Chasing Waterfalls

“A fool wishes to know no more about what drives him than simply that it does. A judicious man will seek his motivations, but in the end, find himself merely a more worthy fool.” -Max Berlin

Soo, a bit has happened since the last entry. The majority of it took place more recently, but I would like to share a particular irrelevant story with you from earlier before getting into it. I took a bus from K.L. to Singapore, slated to arrive around 12:30 at night. I get to customs around midnight, and go through the motions-bag on the belt, smile at the guards, hope they don’t want me to open it; they do. Now, what, in this situation-a security check at a country border, surrounded by armed men, at a particularly strained time for large backpacks in our world’s history- could be the worst conceivable move on my part? If I had to venture a guess, I’d say it’s something like occurred. On the way there, I saw a couple of small roaches on the bus, which is nasty, but they were small. I go to open my bag, and sitting there is the mother of all roaches, looking right at me. So, naturally, I scream like a girl and stumble wildly backwards, causing the 6 men with guns surrounding me to jump and scream like girls too. In hindsight, it would make for a funny scene in a movie, but in reality, it’s probably not one of the best reactions I could have had. Then, to top it off, the bus left me! There was one older man behind me in the customs line, who said he’d go tell them to wait, while I and six grown men went “Ew! Ew!” and picked items one at a time out of my bag, looking for one giant, crafty roach. After a short period, I was forced to concede that the bug had eluded us at present, and I had better get going or I wouldn’t have a ride. When I arrived outside, the old man was there, but he said, “They left us. I tried to run after them and I waved at them, but he just left.” Luckily, Singapore is small, and we were only about 20 km out of the city center, so (as ours was the last bus of the evening), two nice gentlemen gave us a ride to the nearest taxi stand, and from there, we split a taxi into town. I never did learn his name, but he was very friendly. He spent the ride telling me about Singapore and how clean and safe it was (and he was absolutely correct in this). When the cab dropped him off first, he bid me a good journey, and pointing at me like a caring old relative said, “buckle up and then you’ll really be safe in Singapore.”

Other than that, Singapore passed without much incident. Once again, I stumbled onto a parade and fireworks display for the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Otherwise, I sort of felt like I was back in Europe and was much spoiled by Starbucks, a large flat screen tv in the hostel, and the LOTR trilogy. Once I left there, I just sort of haphazardly threw myself onto a multitude of buses for the next three days with the vague idea of going back to Thailand…but in the end, I met an English girl just come from Indonesia, who, after some persuasive stories, convinced me I should go there while I’m “in the area” as it were. I took a five hour ferry from Malaysia to Medan, the capitol city of the largest of the Indonesian islands, Sumatra. Medan doesn’t do much for me. I’m actually there right now. It’s crowded, home to a good 10 million people, and it’s polluted and noisy. My initial intentions were to head to a little place in north Sumatra called Pulau Weh, where there is supposed to be an excellent beach and snorkeling. But then I get to talking to the travel agent, and decide instead upon a 2 day trek through the Indonesian rain forest in search of orangutans. I take a bus from the city to a village about 3 hours away called Bukit Lawang, accompanied by my guide, Udin, who introduces himself first and foremost as “Jungle Boy”.

By the time we reach the village, there’s a pretty violent storm going on. I ask idiotically if it rains like this often, to which Udin replies, “it is the rainforest.” It’s a short drive via motorbike from bus station to guesthouse, which we make, bags and all, in the pouring rain. When we arrive, I am immediately faced with the narrowest, ricketiest bridge I have ever seen. Add this to the fact that it runs over very troubled water, it’s completely dark (minus the occasional lightening menacing overhead), it’s pouring, I have an unevenly distributed 60 lbs on my back and am wearing an ankle length skirt, sopping wet. The best advice I attain from my Indonesian escort? “Don’t worry. Chicken curry.”

I stay the first night in the village, intending to leave for the trek the next morning, but decide to just hang out for a day first, on the word that there might be a few more tourists wanting to go the next day. In the meantime, Udin takes me to the weekly market and to his house to meet his wife and two adorable children and I get a chance to familiarize myself with a few of the locals. Next morning, Udin and I head into the jungle with another group of two Dutch girls doing a one day trek. Pretty early on, we see a bunch of Thomas Monkeys, and then shortly after, a breed of Long-Tailed something or other. Then, about 45 minutes in, we spot an orangutan. All in all, we saw 4 orangutans, one with a baby, and one, sadly, with a dead baby. Udin is impressed with my agility in trekking over rocks and roots, and I am forced to “open my secret”-as they say in Russia-and am obliged to tell him that I am not truly an authentic city girl, but in fact grew up in the backwoods of Texas. Aside from the monkeys, the jungle itself was a pretty amazing place. We came in and out of contact with the river, which unfortunately was all cloudy due to a landslide upstream the day I arrived. (I have that effect on terrain) We have to cross it on one occasion, and in doing so, Udin takes my hand. I’m not especially keen on the whole “you’re a girl; you need my help” sort of thing, but I underestimated this particular river. I counted 3 times that, had he not had hold of me, I would likely have been swept away, much to the detriment of my digital camera.

We reach the campsite to find our cook, Ling, already there-cooking-and the tent set up. Ling makes wonderful wonderful food and that night he plays a bunch of matchstick tricks on me, while everyone has a good laugh at my ineptitudes in spacial reasoning. Next morning, I am treated to banana pancakes before heading back. There are several gentlemen from Holland at the campsite next door who invite me to go back to the village by way of rafting with them-but they are all in their underwear-and thanks but no thanks.

So Ling and Udin and I head back for some distance before encountering (unexpectedly, I’m sure) Udin’s brother, who has brought with him about 20 of his students from an all-girls English school in Medan on a field trip. Udin suggests we stop for a bit, so I take up a place on a rock, but am soon surrounded by the girls, and I begin to feel a bit like an exhibit…not that I didn’t enjoy it. We talk for a while, me answering questions, and them testing their English on a live specimen. They too are rafting back, all 20 of them, and as they have an extra seat on one of their rafts, they invite me to join them. I feel a little better about this group, so I take them up on it, and we have a grand ole time screeching our way down the rapids. Then we take pictures….a LOT of pictures, and I pass out for several hours before Udin comes by to take me up a hill on his motorbike for a better view of the village.

The whole couple of days in Bukit Lawang was really amazing, but I am also looking forward to my next destination in western Sumatra, Lake Toba. It’s supposed to be very peaceful there, and I think I’ll enjoy a bit of time to myself just relaxing.

…Then it’s volcano time.