We’ve got fun and games! Guns N Roses – that was the soundtrack in my head after arriving here, sitting 10 hours in a car for 250 kilometers, I really wanted to rock out!

And I did, Saturday night was a big one! A pretty good live band played right at the place I stayed Indra Valley. Vivian a lady from Hungary checked in the 2nd room just in time for the party, we got on pretty well together and shared couple of beer and lots of stories & laughs while listening to the sweet sounds of the “The Valley Boys”.

I bumped into the two Dutch girls I shared a car with from Lake Toba the other day in town and we went to the bat cave together. I didn’t expect anything and was just stoked by the natural beauty, a big cave with awesome rock formations and actual bats living in there. It took us one hour to properly explore the whole system and crawl all over, of course without a guide, we brought a torch!

The main reason, all the tourist venture out here to the jungle is the orang-utans. Once created in the 70’s by a Swiss organisation, a rehabilitation center was used to train orang-utans which were held in captivity to survive again in nature. Also public feedings took place twice a day, so tourists could just visit the viewing platforms to see the apes, in the meantime this has stopped and you have to go on a trek to spot them.

Some quick facts about the big primates:

  • Currently only found in Indonesia (Sumatra and Borneo)
  • Live in trees
  • Up to 4 times stronger than humans
  • Among the most intelligent primates
  • Mainly eat fruits
  • Live over 30 years

You got to go with a guide as the ways of the jungle are pretty entangled. We went up and down, through valleys, over lots of roots, we slipped over rocks, hanging on jungle vines and crawled up holding on them, deep in the massive jungle of Gunung Leuser National Park, it feels wild, although we walk along worn out paths. On our trek we could spot multiple orang-utans it’s just amazing looking at them see how they move or chill in the wild. We also saw lots of leaf monkey’s, some snakes, giant ants, a turtle, fish, insects, butterflies, mosquito’s, cicadas, termites and other insects, big trees and massive entangled jungle vines. I came back to the village by rafting in a big tire – local style, so much fun!

Lovely jungle and I enjoyed every bit, the trek was strenuous with steep climbs and descents, the area around the valley just magnificent and exploding with life but somehow I feel more drawn towards the ocean now, times they are a changing!