There are 7,000 orangutans left in the world and 5,000 of them can be found in Gunang Leuser National Park which can be accessed through Bukit Lawang. We did an incredible tour with Bukit Lawang- Jungle Trekking to see these incredible creatures. This is our story on the tour, what to expect and why it was one of the top things on the trip so far.
From the beginning, our tour guide made the point on how tourism is important for the town and safeguards the forest. Without tourism, the local would be destroying the forest and the habitat of the orangutans. This truly is proper eco-tourism. Everything is done and run by locals, not some big tourist agency. You can see the passion of everyone involved to protect the forest, and every tourist who comes helps to provide important income to locals and thus help deter them away from illegal logging and palm oil plantations.
The jungle was beautiful and we had never done a jungle trek quite like this before. The hike was steep and narrow and the guides would always help us on the way. Within an hour trekking into the jungle our first spot was an orangutan! We saw a family of five, then another mother who was dangling from our heads and then best of all the male orangutan. We had been exceptionally lucky as within the space of two hours we had seen 16 orangutans.
The male orangutan was the highlight as seeing the king of the jungle roam freely in the wild is something we will never forget. It swung just five metres away from us and we were both mesmerised. The way it swung through the branches and orangutans have the most immaculate hair we have ever seen literally not on hair out of place very groomed creatures. We kept following the male orangutan steps for a good half an hour. It was absolutely breath taking to see the male orangutan in the wild.
Once the male orangutan left us, we had a break and then continued exploring the forest. Our guide told us how when it rains the orangutans sit in their nest with leaves round their heads to protect them from the rain. We also saw a lot of the strangler trees in the forest that towered above all the other trees and were beautiful. Along the way we were lucky enough to see the Thomas Leaf Monkey up in a tree and surprisingly got really close to us and we were lucky enough to catch a sight of one of their babies.
After a six hour trek on the day we finally reached camp. The camp was basic but there was something magical about being surrounded by the jungle. We played games with the guide, heard their jungle stories and talked about the future of their town. Considering the basic nature of camp the food was absolutely incredible. We had a mix of different Indonesian food; garlic chicken, coconut curry and many more. Camp was right next to a river and we did a short walk and suddenly we spotted a monitor lizard. I had never seen a monitor lizard before but it reminded me of a small Komodo dragon. We then started following the lizard down the river as we thought it would be the only one but we would see but so many more over the next two days.
The next day we left camp at 10am and started our second trek into the jungle. It had been raining heavily through the night and orangutans do not like rain. It also changed our fortune as the first six hours of the trek we did not see one orangutan. During out stop for lunch we did manage to see a peacock and turtle. I never expected to see a peacock in the rainforest but apparently its pretty common as they like to eat the different plants, seeds, flower petals and insects found in the rainforest. The turtle as well looked like a cross between a lizard and turtle and I had not seen anything like its type before.
We then headed into camp four final night and suddenly saw three more orangutans climbing the trees. These weren’t as close as the orangutans we saw on the first day but we do not think anything could come close to beating the male orangutan on day one. By the second night we were a lot more tired as the treks were tough at times especially going down to camp. It was a sharp and narrow hike down that we did feel relieved when we reached the bottom. We had an early night on day two ready to start the descend back into the town of Bukit Lawang on day three.
Before we left camp on day three – we saw an incredible siting of different kinds of monkeys and also a baboon. One monkey was even cheeky enough to steal Nick’s biscuits at breakfast time much to Nick’s dismay.
We travelled back to town by tubing down the jungle river. This was a fun and relaxed way to end the experience. We packed everything onto the three inflated rings, and then got in and started our descent back into the town where we started. After we got back our local guide took us into the town and as it was a Sunday a lot of people from the neighbouring towns travelled down to Bukit Lawang to relax by its river. We also got asked a lot for photos as it was the first time some of the locals had seen foreigners!
This was an incredible jungle trek and one we would highly recommend for its animals and the passion of its local people. Here’s hoping more people will be able to enjoy the area and orangutans in the future.