We flew from Singapore to Medan on the east coast of Sumatra. We still weren't sure of the plan going forward but this was a good central place to start. We took a train from the airport to the city got our first taste of local life.
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| Rice fields as far as the eye can see |
The first thing we did was to become multi-millionairs! This bundle of money is 10m rupiahs, equivalent to £510 or NZ$1,000.
We immediately liked Medan and were quite happy for this to be our introduction to Sumatra. We soon figured out we were staying on the street food 'place' to be. It was super busy with Grab drivers waiting a roadside stalls and restaurants for their click and collect deliveries and locals driving through and collecting their own takeaways.
After our first forray into a restaurant we realised that ordering something for ourselves was no easy task and we set about learning as many food words in Indonesian that we could. English is hardly spoken or understood so it was up to us to figure it out. For the record we never did get a full grasp of the food situation. It is a lot more complicated than it first seems.
We made our way to the local market as usual.
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| On the way we stopped at a very local cafe, just a couple of tables on the side of the street. |
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| Fake flowers anyone? |
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| Aisle upon aisle of dried fish |
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| Then this ..... becomes this ..... |
We were amused by the bike park.
Impressed by the rubbish bins.
Intrigued by some of the vehicles.
We bought some fruit from the roadside.
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| Oranges, Rambutans, Mangoes and Snake fruit We planned a trip into the jungle in the vague hope of spotting the infamous Sumatran Orangatang. We didn't want to go to the tourist destination where you are guaranteed to meet at least a half tame one so we decided on a place called Batu Katak. First we took a mini bus to Bohorok, around 6 hrs. The road was typically potholed to buggareeees. |
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We squished into the back seats of this van and proceeded to enjoy some choc pastries |
From Bohorok we transfered to the back of a motorbike each for a 20 minute ride into the back of beyond.
The river on which we would be staying had been flooded quite badly November 2023 causing a lot of damage to a lot of property.
There were some cute houses along the roadside.
From the end of the road it was a 10min walk along the river side to our accommodation, Jungle River.
We were especially honoured by our welcoming committee! A family of black gibbons were feeding on one of the trees we walked right under.
Our accommodation was really cool, although quite basic.
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| Bathroom |
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| Bath |
Also comes complete with a couple of super cute residents.
Our host's Herman and his wife Katarina did a brilliant job of hosting us. Katarina cooked all our meals and we were super happy with everything she produced.
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| Katarina and Clare |
Herman entertained us after dinner sharing stories of local folklore.
We sat here most days and watched the Black Gibbons feeding in 'our' tree.
We went on a couple of fishing missions. This one was approximately a 20 minute walk up river. We caught a couple of small fish that we took home to feed the cats.
We were here by ourselves for most of he time but on the last two days we were joined by another couple of Austrian tourists. We hadn't seen any tourists for so long. Herman mooted the idea that he could take us all on a fising trek up a side river. We made rods out of bamboo and James' line and hooks and caught heaps of small fish that Katarina cooked up into a Sambal that evening.
Along the way we saw all manner of flora and fauna including monkeys that we didn't get to photograph.
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| A very healthy and fruitful Langsat edible fruit |
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| Poisonous caterpillar |
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| Gave this one a wide berth! |
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| Camo snakey |
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| Just a pretty leaf |
We also discovered a small rubber plantation which was kinda cool.
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| The dish on the side is collecting rubber. They were all full. |
We also got to see a dying flower that is endemic round these parts. People come especially to view it. You can read more about it here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphophallus
We didn't get to see any orangatans (no surprise really) but Herman was able to point out a recently used nest. Apparently they 'move house' every night! A bit like us really.
On our last day we were sitting relaxing on our verandah when there was an almighty extremely loud ruckus. We were honoured by a visit from a family of black gibbons, most likely the same ones were had been watching from the dinning hut everday, feeding in the same tree. This racket went on for about 20mins. What an absolute treat!
On the morning we were leaving we were visited by a White-handed Gibbon. These are smaller and lighter in colour. This one hung out in a tree nearby us for about half and hour. Lucky, lucky us!
It soon enough came time for us to leave this tranquil place in the jungle, making our way back to Medan in the reverse journey. We had made some friends for life and had a really special time here.
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| Goodbye, sweet child |
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