Jungle trekking and lake hopping to North Sumatra

Thursday, April 30th : Bukittinggi -> Trek to Lawang Top
We were up nice and early this morning raring to go on the trek. We walked down the road for a massive breakfast at Canyon Cafe and then to try and find some sunscreen. Got back to the hostel and met the 2 Dutch girls we would be trekking with: Maria and Iris, and our 2 guides: An and Tonik. We introduced ourselves and then hopped into a van which would take us to the edge of the Sianok Canyon, where we would start our journey by climbing down into it. We were straight into thick jungle surrounds, slippery mud paths and buzzing insects of all varieties and after 45mins of climbing down the canyon we were all dripping with sweat and wondering if we were capable of doing this for 2 days....!
We sat down on some grass next to a rapid river and had some fruit before An told us to take our boots and pants off as we had to cross the waist deep river to get to the other side. Wide eyed and nervous we all linked hands and began the crossing. It was very difficult because it was moving so fast, but soon enough we were out through to the other side. Still with barefeet we continued climbing through mud and rocks and smaller river beds until we reached a rocky cliff side which we needed to climb. After many ums, ers and 'I don't think I can do this's, we all managed to scramble up bare footed and were thankful we survived. We then took a break, washed our feet in the river and put our soggy, muddy boots back on.
I was the 1 person in the group who was the most squeemish about leeches. I know that they don't really hurt you or anything like that, but just the thought of something wriggling into your clothes and sucking your blood without you knowing makes me feel a bit weird. Soon enough after about 5 more minutes of sloshing through mud and river I looked down at my boots to see a black slimy tail wriggling out of the side. Just in time, I whipped my boot off in to rip the cheeky sucker off. Having survived my first leech and everyone seeing that it wasn't much to worry about, we were off again.
2 days ago there was a big earthquake in Southern Sumatra which caused landslides in this region as it is so wet and muddy at the moment. We had a hard time clambering through, under and over fallen trees and slippery bamboo until we reached an impasse where we simply couldn't go any further. All fairly exhausted and the guides very apologetic, we had to make our way back to the river to try and find another trail we could use. We had a drink of water, took a deep breath and headed back. I managed to cut my leg while climbing through a very moss-covered fallen tree but was quick to give it a wipe with some betadine to keep any nasties out. We backtracked for a while until we found a little track leading up the side of a mountain. We heaved and hoed up the slippery path, a few slips and tumbles along the way, until we reached the top and then began a slight descent into a clearing of huge green rice paddies.
There were lots of local men with hunting dogs who were hunting pigs in the paddies.
We sat in a little hut for a while for some more fruit, bread and water and the guides shared stories of a tiger creeping down from the mountain to pick off farmers in the rice paddies here. All feeling nervously excitied post-tiger story, we continued on our trek. By this time it was quite thundery and raining, Tonik advised that he was sorry, but this would bring out the leeches and mozzies. Yay! We all responded enthusiastically....
Onward ever onward we made our way through some absolutely breath taking scenery. Raging rivers, soaring mountain sides, bright green rice paddies, tiny little wooden huts speckled in villages on the flanks of volcanoes, snakes, lizards, spiders, flowers and everything in between. It was just beautiful. I only wish that we had taken more photos of the really amazing parts of the trail, but we were all too busy making sure we didn't stack it to be taking happy snaps! We were lucky to see a few different types of monkeys: Gibbons, macaques and a gorgeous red monkey whose name I can't remember (it might have been Samuel...) which were a great highlight of the trip.
Some of the trail was very hair raising. 1 boot-width wide slippery mud and slate trails right on the side of sheer drop off were particularly goose-bump inducing. At one stage Iris slipped on a rock and made a spectacular dive down the side of one said drop off, but An was incredibly quick to dive and grab her by the legs and pull her back up. It was quite spectacular! After that we were all particularly cautious until we made it to our next stop by a river for some lunch. There are tiny villages which lie on the outside of the jungle, were they grow crops like cocoa, coffee, cinnamon etc and we were on the edge of one of those as we ate our egg noodle wraps. Smiley school children wandered past as we ate, stopping for photos and for a giggle to laugh at our beautiful attire (we all had our pants tucked into our socks and our shirts tucked into our pants to reduce leeches getting in – very sexy). Soon enough we were back on the trail to get to the Lawang Top before dark. Because we had a couple of hours taken out of the trip due to the landslides ruined trail, we were very tight on time. We passed a farmer and An chatted to him, he rallied up a few motorbikes which were happy to take us up the hill. I was on a bike squidged between a farmer and Tonik, the older guide. It was a bit hairy on these teeny 250cc bikes with no helmets, buzzing up the rocky hill, it got a bit mistier and cooler as we ascended. We stopped at a little hut for some local (strong!) coffee and then continued for about another 10mins by bike to the Lawang Top. Unfortunately because it was so cloudy (and we were in the clouds) we couldn't see the view of the lake, but continued on a very densely covered trail down. This part was challenging because the foliage was at a height above your head and right down across the path, and that doubled with the misty air made the trail very difficult to see, so we all had a few slips onto our arses, quickly getting up and continuing to reduce the chances of picking up a leech or 25. After about 1hour the path suddenly opened up and we walked next to a hut, perched right on the side of the mountain with a breathtaking view down the mountain. We could smell fire smoke and coffee and were greeted by a gorgeous old woman at the door to welcome us in. We had made it to Ana's, were we would stay the night. We all took off our muddy wet boots and socks, ripped off any leeches and put antiseptic on our scratches and bites before having a hot coffee and ogling at the magnificent view over the mountain and to the crater lake Maninjau below, where we would be walking to tomorrow morning.
An showed us the place; there was one hut where the cooking and eating was done and one were we would sleep, an outdoor toilet which was quite amazing - it was a bamboo pipe coming from the mountain with the rainwater flowing from it onto a metal half pipe on the floor. So you would crouch down to do your business into the metal half pipe and the water from the bamboo pipe would flow down to flush it down the mountain – genius! There was also a mandi hut which had the same idea, a big pipe which collected the water from the mountain and flowed it into a huge bucket in the middle of the hut. You use a bowl in the bucket to have a mandi. We all had a mandi with the cool mountain water and felt a bit more alive afterwards. A few more leechy toilet incidents (thankfully none involving particularly sensitive areas!) and we were soon in the smokey hut, playing board games and chatting before a beautiful feast appeared in front of us. All cooked on a fire, we enjoyed spicy Maninkabau curries and rice by lantern light as the sun plopped behind the mountain on the other side of the lake. Thoroughly exhausted by the time it was dark, we managed to stay awake til about 8 until we climbed up the slippery trail to our hut, all giggling at the state of our shakey tired legs and climbed up to our level to fall asleep. We were sleeping in the 2 storey hut with an open sided top half where we dragged some mattresses and put up a couple of mozzie nets, we wanted to spend the night there together as the view down the mountain to the lake was amazing.
It took everyone a while to fall asleep, thanks to the unfamiliar jungley noises outside making everyone nervous, but soon enough we were off to sleepy land.

Friday, May 1st : Lawang Top -> Trek to Danau Maninjau
This morning we awoke to the sound of an inquisitive gibbon in a nearby tree, gazing into our hut. As we all sat up to look, it stared back wide eyed before swinging away back into the jungle. It was definitely a good way to wake up!
Maria announced that she hadn't slept well due to the sounds of deep growling, snuffling and scratching around the base of the hut. When we told Tonik, he said ''oh yeah, likely a tiger'' to which we all turned a paler shade of white and were thankful that no one had gone down to take a look to see what the sound was!
The old 'mountain-hut-woman' as we called her, made us some banana pancake and fresh coffee which we gulped down before getting changed into our stinky muddy clothes and continuing down the mountain to Lake Maninjau.
We were all very sore from our climbing yesterday, particularly my shitty right leg which, although not failing me terribly, was causing me some bad aches and pains.
We had a walk of about 2 hours, first spent on the descet down the slippery mountain trail until the last hour, during which time we managed to get a bit lost balancing on the thin maze of dividers in the rice paddies. We eventually reached a gravel path (wow!) were we mooched through a tiny village where families had spices and rice drying in the sun out the front of their huts. We made it down to the road were we were to take a local opelet (mini van) to a place called Arlen's, which has shacks next to the lake where we intend to stay for a few nights. Arlen's is set back about 1km from the road, you need to walk through rice paddies to get to the shacks. It is absolutely beautiful there. The huts are literally a stones throw away from the water and the open cafe-type hut has tables on small raised platform floors where you can climb up and relax with pots of tea/coffee. It was a very beautiful way to end the trip. We had a banana juice and a tempeh curry before taking off our sweaty clothes and jumping in the refreshing lake. A few tiny brown leeches still couldn't keep away from my feet but we had a lovely splosh around with some local kids who showed off their prowess in a dug out canoe before having a shower and getting changed into some fresh clothes (our big bags had been dropped here from Bukittinggi).
We then shared a cold Bintang before saying goodbye to Maria and Iris (who were heading onto Padang) and laid back to watch the water turn choppy as the waves from the sea crept in through a break in the mountain on the other side. A Canadian couple (Lindsay and Jasper) and an American girl (Maeve) came from a homestay down the road to get something to eat as there wasn't any food were they were staying and the town is a good 5kms away. We had a great night with them, eating, drinking and sharing hilarious travel stories. They had spent 5 months travelling through the places we are going to, so they gave us some tips and suggestions. I was able to give away some of the millions of anklets I had accrued at the Bukittinggi Markets to the three of them which was awesome
We were all astounded at the teeny number of western tourists in the region, Cam and I were the only people staying at Arlen's and they were the only people staying at their homestay, which had been empty for over a week prior to them arriving.

Side note : Obviously governments' need to put warnings in place for certain travel destinations because some places are simply far too dangerous to travel through (those currently fighting a war, for example). At the moment, the Australian government has Indonesia's travel warning as a rating of 4 out of 5, which suggests one should reconsider their need to travel to the region. This of course has damaged the tourism here massively, as Australians made up a huge percentage of the backpackers/travellers coming here. Other issues like the Bali bombings, Jakarta bombings and the tsunami have meant that tourism is almost down to a trickle. In Sumatra particularly, we have hardly seen any western tourists. Sumatra (at least down from Aceh) has not suffered any sort of radicalist demonstrations or religious conflicts and is a beautiful place to travel through, it is such a shame that the governments cannot be more specific about the areas to which travel is dangerous (particularly because Indonesia is so huge) so that people can get the balls up to experience these amazing places.

Soon enough it was late and we were feeling stiff and sore so we crept to bed, with intentions of meeting up with them tomorrow morning so we could hire bicycles and peddle around the lake, the distance of which is about 55 to 71kms (depending on which map you look at.....).

Saturday, May 2nd : Danau Maninjau
We both woke this morning feeling completely exhausted, with thighs like rocks; stiff with lactic acid from the steep climb down yesterday. We told the guys from last night that we would have to pass on the long bike ride today and bought some pancakes and a pot of coffee before emptying our bags of dirty clothes to be washed and sorting out our tickets, brochures and assorted paper crap which we planned on sticking into a notebook we had brought to make a kind of scrap book.
It is so incredibly peaceful here. We are set back from the road so the only sounds you here are a few kids splashing in the lake, some fisher men canoing past in their dug outs, faces shaded by their pointy bamboo hats, and the sounds of geckos and birds in the trees. It's the perfect place for some R'n'R......and scrap booking!
We spent the day on the porch; reading, swimming in the lake, drinking ginger tea, catching up on this fine journal and scrap booking in between playing many card games with the locals and eating beautiful food.
It was a pretty hard day. Stayed up til the wee hours playing music and cards with the local dudes from here before climbing into bed feeling nice and rested.

Sunday, May 3rd : Danau Maninjau
Woke this morning feeling much less achey than yesterday. We had an awesome breakfast and spent a while chatting with the guys who work here, who were collecting the sand and mud from the rice paddies to put onto the little 'beach' they had fashioned by the lake, as lots of it had been flushed away by the rain last night.
I stuck the last few things I could find in the scrapbook and wrote in some more details. I am so glad I'm doing this as I go this time, because it is an awesome thing to look back through (full of tickets, receipts, notes and doodles from people, etc) I still have a huge sandwich bag of stuff from our trip around Europe 2 years ago that hasn't been done!
We then had a pot of coffee and I planned on finishing the book I had picked up yesterday. I finished the books I brought from home over a week ago and am itching to read something. At Arlens there is a pile of books, but they are all in Dutch/German! I found one in English, a David Baldacci super-massive-hollywood-thriller type book. Finished this in the day and then went to find another one.
Elementary Aspects on Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India was the only other book in English. Oh well, it'll do. After about 10 minutes of reading I gave up and gave in to more card games with Cam and the locals.
It is just too hard to do anything except chill out here. It's so peaceful, birds and geckos singing from the trees, 2 cats playing with snakes in the rice paddies, and everyone is some sort of musical maestro so the days are spent in the sun with the lake lapping at the shore, singing songs and generally being awesome.

Side note : The Indonesian people are so warm and open, they are great to spend time with. There aren't too many nationalities that you sit down to have a meal next to, get chatting with and within 10 minutes are surrounded by all their friends keen to hear your stories and are shortly invited home to meet the family and share their home.
It's awesome, dropping the antiquated Western social code of having self doubt from your arse to you ears and being as polite and reserved as possible for fear of showing who you are and what you really think, just in case the other person may disapprove or be offended. That is before you knock back a few beers and suddenly everyone knows what your favourite sexual position is.
Communication is just different here. I absolutely love the openness and freedom with which you can communicate (not that I have ever really been the closed-off type....). I wonder if it is something to do with their religion. The majority of people here are Muslim, and 5 times a day we watch them walk hand in hand to mosques as friends, to spend some peaceful time with themselves and their god. Many of them also bathe communally, these are very personal and important parts of their life which they share so freely with others, so perhaps the rest just comes naturally. I don't know, but whatever the reason, it is nice.

Our plan to bike ride around the lake today kind of went down the pipe hole with us remembering we had scrabble in our bag and the girl who works here, Aru, summoning up enough English to teach us some more Indonesian card games.
There is one guy from here, Ade, who is completely deaf. He is absolutely gorgeous. He cannot speak/sign a lick of English, although I am sure he understands what we are communicating through hands and face better than those hearing people who can speak a little English, it is quite amazing.
It has been really nice just spending time, the only 2 bules (foreigners) with a big bunch of locals, playing games and music with them.
That is, until they came.
The French! They invaded from the rice paddies! There were 4 of them, asking if they could see zee room? Bastards, stealing our private accommodation by the lake, who are they to think that more than 2 people can stay here??
They were very lovely people in actual fact (shame to ruin a good story) Cam chatted to them for a while and then we went for a swim.
The rest of the day continued as it had began. Chatting, playing games, chilling and pondering the big questions in life; where we are and where we are going.
Twas simply wonderful.

Monday, May 4th : Danau Maninjau
Early rise this morning thanks to a monsoonal downpour which sent us to bed quite early. Had a pot of coffee (Kopi Sumatera has definitely been my favourite so far) and some breakfast before checking to see if our clothes were dry and walking (physical activity after 2 days of slovenly-ness, good lord!) to the little town of Maninjau.
As it turns out the town is a quaint little village. We walked about 4kms of the 7km journey into the village, but gave up because it was freaking boiling and hopped in an Ankot the rest of the way. Had a wander around, went to the markets and bought some necessities (pooh tickets, water etc) and then hopped in another ankot to take us back to Arlens. We were dropped off at the rice paddie and made our way through it to get to the hut. On our way we watched some farmers picking rice. In Bali I helped some ladies remove the rice manually by whacking it on a wooden board, which was quite time consuming and hard. These guys had a generator which basically shook a big metal mesh screen really fast so they would pick the rice plant, chuck it on and the rice would be shaken from the top. Pretty neat.
We spent the rest of the day (just for a change!) playing card games, board games and dominoes with the locals here before having som dinner and crawling into bed, making the (difficult) decision to leave tomorrow.

Tuesday, May 5th : Danau Maninjau -> Bukittinggi -> Danau Toba
Woke early, packed our bags, said our goodbyes and took a few photos with the family and then walked through the rice paddies to wait by the side of the road for a van going to Bukittinggi. This method of transport is called travel in Indonesian and it is kind of like an organised form of hitch hiking! Basically, the van (usually grey or black) will yell out where they are headed as they drive pass, and you put out your index finger if you want a ride. They pull over, you negotiate a price, and in you hop. We got our trip to Bukittinggi for 15.000Rp each which was good. The ride up out of Maninjau is steep and goes through 44 very sharp corners. Each one of these is signposted (it's a bit of an attraction, particularly when coming down to see the view of the lake, each of the signs are sponsored by, of course, a cigarette company) and have macaque monkeys crawling all over the road. Chugging up the steep climb in the van, we felt pretty proud of ourselves for having trekked that distance a couple of days ago!
Made it to Bukittinggi almost 2pm, organised our night bus ticket to Danau Toba and then went on the hunt for postcards. Apparently postcards are now some sort of rarity and we had trouble finding any anywhere. We eventually stumbled upon a tiny shop which had a dusty pile of assorted cards from the 70's. Perfect! We thought, grabbed a few and then headed to a place to get some lunch and write on the postcards before getting to the bus station at 4:30.
The dude who gave us a ride to the bus station gave us a run through of all the Aussie sayings he could think of, he was absolutely hilarious. Even though I'm pretty sure he ripped us on the price of the fare, he was such a charmer it didn't matter.
Walked into the little bus station office, once again the only bules, and sat down to wait for the 5 o'clock bus that we had bought tickets for already. There was a bus ready and waiting and we assumed this was the one, but the driver said that it wasn't, however if we wanted to pay and extra 180.000Rp, it could be.
Er, no thanks, we said, somewhat confused.
That bus pulled out a bit after 5 and we sat waiting, a little concerned that perhaps that was the one we were supposed to catch. We sat in the office for a while, desperately trying to avoid the stares of a terrifying looking old lady with one eye glaring at us and a strange red liquid around her lips. She looked like a caricature of a child eating monster and was making us quite uncomfortable.

We enjoyed a revolting squat toilet before the bus we had apparently paid to board arrived at 6:30. It was of dubious quality in comparison to the earlier one, but we chucked our bags in the stowaway and hopped on board, behind a man carrying a cardboard box full of live chickens.
In Indonesia, many many people smoke. A lot. In Sumatra, they really take it to a whole new level, and smoke phenomenal amounts of all sorts of cigarettes. Unlike back at home (and in many other places) it is legal here for cigarette companies to advertise and to sponsor things. There are posters, billboards and all sorts of cigarette advertisements everywhere. People can smoke pretty much anywhere. Whilst some restaurants (very rarely) may ask people not to smoke inside, it is by no means against any rule or law to do so.
In the long distance buses we have caught so far, there has been a sectioned off set of chairs (usually 3 or 4) where people go to smoke.
As we got on this bus, the air appeared hazy and we soon realized that there was a smoking room, but this appeared to be the entire inside of the bus. Sitting at our seats, we found that the windows could not open. The creepy lady from the office slid into the chair across the aisle from us, strangely carrying nothing but an empty water bottle. The box of chickens were 2 seats behind us in the overhead compartment clucking at their distaste of their cramped box. A man with a voice like the Godfather was muttering to himself and chain smoking Kretek cigarettes in the seat behind and 2 crying children 3 rows ahead were competing against each other in who could scream the loudest. The air conditioning (oh, fancy) was set to a temperature to make a polar bear shiver. The blaring tape of Indo pop was wailing from the tinny speakers above our seat and we shortly found out the purpose of the creepy lady's empty bottle was to spit out the blood she was coughing up from her lungs.

We stared deep into each others eyes and thought:
Shit..... At least we are in it together.

And so, the journey began. Cramped, smoky and noisy, we careered as fast as is possible through the potholed, boggy Sumatran roads. We made very few stops in the night (I think this was to make up for time as the bus had left 2.5 hours late) so we had to do the rickety bus squat toilet routine, which is always a delight.
Thankful I had stuffed my wool shawl into my day pack, we survived the freezing night (it's as thought they wanted to show off the fact that they have AC, so they have it permanently cranked up to the highest and iciest it will go).

Wednesday, May 6th : Bukittinggi -> Parapat -> Tuk Tuk (Samosir, Danau Toba)
Soon enough morning came (loudly announced by the roosters in the box above us) and so it was time for some Indo top 40 tracks from the 90s to come blaring through the speakers, which suited the chain smoking grandfather voiced man quite well, as he groaned and wailed along with it in between puffs and coughing fits. At about 11am we stopped at a Padang food place for people to get some breakfast. Not feeling very hungry after watching the 'child eating lady' spit blood into her bottle, which then sloshed around with the motions of the bus, we got off and stretched our legs and wondered when on earth we would get to Parapat (the journey was supposed to have been 12 hours, but had so far been almost 16).
We clambered back into the bus and about 20minutes later we were dropped off at Parapat! Hoorah!
Red eyed and weary after our worst bus trip to date (and we've had a few), we hopped in an Ankot which took us down to the docks where we hobbled onto the little wooden ferry to take us across to Palau Samosir, in Lake Toba.

As the boat splished across the deep blue water, the cool mountain air blowing in our face, we all but forgot about the shitty trip here and were smiley and pleased to have made it.
A delightful (and very cleared stoned) tout from one of the losmens introduced himself and had a shot on Cam's guitar. We watched the colourful town of Parapat shrink away before we pulled up at peaceful Samosir, the island in Lake Toba (technically it is connected to land by a tiny little bit on the Western side, but it is called an island). We had a look at the cheapest room at the place the tout worked for, it was clean and a mere 30.000Rp ($4) a night. We could pay more to stay in one of the traditional Batak houses but this room was fine, with an outdoor shower and western toilet.
We wanted to go and check out a place which had been recommended to us by the Canadians from Maninjau, so we dropped our bags at the office and walked there to check that out too. The cheapest room they had was 165.000Rp.
Hmm. That's a tough one.
We walked back as quick as we could to Bagus Bay, chucked our bags in our room and went to have some much needed food (our bus trip staples of bread and cheese sandwiches are not entirely satisfying.....).

This place is hilarious, when we dropped our bags in our room the dude leaned over and asked, do you like to smoking the mareejoowana?. Using the same answer for everywhere in Indonesia (you can never be too safe) we said: No, not at all. Looking startled, obviously our appearance had made him assume otherwise, he then said that if we wanted to, he could take us to a huge dope forest where we could take a photo of ourselves there to show our friends, Ha! No thanks...., we chuckled and then followed him back to the office where he pointed out some of the noticeboards they had which explained the different meals and drinks they could prepare out of magic mushrooms, or the 'special' birthday cake they could prepare for you for a trip to the moon.
Bloody hell, we thought this place is stunning enough to enjoy totally sober, but it would appear that there must be people who think otherwise!

Chatted to Tomo, a gorgeous Japanese guy who was the other tourist on the ferry over here, and the only person we have met so far who is doing basically the same trip as us! He was awesome. He'd also just come off the bus from Bukittinggi, he happened to be on the earlier one which left just before ours, and he had a decidedly better trip by the sounds of things.
We spent a while chatting, then all went to our rooms and had a nap before going for a walk around the little area and then having some ginger tea by the lakeside whilst some of the local girls came and bathed, giggling as they soaped up their hair and asked for a photo.
Soon enough it was dinner time. Cam was not feeling well so just had a lemonade and we sang and played some music with a dude who walked off the street and somehow picked Cam as a guitarist. Had a beer and a Gado Gado (the best I have had so far!) then Cam decided to hit the sack early as his tummy was doing somersaults.
I stayed back and as soon as Cam left was invited to a table to have a very, very strange conversation with a couple (a dude from Germany and a local girl from nearby Medan) who had found each other on the internet, but were very shady about their relationship. I attempted some conversation about their holiday, they answered with limiting yes's and no's and said in staggered English that it wasn't exactly a holiday, but didn't elaborate, instead asking me about how I was going for money as they noticed we had chosen the cheap room, and if we were surviving on the money we had brought with us.....as a beer which I did not realise they had bought for me landed in front of my glass with a smarmy smile from the German, I was feeling a little awkward and smelling something fishy, so I muttered something about Cam needing me and legged it to our room with a quick selamat malam!
My leg which I cut on the mossy tree whilst gallavanting through the jungle is healing well. I am thankful I cleaned it straight away. Before bed I rubbed on some more of my lavender balm which seems to help and we crept under our mozzie net for a quiet sleep on a comfy horizontal surface....