Back on the bus

Hey, it's me, Monkey, I'm back!

Wow, it's been a while, huh? Where did I leave you, in Penang just as we were about to get our ferry crossing over to Medan in Sumatra, Indonesia - a lot has happened since then! I'm sorry to have been offline for so long, but there are no internet connections in the jungle (go figure - although you can get an excellent mobile signal) and we ended up spending more time in Bukit Lawang than we had ever intended, but I'll get to that later.

We spent the night in Medan after a long ferry journey that firmly rocked and rolled us like babes in arms. No one warns you about the sudden barrage of attention that hits you from the ferry terminal as local taxi drivers and bus companies wrestle with one another for your attention. We are becoming masters of the art of zen in the face of such haggle-chaos, you really have no choice and as everyone is just trying to earn a living, there is no point in stressing yourself out.

In the Bat Cave, the quiet Bat Cave....Haven't told you about this, but it was dark and bloody terrifying!!

It was evening by the time we arrived at our guest house (recommended by a lovely couple, Ben and Viola, who set off on their travels after getting married a couple of years ago and have just never gone home again), the Angel Inn, and we received a very warm welcome from two locals, Regar and Mohammed, who set about making sure we were watered, fed and relaxed.

Mohammed sat with us for a couple of hours, asking us about England and giving us the lowdown on all things Indonesia, giving us hints and tips for places we wanted to go. Then he gave us a special treat, a trip in the motorcycle rickshaw that is used as a form of taxi here. Angie and I squeezed into the carriage and Kate braved it on the back of the bike. For the next ten minutes all you could hear was the sound of western women screaming as Mohammed weaved in and out of cars, trucks and buses without so much as an indication or a backward glance. I think he was a follower of the school of 'Scream if you want to go faster' because he did and did and did! It was outrageously thrilling and I couldn't stop laughing, well between screaming like a girl, that is. We spent the rest of the evening sat on the hostel rooftop with Regar and Mohammed, singing songs, drinking beer and smoking like troopers. It was a beautiful introduction to Sumatra's busiest city.

In a poncho big enough for three!! Lawrence, we are doing you proud here, aren't we?!

The next day we were off early for our trip to Bukit Lawang, the Sumatran jungle resort. The journey took us into the heart of the Sumatran countryside, with palm trees and plantations growing by the roadside. And the roads! Let's just say the Indonesian transport department has some serious infrastructure work to do, there are potholes in the road as big as craters and we had to stop when we blew a tire. Our guide on the bus was Anton, a silent and reserved figure who we would get to know very well in the days to come....

Arrival in Bukit Lawang was amazing. The first thing you see is the river, and the river and the river. Children and young people shoot past you in big round tire tubes, negotiating the rocks of the river-bed with ease. Although the water is shallow, the current is fast and powerful and not to be negotiated alone by a novice! We checked into our hostel, the lovely EcoLodge and instantly struck up a friendship with a great waiter called Sandy, who was outrageously camp, deliciously friendly and enormous fun. We spent the evening chilling out in preparation for the next day's jungle trek.

The following day we met Indra, our guide on the jungle trek. Indra is 30 years old, though he looks much younger, with a cheeky smile, a great sense of humour and a highly infectious laugh. He looks so young but is married with 2 children. English people are viewed with great fondness here and I think Indra and his colleague were quite pleased to have us along. We were joined by the lovely Helene from Amsterdam and we made a companionable quartet as the four ladies of the jungle.

Indra, our very own cheeky monkey guide showing us how to make the jungle go with a swing

We were only an hour or so in, when we met our first orangutans. As a writer, I have to tell you that no words I can conjure forth capture the slow soulfulness of this creature's gaze. Bukit Lawang is the home to a large rehabilitation centre, so the first orangutans we met quite close to the village were all orangutans who are used to humans as they have been re-introduced to the wild. We saw mothers with babies, young males scampering around and slow, laconic older orangutans who took the experience of gaping tourists in their stride. A few hours later though, we met another group of trekkers and their guides and we travelled further into the jungle together where we found some wild orangutans.

Orangutan is hiding - can you find him?

The guides are very careful around the wild orangutans and there is a female called Mina who has a reputation for particular viciousness and the guides kept a close eye out for her, but she must have been off harassing a different group. At one point, though, an older male came too close to the trekker group, and the guides formed themselves into a line between us and the male. When he suddenly began to move very fast, the guides called out to us 'Run! Run!' and believe me, you have never seen a group of tourists move so fast! Everyone escaped unharmed, but later as we had lunch of nasi goreng (rice, vegetables and egg) on the jungle floor, one of the guides with a group of Spanish men showed us a number of scars from bites he has received over the years from the wild orangutans - they are not to be messed with, and his scars reminded us that the jungle is their home, not ours.

Possibly the most beautiful creature I've ever seen.

As well as orangutans, we saw wild black gibbons. One made a swipe for Angie's glasses (although there was clearly nothing wrong with his eyes, he only just missed her specs), and then for our other guide, who promptly fell over. I have never spent so much effort trying not to laugh to save someone's pride! The trek was very hard work and at times, quite hair-raising. You climb up a lot steep slopes and walk a lot of thin paths next to hanging precipices that fall up to one hundred feet into the jungle below. My motto became 'Don't look down' and this worked quite well, although the sheer exhilaration and effort of the climbing and trekking (I never knew I could rock climb!) took away any fear I might have had. When we came to do the last big climb some 250 feet up onto the hill of the jungle, it was a sheer and steep climb up rocks, vegetation and clay and you learn to be a bit of a monkey yourself as you use trees, plants, branches and rocks to make sure you don't fall. I was relieved this was the last one as I think another would have killed me, but coming down the other side was much more fun!

Misssster Lizzzzzzzard......... (a joke that possibly only me and my brother get and find funny)

The Black Gibbon - this one a young male shortly before he started attacking anything shiny.....

At the bottom of the other side was the river, on the banks of which Indra and about half a dozen porters and other guides began to set up camp. We joined another group of six or so trekkers from Canada, Amsterdam, America and Poland and night soon found us singing and telling stories and jokes around the campfire. It was at this point that Indra began to call me Princess, a name he refused to waiver from for the rest of our time together. I am not sure why I earned this name, but it is one that has followed me all my life, and of course is what my first name actually means. Glenn calls me Princess the most at home, and it was a lovely name to hear again.

Sleeping in the jungle was hard, though, as so was the ground beneath us, but the cacophony of sound throughout the night and the lullaby of the rushing river at our feet was so sweet I didn't mind missing out on sleep. In the morning we chilled out with Indra and the other guides, sitting around the camp and venturing in and out of the river to cool off periodically. The other group went off for another trek as they had not walked for as long as we had the day before, and before we knew it, it was time to head off. You don't leave the jungle the way you came in, however, you take a tube raft back for half an hour back along the river. As to say I am not a strong swimmer is an understatement, I was a little nervous about this.

"Don't worry Princess of the Jungle," Indra told me with his cheeky grin, "I won't let anything happen to you."

I felt genuinely reassured by this as Indra and the others swim like fish, as if the current isn't even there. These young men have grown up in and around the jungle all their lives, and they know the environment intimately. I cannot describe how safe you feel in their hands, or how fascinating their way of life is. Indra is fascinated by England and loves football and he asked me lots of questions about home, and life there. He is appalled by the cost of living and we were frequently asked how we afford to live there. The guides are entirely dependent on tourism to make a living and they work very, very hard to make sure you get to see a full range of wildlife. There are tigers in the Sumatran jungle, but much further in than we went - later we met a guide called Eddy and he has invited us back next year for a 14 day trek to a place called Salt Lake, where the tigers and elephants all hang out....

The tube raft back was outrageously good and I loved every single second of it. I had the foresight to keep my swinsuit on under my shorts, and the water is so cold. Once Indra realised that each time I was soaked I would scream like a schoolgirl, he and the other guides took full advantage, and between our screaming and their laughing, we were by far the noisiest thing on the river that day. On the way back we saw more orangutans loitering by the water's edge and I wondered what we must look like to them!?

Our home at Batu Mandi - beautiful, beautiful place, wonderful people.

After our jungle trek, we were absolutely exhausted and we moved to our new hostel, Batu Mandi, a family run series of guest chalets at the river's edge. We were the only guests there and loved relaxing in our hammock or around the vast landscaped gardens running down to the water. It was sheer bliss. Unfortunately, Kate and I felt ill the day after our return to the jungle. Our stomachs could not hold anything at all and we were back and forth to the bathroom every ten minutes. In the heat, weakness and dehydration become your biggest enemy very fast, and I am not ashamed to say that at a couple of points I was more than a little scared at what would happen to my poor body if I didn't recover soon.

Angie escaped relatively unscathed and spoke to our hosts, and Daddy Rambet and his wife Jamella prepared two herbal remedies for us using plants from the jungle - one for sickness and the other to ease our aching stomachs. We were better within an hour! That night he prepared another concoction with ginger root.

"This will make you strong!" he said, and the next morning we were our usual high spirited selves again.

We spent the next five days - far longer than we had intended - at Batu Mandi, spending most of our time with the family. Jamella has three daughters, Chris, Merissa and Tiara, and their nephew, Panji, a young man of about 20, helps around the house. They took us to a local market for the day, introduced us to their friends and families in the village, took us swimming and tubing in the river and taught us some Batak Caro dancing! It was magical and by the time we left, we all swapped addresses and were known as their English family. We fully intend to go back and visit next year, but this time Jamella wants us to stay in the family home with them. Daddy Rambet, or Medicine Man as we took to calling him was very protective over us and made sure we were all well before we were allowed to leave!

The girls of the Rambet family teaching us Batak Karo dancing - we were naturals, honest!

Anton, our initial guide turned out to be quite the wheeler dealer of Bukit Lawang and he was always around when we needed him, seeming to magically appear at the slightest hint of his name. He found us t-shirts when we needed them, changed countless amounts of Malaysian Ringits for us when we needed more money, and sorted out every problem we ever encountered. At first we really weren't sure about him, as he was far less gregarious than most of the Indonesians we encountered, but after a while he came to grow on us and we couldn't have stayed as long as we did without him.

It was sad to say goodbye to our new Indonesian family at Batu Mandi, and we were genuinely sorry to go, but Berastagi was calling. The family organised the public bus to collect us (a great quirk of public transport here, it picks you up where you like and drops you off where you request - brilliant) and we set off for the next stage of our adventure, off to investigate the home of the Batak Karo people, and to climb a volcano. Tune in for the next exciting installment of our Indonesia adventure in the next couple of days!

The rest of the family at Batu Mandi - Medicine Man or Papa Rambet, Jamella and Panji

Big hugs to Mum for all her help when I had a bit of a panic in Berastagi, and a huge thank you to everyone who keeps posting comments and following - I love the thought of you all keeping up to date on my jungle adventures and I can only hope you're enjoying them as much as I am!! I really miss everyone and think of you all often. It's funny how different aspects of our experiences here remind of different people at different times.

Michael, The Power of Now is brilliant, it's got me through more moments of stress here and transformed them into crucial parts of the journey, helping me to learn that the difficult bits are often the bits that teach you the most.

Toxic, it was definitely a female monkey, trust me, she had bigger nipples than you could shake a big chimp at. Lainee, great to see you here - is the book I gave you by Melissa Banks? If so there's others of hers that are excellent.

Bean and Puffin, you're the least cyber aware individuals I know and it really means a lot that you're following. Dad - special birthday coming up, have a great one, I miss you!

James, your birthday fast approaching too, big hugs to you and Dean and be wild!

H and Shon, missing you more than words, thanks for the comments and the emails.

Glenn, I've said it all already, but you know what I'm thinking anyway, miss you big fella.

If I've missed anyone it's not because I don't care, it's because it's late and I'm in the middle of a very hectic cafe and concentration is rather impossible!! Lots of love and big hugs to all!!! xx

I'm leaving you with this picture and I'm not going to explain it at all, except to say that HIS name is Lily.......