gunung Leuser National Park, home to the biggest population of wild and ‘semi-wild’ Sumatran orangutans, at about 3pm and checked into Junia Guest House, which we’d booked for 3 nights.

As soon as we arrived, we fell in love with it, the town is very pretty, flanking a crystal clear blue-tinged river, surrounded by jungle. The road stops just outside the main tourist bit of the town and you have to walk along paths the rest of the way, crossing very rickety looking bridges over the river Bohorok, some in better states than others.

Our guesthouse was lovely too, and we had an amazing room set back and up a little, with a panoramic view of the northern bank of the river and surrounding jungle.

We spent the first afternoon just exploring the town, we crossed every bridge haha, zig-zagging our way along the river and saying hello to all the locals! We dipped our feet in the river a little and then had a relatively early night to prepare for the next day…

It was my birthday! And we had arranged to do a 1-day trek into the jungle with our guesthouse. It ended up being a private tour (but didn’t cost more 😉), which was great, just us and our guide Pancha.

You walk directly out of your guesthouse to get into the jungle, up a set of steps behind the village. And before we even got into the park, we saw an orangutan in its nest. Although all we really saw were a lot of fruit skins on the floor below the tree, and a tuft of red-orange fur. Apparently, after stuffing themselves at “breakfast”, they usually build themselves a nest (made from gathered/folded branches and leaves from the tree) and sleep it off until lunch time… Not good for us haha

So we continued onward and after 10 minutes, we entered the park. The trek was about 6 hours in total, we walked for about 3.5 hours in the morning before stopping for lunch, then about 2.5 hours after lunch.

In the morning we saw long-tailed macaques, which dominate all of South East Asia really, so weren’t that exciting to see, but we did see some Thomas leaf monkeys (which are also endemic to Sumatra) and some GIANT lemon ants!

Just before lunch we saw another orangutan, but again, she was in a nest, and at first we could only see her arm hanging out of the side of the nest, high up in the canopy. But she did get out briefly, seemingly just to look down at who was causing all the commotion below (several different groups had congregated here and were making a lot of noise).

Our guide said we should stay patient, as after the orangutan has slept off their food from the morning, they’ll be up again looking for more food just after lunch. So we ate nearby and when we’d finished we headed back to see if she was up yet, and she was, but she was on the move, and fast! Us and one other couple on a separate private trek followed her down the hill side, which was incredibly slippery from the previous days rain. We slipped and slid towards her, eventually finding flat ground and were rewarded with basically a private display. She was curious of us and tried to get close, swinging in the trees above our heads, but then she got a bit bored of us and just started eating in the tree tops, some termites, some young rattan leaves and some fruits. It was incredible to see her so close, we had to keep moving to move away from here, as you’re not supposed to get that close, but as we moved away, she kept moving closer haha.

We thought our luck was done and started to head back out of the park, when we heard a hornbill flying through the trees – the sound it’s quite distinctive. We looked around and eventually spotted a pair high up in the trees, too far for a good pic, but then… One flew closer and we got a great view of a rhinoceros hornbill! One of my favourite birds!!

On the way out we also saw the 2nd species of macaque they have in this park, the pig-tailed macaque, and you could tell why they got this name, with their skinny short tails which look like pig tails!

We were done with our trek, but we were not done with the adventure, as the way out of the park is via traditional river ‘rafting’, which was just some big tubes tied together, it was really fun!!

What a great day and a lovely birthday! We got back at about 4pm, our clothes drenched in sweat (omg was it humid) and our trainers caked in mud… Thanks to the rain. We both had a shower and a nap lol

The last day we just chilled, the trek wasn’t that hard, but the humidity made it gruelling, and we were tired, likely dehydrated and aching. So we rested, did some much needed laundry, and went for a dip in the river, zig-zagging along all the bridges again.

I am so glad we decided to come here. I really do love nature, but I don’t like to see animals in captivity. So adventures like this are amazing to see them in their natural habitat. And to hear of the great successes…. Indonesia is not a great place for animals all in all, and there have sadly been a lot of extinctions caused by humans in the last 50 years. Mostly due to habitat destruction for palm oil and rubber plantations, poaching, the animal pet trade and a lot for Chinese medicine, especially true for the poor Sumatran rhino. ☹️😢 But the orangutans in Bukit Lawang are a rare success story, as this outpost was set up in 1973 as a rehabilitation centre for mostly orphaned and pet orangutans. The charity attempted to re-wild many captive ex-pets, and also ran a breeding program. The orangutans were supported by the creation of protected areas, and the use of feeding stations, which were gradually phased out. And tourism massively helped their cause too, by giving locals a real incentive for conservation and alternative means of income compared to logging. By 1991, the numbers in the region had doubled and the programme ended as it was deemed a success! 😃 Today there is no feeding of the orangutans, and they are left to fend for themselves, and their population is still growing. But since they live a long time (in some cases up to 60 years old!) and have good memories, some in this region are still classed as “semi-wild” as they are not scared of people and were once pets and fed by the rangers.

It’s also another animal for me in the wild to tick off my list ☺️ as I had previously seen the larger Bornean Orangutan (on Borneo, obviously!), and now I’ve seen the Sumatran Orangutan too! Unfortunately, (or perhaps not) we didn’t see any of the Sumatran tigers, Sumatran rhinos, or Sumatran elephants, which are also known to inhabit this park. Maybe next time… 😉

Watch my video on this post on Youtube Travel Alchemist