The first part of the trip we spent in Bukit Lawang, a small town recovering from a major flood in 2003 that is the base for orangutan viewing in Sumatra. The town is located on the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park, a hardwood rainforest jungle which is one of only a couple locations where orangutans live in the wild. It is the home to the largest animal sanctuary of Sumatran orangutan (around 5,000 orangutans occupy the area) and a rehabilitation center that was founded in 1973 to preserve the decreasing orangutan population caused by hunting, trading, and deforestation. Sumatra has one of the highest deforestation rates of any country in the world and some predict that wild orangutans will be extinct by 2023. By some estimates, more than 80 percent of all orangutan habitat has already been destroyed. Although once found throughout southeast Asia, orangutans today live only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, and their numbers have dwindled from perhaps several hundred thousand to between 15,000 to 24,000. Orangutans are the world's largest arboreal mammal, eating, sleeping, nesting, and traveling in the trees of the rain forest. Rarely coming to the ground, they live on the fruits, leaves, seeds, bark, and insects of the rain forests.
We were lucky enough to see 6 orangutans, babies, mamas and one large male. We saw them at a feeding platform established by the rehabilitation center so they varied from completely wild to orangutans that were re-located here after they were left homeless due to illegal logging or were rescued from captivity. They were truly amazing and HUGE. We could get pretty close, the rangers and guides letting us know when it was time to back up. They are magnificent creatures who share 96.4% the same DNA as us. We observed a huge wild male barfing up his food, slurping it back up and repeating the process over and over again. We learned that they are ruminants and I felt very happy that this is a trait we don't share. We were amazed at how neatly he did this though and surprised that he didn't get any in his beautiful red fur. We also went on a jungle trek where we learned more about the rainforest, scaled hillsides, climbed down a waterfall, swam in a couple of swimming holes and went tubing on the river back to town.
The town is located on a stunning river and we spent many hours playing with river rocks, reflecting on how similar it felt to a river in California and time we spend on the Navarro River, minus the monkeys and orangutans of course.
From here, we went to Medan, the second largest city in Indonesia where we celebrated Owen's birthday. While the scenery in Bukit Lawang was amazing, the accommodations were quite rustic, no flush toilets, no hot water, no ac or fan, mattresses that had seen better days, many, many bugs and a worm that excreted glow in the dark fluid when we tried to move it off our mosquito net. This was also compounded by a rock concert starring the jungle trek guides that lasted until around 3 am that was right next to our hotel making sleep almost impossible. We ended up retreating to the Marriott in Medan for some luxury. Here we swam in the pool, ordered room service, enjoyed the buffets (the boys love buffets), took hot baths, got free birthday cakes and enjoyed the ac in our executive suite.
Our day in Medan was a bit surreal. We went to a wildlife museum that housed over 1,000 taxidermy animals that appeared to be one man's collection, some of them rare specimens of genetic deformations (something that looked like a goat with a chicken head, I kid you not). After this we went to an arcade in a large, loud mall and played games that we play at home at the Tundra Lodge in Wisconsin.
Back in Banda Aceh, we visited the Tsunami Museum which was impressive and powerful. Over 230,000 people died in Banda Aceh and another 500,000 were left homeless. Over 60% of the buildings were destroyed. The pictures and stories of destruction and devastation were intense. When we asked our taxi driver whether he was there during the earthquake and tsunami he said, "Yes." when we asked if his family was okay, he said, "Wife bagus (good), son, four years old tidak (not good)" He made a sweeping motion with his hand and told us that he watched his son be swept away. It was heartbreaking and this story was far too common. When he told us, "four year old son", he pointed to Henry who is probably about the same size as his son when he died and I couldn't imagine the feeling of losing a child particularly in that way.
Writing about the trip, I realize how amazing it was. In the moment, we were feeling taxed and exhausted. Traveling in Sumatra was harder than in Bali. There are far fewer tourists and family tourists are almost non-existant. The boys with their blond hair were huge attractions with everyone touching their hair, wanting to take their pictures and giving them more attention than wanted. At first it was nice that people were so friendly and intrigued. We were using as much Bahasa as we had and spent one very pleasurable afternoon on the river in Bukit Lawang with a Sumatran family sharing stories, sharing food and getting to know them. However, by the end of the week, the attention was too much. The boys were tired of people touching them without them wanting it and we were tired of struggling to find the words. In addition, sleeping conditions were rough. The hotels were rustic, although the #1 on trip advisor, and hot nights and poor mattresses left us all a bit sleep deprived and cranky. We also craved kids to play with and so were happy to return to Bali where the kids have playmates. Originally the trip had been planned with a couple of other families but in the end besides one night spent in Bukit Lawang with 2 other Green School families we were on our own.
The exhaustion, lack of comforts and feeling of differentness left us all feeling pretty homesick. When we got on the plane, Henry asked desperately, "Is this plane taking us back to Berkeley?" I think we all wished on some level that it was, but then I look at our pictures from the trip and I think, this would never have happened in Berkeley.
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