Happy Shiny People

Note: For anyone who isn't aware, to view photos in more detail, just click on them to enlarge!

This situation is getting a little out of hand. We're nearing the end of our Australia visit, over six months into our trip, and I'm still blogging about things we did a couple of months ago!

I very badly need to get this blog up to speed so I'm going to fast forward through a bunch of stuff. Basically, after Laos we returned to Thailand and spent a week on one of the islands learning to scuba dive. It's probably one of the most amazing things I've ever done, but I'll tell you about it another time – if not on the blog, defo in person.

After getting our scuba diving licence, we hot-tailed it to Malaysia, where we were due to catch a flight to Indonesia to meet up with Nina and Julia, two lovely friends that I've known since sixth form.

On 7th August, at around midday, the four of us sat in the cafe at the front of our hostel feeling amazed and excited that we were all there together on the other side of the world. Once we'd gotten over this and spent a good few hours catching up on each other's trips (they were nearing the end of a two-month trip to Indonesia), we started to discuss our forthcoming adventure together. You see, we'd signed ourselves up for a three-day jungle trek.

None of us had done any trekking before. In fact, aside from Karl and his kickboxing, none of us had done any real exercise in about six months. Nevertheless, the following day we made our way to Bukit Lawang, a little town on the edge of the jungle. We met our guide, Thomas, who assured us that he had secured us some 'bloody swanky rooms' at a local guesthouse for the night. The rooms were pretty nice, and we made the most of our last shower and comfortable bed for three days. The following morning, we put on our oldest clothes, laced up our walking shoes, packed our rucksacks and headed into the wilderness.

Within 15 minutes, we were a little out of breath and already starting to sweat. Secretly, I was already hoping that Thomas would pause more frequently to explain something about the surrounding wildlife so that I could put on my best 'interested' face while my nostrils did overtime trying to get a bit more oxygen into my lungs. I'm not sure Thomas was wholly convinced by this act.

An hour later we were properly in the jungle. It's essentially a sauna with trees, and for the next three days we spent most of our time looking like this. Happy, shiny people.

Probably the sweatiest I've ever been in my entire life

As if the heat wasn't bad enough, the trekking itself wasn't exactly an easy stroll in the park. The paths we followed generally went either very steeply uphill, or very steeply downhill. Uphill paths were like climbing a couple of hundred massive steps, often pulling ourselves upwards with the help of the vines and tree roots growing across the slope. It was murder on the legs and left us gasping for breath.


Surprisingly, downhill was not easier at all. The paths were steep and often very muddy, so each footstep down was a potential skid so we had to use vines and roots to steady ourselves as we cautiously made our way. With my usual grace and elegance, I found myself sliding down on my arse more than once. By the time we got to the bottom, my legs were weak and wobbly and my bum was covered in mud.

Yet, even though we (the girls) spent a lot of time grumbling about how only absolute mentals could possibly want a hobby such as climbing or hiking, it was loads of fun (in fact, less than a week later we were discussing walking holidays). It was exhausting, but at the end of each day it was also extremely satisfying to look back and think about how far we'd walked, while we wolfed down tea and biscuits like there was no tomorrow. Between the four of us, we polished off four rather big packets of biscuits in three days. We were almost as proud of this as we were of our trekking.

Teatime!

Speaking of biscuits, the food on the trek was incredible. We'd been convinced that we'd be eating the plainest of meals, but for three days Thomas and his three trusty helpers cooked up the best food we had in our entire time in Indonesia. Every meal was outstanding. This is what we ate over the course of our trek:

DAY ONE:

We'd eaten breakfast at our hotel that morning.

Lunch: Nasi Goreng (fried rice with vegetables), with a perfectly fried egg on top, prawn crackers and chilli sauce. All beautifully wrapped up in banana leaf packages.

Trying to disguise a gob full of food with a dashing smile. Is it working?

Snacks: Passion fruit, oranges, bananas, rambutan and pineapple.

Dinner: Chicken curry, vegetable curry, tofu and soy bean in chilli sauce, rice.

DAY TWO:

Breakfast: Toast with tomato and scrambled eggs that had been cooked with onions and chillies.

Lunch: Noodle soup. This was cooked on the spot while we sat by a beautiful little stream.

Snacks: Same fruit as yesterday, with watermelon instead of pineapple.

Dinner: Sardines in a tomato & chilli sauce, vegetable curry, tofu and soybean in chilli sauce, BBQ fish, rice.

Feast. Easily the best food we had in Indonesia.

DAY THREE:

Breakfast: Pancakes (cooked in a wok!), with condensed milk.

By lunchtime we were back at our guesthouse.

After dinner, Thomas would tell us funny stories about the jungle and his own life. He's an awesome guy with a great sense of humour, and he looked after us really well. He and his helpers entertained us in the evenings by teaching us card games and a selection of weird but fun games, including “Lah-dee-dah”, Peanut Marriages and 'This is a cup. A What? A Cup!” Don't ask yet, just remind us to teach you them when we get home. As well as preparing great meals and keeping us entertained, they trekked alongside us each day. Except they were each carrying huge bags weighing about 20k, containing food, cooking utensils, sleeping mats and everything else needed for our trek. And as we puffed and panted, grumbled and fell, they managed to never look tired or complain.

Our guides were hauling these around the jungle
while we struggled just to carry ourselves!

Chillies being ground and fish being BBQ'd for our dinner

The two nights that we were in the jungle, we camped in the most beautiful spots. On the first night, our camp was set up by a little stream with a beautiful waterfall just a few minutes away. I know we've gone on about waterfalls a bit in South East Asia, and you'd think we'd had enough. But this was definitely the best we'd been in so far. After the day trekking, a bit of a splash about in the cool water was just what we needed. Plus Thomas had brought some soap, so we had a good wash too!

Campsite No 1 was at a waterfall

Chilling out at the campsite while dinner is prepared

The next day, camp was set up by a big river. The water was fairly fast flowing, so we just paddled rather than swam. But it was a breathtaking spot, surrounded by dense jungle.

A scenic riverside spot for Campsite No 2

I've got a little carried away and managed to write all this without a single mention of the reason we'd decided on this trek in the first place. Orang-utans. The jungle in Bukit Lawang is one of the only places in the world where you can see them in the wild. The trek was largely about orang-utan spotting. And we saw loads! This fuzzy ginger fellow is one of the first we spotted, and he was more than happy to pose for us before heading off to build a little nest for his afternoon nap:

"Now I'm the King of the Jungle, see, the Jungle VIP..."
Come on, you know the song!

Later we came across Sandra, who had her adorable ball-of-orange-fluff baby clutching onto her. He's only four months old and was getting to grips with climbing:

Sandra and her baby!

We saw a few gibbons and macaques as well, and also a beautiful peacock. And then one of the guides heard a rustling and looked up. “It's Mina!” he shouted “Quickly, go, go, go!” Mina is a butch lady orang-utan who is renowned for attacking guides if they don't give her food. Of the 140 guides that work in the jungle, she's managed to get her hands on at least half of them. We'd read about Mina in our Lonely Planet guide, and we wasted no time in legging it as fast as we could go (not very) while the guides tried to distract her. Her name came up again a few more times on that first day, but beyond a faint ginger blur in the distance, we never managed to get a proper look at her. By the afternoon, we were exhausted from walking and beginning to lag. I wouldn't be surprised if the guides warnings of 'Mina!' were just part of their plan to get us moving along a bit faster...

On the subject of wildlife, we saw some very cool creatures. Look at these guys! I'd like to pretend I wasn't afraid of the green one, but that'd be lying.

On our last day, Thomas could see that our legs were no longer in working condition. Karl could probably have continued trekking quite easily, but us girls were pooped. Thomas took pity on us, gave us the morning off to paddle in the river, laze about in the sun, skim stones and finish the last of the biscuits.

Down by the river

Our trekking included a rafting trip back home. At midday, the youngest helper (who looked about 16) appeared in the distance carrying four huge rubber rings. Amazingly, he'd been walking for an hour and a half, carrying these upstream from the village. Karl had a go at carrying them and almost managed to both fall over and suffocate himself, before managing to stagger into this pose long enough for a photo:

How not to carry a stack of inner tubes

The tubes were roped together to form a raft and all our stuff was secured in waterproof bags (so no photos of the raft, I'm afraid!) and tied on board. We all climbed in and enjoyed a bumpy, splashy journey through the rapids on our way back to the village. It was the perfect end to the trek.

The perfect antidote to all this exercise was a week on Lake Toba.

Knackered from our trek, the next morning we all bundled into a minibus and headed to an island in the middle of a lake in the middle of an extinct volcano. It was beautiful and peaceful and relaxing. We stayed in gorgeous little bungalows, which turned out to be the cheapest and cosiest accommodation we've had to date (1.50!!).

Our cosy bungalow

We spent our days reading, lounging around in cafes or on our porches, and swimming in the lake.

Apparently the lake is over 400m deep! The water is cool and clear, and to Karl's delight there was a diving board at one of the swimming points. What better way to spend an afternoon than repeatedly hurling yourself into a lake?

My rather timid jump off the dive board,
followed by Karl's more adventurous attempt.

As much as we'd intended to have a productive week of exploring the island, the only other thing we did on Lake Toba was sample the local jungle juice. Nina and Julia had befriended a local guy called Eddie whilst out on a cycling trip, and he'd invited us all to his shop to enjoy a jug of this strange booze, which is tapped from palm trees daily. So the next evening, we traipsed off, wearing our waterproofs because of the rain and accompanied by a dog from one of the nearby restaurants. We named him Timmy because it felt a bit like a Famous Five adventure, except with alcohol and no baddies. This fantasy was shattered when Timmy abandoned us after half an hour when he got distracted by a lady dog.

Karl, Nina, Julia and Timmy too!

The jungle juice was pretty weird. It's quite a milky drink, served at room temperature (rooms being warmer in Asia than in the UK), and with a yeasty flavour. It took a while to get the first mug down us, and I felt apprehensive before each mouthful as I hadn't decided whether I like it or not. I guess this probably meant I didn't. Luckily, Eddie told us that the addition of a bit of ice-cold beer made it even better – and it did! It then became a refreshing and tasty beverage. Phew.

Mmm, milky beer...

As a snack, Eddie lit a BBQ and cooked up some fish that he'd caught from the lake the day before. After a few more drinks, we all headed off to a bar, and the next morning we slept in and were glad that we had no big plans for the day. Life on Toba was pretty good.

A week after we arrived on the island, it was time to leave. We said goodbye to Nina and Julia, and I felt a little sad on the boat journey back to the edge of the volcano. The two weeks we'd spent with them had been absolutely brilliant, and it was so nice to be around good friends again. And it's still a few months more before we'll have that pleasure again.

After Lake Toba, we visited an active volcano in Java, and then spent a couple of weeks on Bali and the Gili Islands before flying onwards to Australia. We'd flown across the equator, marking our first time in the southern hemisphere, where we'll remain until we fly home next year. Halfway through our trip, and halfway across the globe, it felt a bit like a new adventure was beginning.