Welcome to the Jungle

We've been in Indonesia for almost a week now, and it's been one of the best of the trip! From the moment we walked off the plane we have encountered the kindest people of the whole trip. Even the immigration officials in the airport were welcoming! We spent our first 2 nights in Medan, which is the 3rd largest city in the country. Many people and the guidebook described it as too chaotic and haven't enjoyed it, but we liked Medan quite a bit. Everyone on the street was saying hello to us and wanted to know where we were from. We hardly saw another foreigner there.

While there we gathered some info on Bukit Lawang, which is the small town on the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park. This is one of 2 places left in the world where orangutans live in the wild, and there is also a wildlife center to help rehabilitate them. We chose a 2 day/1 night trek into the jungle that included rafting down the river the second day. The trek was the best we've ever done!! On the first day we saw 5 orangutans including 2 babies, and got to watch them for quite awhile. It was an extraordinary experience to be so close to them in the wild rather than just seeing them in a zoo. We also saw Thomas Leaf Monkeys. That night when we reached camp it started to rain a bit, and immediately 3 Monitor Lizards came out. They're huge! This was the first rain we'd seen since November 16th and was really refreshing! We spent the night under a tarp on the ground but slept great. The next day we were fortunate to see some black gibbons (a kind of monkey) which we were also quite close to. At the end of the trek we tubed down the rapids of the river in inner-tubes tied together. The trek was quite hard and I was clearly not in shape for it, but seeing the animals and being in a real rain forest was really incredible! The humidity in the jungle was unbelievable, as Jason said it felt like you were taking a drink with every breath. It made breathing a bit hard at times (or maybe I'm just that out of shape!).

Now we are in Danau Toba (Lake Toba), which is a huge crater lake with an island the size of Singapore in the middle. We are staying on the island and it's lovely! Last night we stayed in our cheapest room yet--$2.50 for the two of us, and it was quite clean and nice! The owner of our hotel is so friendly and hospitable, it's a nice change from a lot of what we've encountered in other countries. We will probably rent a motorbike one day and travel around the island, do some swimming and hiking, and lots of relaxing! It will be our first motorbike encounter since the crash at the beginning of the trip, but we'll be careful and the conditions will be better! It's so green and beautiful here, hopefully we can get some pictures that capture it. Internet is quite slow so our pictures from the trek may not be posted for a bit.

Unfortunately we only have about 10 more days on Sumatra (the island of Indonesia that we're on). I think we could spend a lot more time here, it's my favorite place so far on the whole trip. From here we will spend a few days in Singapore and then fly to Jakarta and head through Eastern Indonesia. I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the country is like!