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Bukit Lawang, Sumatra and the Orang-utans - April 2009

For those families who are looking for a little adventure in the jungle for a long weekend try Bukit Lawang in North Sumatra. Bukit Lawang is one of the most accessible places to see orang-utans in Indonesia and for enjoying ‘tubing’ down child friendly white water!

There are frequent flights to Medan, and it’s an easy 2.5/3 hour drive from there through palm oil and rubber plantations to the Gunung Leuser National Park where Bukit Lawang is located. We stayed in the Jungle Inn Lodge, which is at the entrance of the national park and over looks the forest canopy and a gushing river ideal for tubing and swimming.

The Jungle Inn is the most established and probably best accommodation available; we paid Rp 350.000 per night for their best room, which was large with a king size bed and they put extra mattresses on the floor for our children aged 3.5 and 2. I can’t describe waking up in the morning and staring out of our open roofed en suite bathroom at birds and monkeys playing in the forest canopy above us. We spent part of each afternoon just watching orang-utans and monkeys from our balcony as they went about their daily rituals which included going down to the river below us to drink. Unbeatable!

This area is particularly popular with local tourists and back packers, so all of the accommodation is fairly basic, but Jungle Inn is clean, comfortable, has friendly and accommodating guides for hiking in the jungle with children, and stunning views. All the accommodation in Bukit Lawang is situated on a footpath that follows the river up to the entrance of the national park. Jungle Inn is an easy 15-minute walk from the main road when you arrive but there are plenty of strong men around to carry bags and the children if they need help (just don’t depart at 6.30am like we did!). The manager of Jungle Inn spoke perfect English which make booking a room and organising a car easy. The car was well serviced, arrived on time, comfortable and had seat belts in the back and front. If there is anything that let the Jungle Inn down it was their food service, but we quickly learned to order in advance and specify a time we wanted it, and all was well. Their food was ok, a mix of Indonesian and the standard European pastas, pizzas, burger style food too. Our children had plenty to choose from for the days we were there. They do great porridge (it’s cold in the mornings there) and banana pancakes; although don’t try the Jungle Inn muesli unless you want a banana boat style desert with no banana or muesli! Our favourite restaurant with great homemade food and good service was the ‘Garden Inn’ hotel just down the river from the Jungle Inn. There are lots of other decent restaurants around, we tried a few. There are no baby sitting services anywhere though, so if you have young children that you can't leave there isn't much else to do in the evenings except sit out on your balcony, or you could eat at the Jungle Inn where it is possible to sit in view of the door of your room.

The first morning we went to one of the scheduled supplementary feedings of the orang-utans and monkeys in the national park which happens daily at 9am and 4pm. It’s a 20 minute walk to the feeding site, up lots of forest steps, but our children were so excited to see the orang-utans that they didn't worry about the steps, our 3.5 year old ran all the way. We weren’t disappointed – 4 orang-utan mothers and their babies came to be fed and plenty of monkeys as well. There’s no guarantee you’ll see them there, but usually you do. We then walked slowly back examining every leaf, bug and butterfly along the way which the children loved. We spent an hour or two in the afternoon floating down the river and running back upstream again, our youngest clad with armbands – you do need to watch the current a little in places and water shoes are a good idea. We also hired a purpose built inner tube to float on once we were bored of body floating– all the tourists love it and with good reason, it’s awesome. We had so much fun and unlike Mongolia where we used to ‘tube’ on the rivers, the river here is WARM. You can hire life jackets if you need them and even pay someone to run up the footpath with the tube if you go all the way down, so you don’t have to carry it. It is hours of fun.

On day two we got brave and went on a half-day trek with the children. Our guide from Jungle Inn, was very patient and amenable. The standard trek is usually a full day (4-5 hours walk time) or alternatively two or more days, but Hasani found us a route that only required us to walk slowly for about 2.5-3 hours, as we’d requested. A half-day trek is Rp 300.000 - 400.000 including guides and tubing back down the river. We stopped and started all the time looking at the wonderful flora, fauna, orang-utans and Thomas monkeys that Hasani pointed out along the way. Several of the orang-utans we came across were happy for us to watch them for fairly long periods of time at close proximity, the children were fascinated. There was so much to see and hear in the jungle. Towards the end of our trek Hasani found a hidden waterfall pool for us to swim in deep in the jungle, it was a wonderful experience. After that we followed the water down to the main river to raft/tube home on the white water for about 10 minutes with a child on each of our laps. The water is most definitely ‘white’ there was some gleeful whooping when we took some water on over some of the slightly bigger rapids. Not all children would enjoy it as ours did, but it was safe and they had life jackets for the children. It was an incredible morning. Even our youngest, who was in a backpack for a good part of the time was just transfixed by the sounds of the jungle and loved every minute. We took a second guide with us to help our 3.5 year old son if he needed it, which he did on some of the steep parts where it was wet from rain the night before. Both guides inspired the children with their knowledge of everything around us, from larvae to bee’s nests and more. The highlight for my husband and I was probably watching the orang-utans, but I honestly think the children were just as excited by all the sights and sounds of the jungle, that kept them going. It’s a must for anyone who wants some jungle adventure combined with some water fun. It’s probably our best adventure to date in Indonesia, and we’ve had some good ones.

Jungle Inn
Hp: 0813 7073 0151

Guide - Hasani
Hp: 0813 7500 7648

Charlie Granville-Ross
cgranvilleross@gmail.com

Another experienced guide in Bukit Lawang is Hendra Wan (Iwan)

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