The Fire Dragon and the Volcano

TODAY'S POST IS DEDICATED TO THE BIRTHDAY BOY, JAMES! HAVE A GREAT ONE AND A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM ME - WE'LL HAVE A BANANA SHAKE TO TOAST YOU WITH TONIGHT - HAVE A TRULY VOLCANIC DAY LOVELY xxx

This is Berastagi's larger volcano, Sinabung - we climbed her little sister, Sibayak, which took us about 7 hours all in, Sinabung can take up to 10 just for the climb up and down!

Forgot to give a big thank you to Kate yesterday for letting me use her pictures of Bukit Lawang - she is the real photographer amongst us and has been good enough to share her pics with me wherever we go. My little camera is great for video and sound though, and I took loads of videos in the jungle so an evening of slide shows for you all when I get home, methinks, you lucky, lucky peeps!

Although we were sorry to say goodbye to Bukit Lawang and to the new family we had found there, we were excited to embark on our trip to Berastagi. Although you can charter buses from almost anywhere to almost anywhere in Indonesia, the public bus system is much, much cheaper and, it turned out to be far more of an experience.....

Our bus from Bukit Lawang took us back to Medan. It was just a small mini bus, a 14 seater and it started out with just us on it. To get more customers, the drivers toot the horn approximately every 30 seconds to make sure everyone knows they are coming. Before long the bus was full. Or so we thought. Actually, in Indonesia there is no such thing as a full bus. The bus is never full. At its most packed we counted 19 people squeezed into the bus, it was hiliarious and at one point there were five people sat up front with the driver, crammed into only two seats!

The bus to Medan seemed to take no time at all, and we were the last people off. When we stopped, the driver ushered us from our minibus onto a much larger, full size public bus or coach. We were slightly bemused as to why the driver insisted we sit up front with him and thought it might be the novelty factor of western women again, until we saw the amount of people they can squeeze into a public bus and then we realised the driver had done us a favour. In return, we shared a packet of fags with him, which is a big bonding thing amongst men here. Anton had explained to us in Bukit Lawang that in Indonesia if you place your fags where everyone can see them, as the guides did with us, it's an invitation to share and that this is often the way to strike up conversations and to put people at ease. Indra had told us the same and thought the price of English cigarettes hilarious and horrific in equal measure.

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed in his best Mary Poppins cockney, "It costs what I earn in a month for one pack of your fags, innit Princess!?"

The Catholic church of St Francis of Assisi, Berastagi, where we meet Ray and Benjamin. The building is a modern re-interpretation of the traditional Batak Karo longhouses here, many of which are now in ruins, which is a great shame as they are beautiful and traditionally built entirely without nails.....!!

Not that we really needed to get closer to our driver, the three of us were crammed into two seats and the gear stick was between Angie's legs, so I think she was a bit closer to him than she ever wanted to be.....

The journey itself was as hair raising as we have come to expect, with random over-taking in the face of oncoming traffic. This time, though, we weren't quite so concerned as we were the biggest thing on the road and everyone was racing to get out of our way! The best part was when we started to climb the hills and mountain sides to Berastagi though, this takes you round some hairpin bends that I never thought you could get a bus round and we passed a couple of mini buses by the side of the road that looked like they had conked out from the gradient alone! The bus driver was so laconic about the journey that I reassured myself - as I looked down a mountainside hundreds of feet below, only feet away from us - that he must have done it a million times!

The countryside was so stunning, it was impossible to be consumed by or even to notice the fear of heights after a while, which is quite impressive as Dad and Amy will tell you from our experience of similar terrain in San Francisco, when I curled up in the back seat like a whimpering kitten. The journey from Medan to Berastagi only took a few hours and although we had all lost the ability to feel our buttocks at all, we were excited to be there.

A traditional longhouse, this one long abandoned and starting to fall down. You can get inside across a small bridge, which spans a kind of square moat that holds no water now, but falls some 35 feet below.

Berastagi is a city with a huge personality, and when you first arrive, the force of it is really quite overwhelming. It is first and foremost a tourist resort, founded by the Dutch who were seeking a cooler climate in the highlands. The temperature was noticably cooler than the jungles of Bukit Lawang, especially at night when it was even slightly cold for the first time on our travels. We had a bit of a nightmare experience on arrival when we failed to do our research and got ripped off at the Tourist Information Centre for a trip up the volcano Sibayak the following day. He charged us 400,000 Rupiah for the three of us, and we paid him 300,000 up front before heading out to an ATM. None of the ATMs were working and one had a power failure halfway through my transaction, and I only just managed to get my card back, making me worry that it was a fake ATM that had just stolen my card details. I texted Mum to let her know there might be a problem and to get her to check my accounts, then we headed back to the TIC to get our deposit back so we could get food and accommodation.

A close up of the longhouse mural, which Kate and Ang say reminds them greatly of the Maori designs they saw in many parts of New Zealand.

When we got there, however, the place was shut up and a guide outside with excellent English told us that we had definitely paid too much. A little pissed off at ourselves and the guy who had taken our money we headed for Wisma Sunrise, our guest house. The owner was really understanding and helpful and stated that we should make up a story that one of us was sick the following day and demand our money back.

"If he refuses," he advised us, "You get really angry and demand the money back, he will give it to you. Shout at him."

So the next day, Ang and Kate headed down leaving me at the guest house and did exactly this. Our money was returned and we began to like Berastagi again. The ATM had been refilled overnight and we got some more money, organised a tour for Monday morning and set off to explore Berastagi itself.

A bit of a dark photo of the climb to Sibayak once you leave the main path, but the overcast weather kept us from boiling to death on the climb! Seen from below, as here, it seems insurmountable, but it's just one foot in front of another....

After Bukit Lawang, Berastagi felt really hectic. We were the only Westerners we saw there for the first couple of days and we were highly visible. Everywhere we went we heard calls of "Hallo Meesta!! Hallo Meesta! Where you from? What's your name?" We learnt quite quickly that it is impossible to stop and talk to everyone, but we always kept friendly smiles on our faces as we called back answers while we walked on by. Berastagi has a great market, and we picked up some presents and souvenirs, planning to send them back to England from the local post office. Unfortunately, we learnt on visiting the post office that to send the goods back would cost almost five times what we paid for them, and so we're toting them around with us now until we return to Malaysia, where we have found postage much cheaper. We are also now jewelleried up to the max, I am currently wearing four necklaces and three bracelets......

The cafes and roadside stalls selling food in Berastagi are amazing and we tried as many places as we could in the days we were there. Our favourites were Eropa, the best Chinese restaurant in Berastagi (where the women were fascinated by our pale skin and strangely coloured hair, and I was very shyly told by our waitress that I was "very beautiful" so she's now got a friend for life), Raymonds Cafe (which has a personality all of its own, sells books and was the only place in Indonesia we've ever seen local women smoking) and we became addicted to the roadside stalls selling corn on the cob smothered in chilli sauce - it blows your mouth off, but tastes so good it's even worth the three hours you spend picking corn from your teeth after.

The crater at Sibayak, where visitors leave messages spelled out in rocks, and where Kate left her own surreal marking of 'Pea'......

The streets of Berastagi are lined with horse and carts, which tote locals and tourists alike to any destination you like. The people are seventy five percent Batak Karo, as in Bukit Lawang and there are many local longhouses - original Batak houses which are beautiful - although with the rise of tourism and the huge hotels in Berastagi, many of these are falling into disrepair, which is a real pity. We loved loitering around the town streets and visited a local longhouse that has been converted into a Catholic church, where we received a warm welcome on Sunday after the service. The place was packed with children and young people who remain at the church after Sunday service to clean up and then to play games and sports, sing and socialise. As well as being a beautiful place to visit, the atmosphere was lovely and we spent some time talking to a local lad, Ray, who was only 15 and has lived in Berastagi all his life. As his father left his mother when she was three months pregnant with Ray, he has never attended school, but has worked since he was a child, and is working hard to learn English in order to secure a better job. He was overwhelmingly delighted to have the opportunity to practise his English on some real English people, and chatted to us about life in Berastagi.

Poverty is a huge issue here. Less and less tourists have taken to venturing to Sumatra since the earthquakes, flash floods and tsunami over past years, and it has taken a heavy toll on the local economy, with locals competing with one another for work. Although you are touted a lot here, the people are not pushy and are equally as happy for a chance to sit and practise their English with you and to proudly show you their town and culture. There is a real sense of welcome here. The local economy is a mix of urban tourism, with people earning their living as tourist guides and running shops, guest houses and restaurants and agri-business, growing coffee, cocoa and palm trees. Many locals work a mixture of jobs and we met a young man called David who works three jobs in cafes, shops and guesthouses - Glenn, his cafe is called The Chelsea Cafe after the Blues, everyone loves football here - and earns only 340 000 Rp a month.

David, our guide to Gundaling Hill, happily relaxing with his drink at The Chelsea Cafe (I think you know why we stopped here, Glenn....). As a thank you, we went with him to the market, where he impressed a local woman he is in love with by showing her his English was good enough to have befriended three English people - Good luck with her David!

"I worry that it is hard for me to ever find a wife, because I do not earn enough and my English is not good enough yet to guide. I try to learn English every day, and listen to your music and watch films. I repeat what the actors say and see what it means on the words underneath," he told us.

David was kind enough to take us to the top of Gundaling Hill to see the sunset, which was beautiful, and humbled us with his delight when we bought him a drink at the Chelsea Cafe close to the top. He even walked us back to our guest house as it was dark. The difference in treatment from the local people (especially the men!) when we had just one male with us was remarkable. No one called out to us when David was with us at all - the representation of Western women in the media and movies that we ship out to Indonesia and the rest of the world has a lot of men thinking that western women will drop their pants at the word hello, it seems. However, after a few days, everyone seemed to recognise us in the town and this calmed down a lot as they realised we weren't exotic dancers or Britney wannabes!

I think the genuine interest we take in the people we meet and the places we go also helps. We have lost count of the number of times we have been told how friendly we are in comparison to many of the westerners who visit and who are often experienced as rude and arrogant by local people, one of those cultural gaps. We took time to explain many times that back home, people do not greet strangers on the street, and that England is not quite as welcoming as Indonesia......

The fire dragon on the volcano - can you believe it? In the background you can see the sulphur vents, which hiss loudly and are incredibly beautiful in a smelly, bad egg sort of way. I'm quite impressed with how serious I look in this shot, it's my new philosophical look....

The next day we met our guide, Karim, who was to escort us to the top of Sibayak. I was quite nervous about this, as I had seen the size of the bloody volcano and was worried that I might not be fit enough. I decided to employ an old strategy of Steve Hender's to help me through the day, The Positivity Diet, where you are not allowed to have any negative thoughts and if you do, you have to instantly reframe them as positive. The climb was hard work, and Kate and Ang are more accustomed to consistent climbs than I am, so Karim and I walked behind a little ways for a lot of the climb and I took the opportunity to ask him all about his life in Kabanjahe, the nearby city he is from, to distract me from the gruelling journey. Like Indra in the jungle, Karim was very mindful of us and regarded our wellbeing as his firm responsibility and he often took my arm at the steeper parts, talking to me the whole time.

"My name is a Muslim name," he told me, "It means 'later'. I don't know why my father chose this name, as we are Christian, but perhaps he meant that I would be a success later in my life...."

A view of Berastagi from Gundaling Hill, not far from our Guest House, Wisma Sunrise. This picture shows perfectly the mix of urban life and a dependence on agriculture that is typical of Sumatra.

Karim told me that, like many local guides, when there are no tourists, he makes his money working in the fields as a labourer. As many as 500 men gather each morning in the market at Berastagi waiting for labouring work in this way and many go home unrewarded.

"There is no money from the government here, so when there is no work, there is no food, there is nowhere to live. It is hard for many of the young ones here now. So many children living on the street, no work, no place to go. Indonesia has a big problem with mental health," he told me, frowning, "People go mad, with no money, no home. It is hard."

You certainly get the sense that underneath the friendly smile and chattering voice of Berastagi is a real desperation to survive, but the city has a gritty strength that reminded me of Portsmouth, and which makes me think it will always find a way through. In addition the local churches - most of the Batak Karo are Christian, a smaller amount Moslem and less followers of traditional Karo religion, which worships spirits, ancestors and animals - play a huge role in the local community, providing a place of relief and respite to many. We met Benjamin at the Catholic church who has returned to his hometown of Berastagi after thirty years in Jakarta, to start a Caro Development Centre in his old family home, which tries to raise the skills and aspirations of local Karo people in agriculture, languages and business so that they might make an independent living more easily.

The fields and plantations where many local people make their living, growing coffee, rice, corn and even chocolate, hmmmmmm.......

The main path up the volcano was a tarmacked road, and increasing in gradient as we neared the top. At the end of the road, it is time to scramble up a small bank. The lush vegetation begins to dissipate, yielding to hard stone and scree. We walk a gravel like path up and up the volcano side. We turn a corner, and there it is - the top of the volcano!

I have no idea, looking at it how we possibly get there, it looks insurmountable, in every possible way. Before this thought can hold my attention and work on my confidence and positivity though, I notice the sulphur vents, and the sharp smell of sour eggs in the air. Around the vents are yellow stains as the sulphur leaks through.

“People collect the sulphur from here to use as compost in the fields,” Karim explains, and we are stunned to think that anyone can do what for us is a one off trek, sometimes several times a day.

Although it is impossible from a distance to see a way up the side of the volcano, as we draw nearer, footholds reveal themselves and I see that the path is walkable. I have a Forrest Gump moment where it seems to me that life is like walking the volcano in many ways.

When you look at the future, it seems insurmountable sometimes to think how you will ever get there, but as one moment becomes the next, each step reveals itself and you draw closer and closer to your goal. It is that simple, which is of course, not to say that it is easy. Climbing is not something that comes naturally to me, as it does to say, a mountain goat, but it is really just the trick of taking each moment as it comes and putting one foot in front of the other.

Before long we have reached the sulphur vent that only moments before seemed so far away. Karim picks up a stick of bamboo and reaches into the vent, which billows large clouds of steam into the air and deposits bright yellow sulphur onto the sides of the vent. Someone has placed a large canvas sack here, that seems to be collecting the sulphur as it emerges. Karim scrambles back down, bringing us the stick of bamboo with a large pile of sulphur powder in the end. I touch it and am surprised by its softness, like talcum powder, but with a very different smell to it.

“Now we will got to the crater, I think?” he asks. We nod eagerly and begin to climb the scree once more, passing several more vents along the way. Before long, we reach a small peak and as we come over the top, a steep, sheer grey wall of stone rises high above us. There are more sulphur events here, but in a sharp drop beneath the wall and dead ahead of us is a large crater, almost circular. I laugh with delight as we draw near.

Another dark photo, but I'm posting it because off in the distance on the right you can just see the top of Sibayak, the volcano we climbed. This is the view from our guest house, Wisma Sunrise, and you can see Berastagi unfolding into the distance.

At the base of the crater, the floor of which seems almost sandlike, visitors to the volcano have spelled out hundreds of messages written in rocks: names, hearts with initials and messages of peace or welcome. I find this touch of utter human quirkiness and foible strangely touching, an impermanent graffiti using small pieces of the volcano itself. Kate scrambled down to write 'Peace' but Ang and I stop her at 'Pea' as we think it is a much more surreal message to leave behind....

From the crater, we climb again to the very top of the volcano and the view down to the jungle that covers the other side is absolutely stunning. We can hardly believe we will be climbing down there. We spend a couple of hours at the top of the volcano, chatting with Karim, singing and sharing our energy food of biscuits, bananas and crisps. I am delighted that my positive thinking diet has made even the difficult parts of the experience a real achievement, and I am surprised to realise the obvious - the bigger the difficulty of an experience, the greater the achievement when you make it!

A huge millipede we saw on our way up, the fag packet gives you some idea of its size, but Karim assured us it was completely harmless and picked it up to show us. This, of course, only made us scream like the girls we are and run away.

The journey down is through the jungle and on a much, much steeper gradient and we almost come a cropper a couple of times (ok, to be honest, I slid down on my arse once and nearly ripped my hip out of its socket, but it's impossible to dwell on the pain when you're laughing so much and Kate and Ang are hopping around you screaming "Man Down!! Man Down!!"), but the sheer exhilaration of the speed at which you are forced to move makes the experience amazing. Karim told us that on his own, he can run down the side, but I would be dead within seconds if I attempted it, so settled at a jaunty hop and jog for much of it, taking time and care at the difficult bits, mum, honest!

When we reached the bottom, we were hot, sweaty and happily exhausted, but the icing on the cake was about to come. As if climbing a volcano for a day isn't enough, when you get to the bottom there is a hot spring - and they mean hot! So, it was into our cossies and into the spring, which, unlike the jungle trek, completely stopped any of our muscles aching. We spent a couple of hours lounging in and out of the spring, which was sheer bliss.

"Could anyone else do with a glass of champagne right now?" I asked. If only we had thought to bring some....

A bus journey back to Berastagi found us back in Raymonds for the duration of the evening and time to plan our trip to Danau Toba, one of Indonesia's biggest lakes, and the island of Samosir, that sits at the lake's centre, formed from a volcano thousands of years ago. We found a local guest house that chartered buses, as it is a very long journey on public transport and we had decided to compromise on this small luxury as we will be getting a public bus back from Toba to Medan.

Our guide, Karim, collecting sulphur to show us at the vents.

As I write this, we have already been in Lake Toba for a few days, and it is indeed an island paradise, but with a darker side that I will tell you all about in the next thrilling installment of our Indonesian adventure.....! Stay tuned!

Ms Berry - loving your comments, sorry I missed you from the messages on the last one, I'm rubbish! How did the interview go? xx

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.......