Translate to :
Imagine yourself a little hairier and better with your toes and you’ve got Bukit Lawang’s main attraction: the orang-utan.
Since the village is only 96km northwest of Medan, Bukit Lawang is also one of the easiest places from which to make the leap into the jungle, a diverse and rugged forest crisscrossed by clear, fast-flowing rivers. Many tourists slip-slide through the mud and undergrowth on multi-day treks and hobble back to the village to recuperate.
Bukit Lawang was extensively damaged by a flash flood in November 2003, which killed 280 people and destroyed much of the riverfront development. The essentials of the town and tourist infrastructure have been rebuilt but the community is still grieving for lost relatives and livelihoods.
Orientation and Information
The nearby village of Gotong Royong, 2km east of the river, has effectively become the new town center. About a kilometer north of the bus stop begins the stretch of river-side accommodation.
There are no banks, but a local travel agent will change money. There is no post office here, but you can buy stamps from the shops and use a local post box. There is a market on Friday and on Sunday in Bohorok town, 15km away, where you will also find the nearest police station and clinic.
Bukit Lawang Visitors Center (h8am-3pm) Dis-plays of flora and fauna found in Gunung Leuser National Park, plus a book of medicinal plants and their uses, and fashion shots of some of the rehabilitated orang-utans.
Exhibits are decidedly faded but it is still worth a look. Past visitors often record reviews of guides in the sign-in book.
PHKA ranger station (h7am-3pm) This office isn’t too eager to receive visitors, although its sign suggests otherwise.
PHKA permit office (park entrance) Timed with the orang-utan feedings, the rangers open up this office to collect permit fees; don’t bother arranging permits in town.
Bukit Lawang Guide Association (hours vary) Located across the street from the visitors center, this place distributes a rate sheet for hikes and its touts will follow you around town until you sign up for a hike.
Dangers and Annoyances
The guide harangue starts on the bus before you’ve even left Medan. A friendly stranger hops aboard and makes a beeline to the nearest available seat. They are full of Bukit Lawang tidbits and just so happen to be going in the same direction, or, imagine that, they are guides. Then they’ll escort you to a guesthouse, sit you down and sign you up for a trek. If you resist, the Indonesian fish boil begins: everyone starts to apply the pressure, and every greeting in the town is ‘Are you trekking tomorrow?’ It’s enough to make you hop back on the bus and seek refuge in Medan, of all places. Before leaving in a huff, give Bukit Lawang a day or two to grow on you. After the initial blitz, the place can be quite charming.
Sights & Activities
ORANG-UTAN FEEDING CENTRE
Bukit Lawang’s famous orang-utan center was set up in 1973 to help primates read just to the wild after captivity or displacement through land clearing. Much of the original duties of the center have been moved to more-remote locations, but twice-daily feedings are still provided to semi-dependent orang-utans. These events are open to the public (no guide required) and provide one of the closest views of the forest ape outside the confines of a zoo.
During the center's decades-long career, it has introduced 200 orang-utans into the jungle and many of them have successfully mated with the wild population. Before releasing the animals into the jungle, the center teaches the orang-utans, many of whom have been kept as caged pets, how to forage for food in the wild, build nests, climb trees, and other essentials for survival. The orang-utans are also treated for diseases that they contracted during contact with humans.
Once the apes are on their own in the wild, the center still provides feedings to supplement awkward transitions or demanding circumstances. The feedings provided by the center consist of milk and bananas and are considered a fairly bland-diet compared with the diversity of food found in the forest. The semi-wild apes who appear at the center's ‘welfare’ platform are typically nursing or pregnant females in need of an extra source of nutrition.
There are two feeding times a day: 8.30am to 9.30am and 3pm to 4pm. These are the only times visitors are allowed to enter the national park without a guide.
The feeding platform is located on the west bank of Sungai Bohorok within the park boundaries, about a 20-minute walk from the village. The river crossing to the park office is made by dugout canoe. Perlindungan Hutan dan Konservasi Alam (PHKA; Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation) permits are required to enter the park and are available from the office at the foot of the trail to the platform.
Since 1996 the center has been closed to new arrivals, as the park is considered saturated with orang-utans. A replacement quarantine center, just outside Medan, opened in 2002 to carry on the rehabilitation efforts, but it is not open to the public. Originally funded by World Wildlife Fund and Frankfurt Zoological Society, the center now falls under the management of the Indonesian government, which does not provide adequate budgetary resources.
Park rangers are not paid in a timely fashion and permit money is sent directly to Jakarta. Despite having these problems, the rangers are dedicated to their jobs and often supplement their incomes and their hands-on experience by working with foreign researchers.
Outside Gunung Leuser National Park, orang-utans can be found in the Tanjung Puting and Kutai National Parks, in the Gunung Palung and Bukit Raja Reserves in Kalimantan, as well as in neighboring Sarawak and Sabah in Malaysia.
TREKKING
Treks into the Gunung Leuser National Park require a guide and can last anywhere from three hours to two days. Most people opt for two days so that they can spend the night in the jungle, which increases the likelihood of seeing orang-utans and other critters in the wild.
Despite the pressure, take your time in choosing a guide. Talk to returning trekkers and decide how much jungle time you really need.
If you’ve got serious flora or fauna curiosities, you should arrange a trek with one of the park rangers who often collaborate with foreign researchers.
If you just want a few souvenir pictures and stories, find a guide you like. People who trekked with guides from the village have mainly positive feedback, with the greatest kudos going to the nightly meals and campfire socials. Common complaints range from guides who don’t know enough about the flora and fauna, bunching of treks together, and feeding of the orang-utans.
For experienced jungle hikers the trails around Bukit Lawang are overtrekked; you’re better off to be based at Gurah.
It is best to hike in a small group and to leave as early as possible, as this increases your chances of seeing wildlife. See the boxed text on opposite for packing instructions.
Guide rates are fixed by the Sumatra Guide Association: they are * US$10 for a three-hour trek; *US$25 for a day trek; and *US$45 for a two-day trek, including overnight camping in the jungle and rafting back to town. Prices include basic meals, guide fees, camping equipment and the park permit.
*about
SHORT WALKS
There are a number of short walks around Bukit Lawang that don’t require guides or permits, but you’ll be lucky to escape town alone.
The canal that runs alongside the river is an easy stroll through the village. In the evening everything gets washed in the rushing waters: frolicking kids, soiled bums, dirty laundry. Activities usually considered private are social in the communal waters.
The most interesting is a 20-minute walk, signposted from the Bukit Lawang Eco Lodge, to a bat cave. This 2km walk passes through rubber plantations and patches of forest. A lot of the trees are durian, so take care in late June and July, when the spiked fruits crash to the ground (there are signs warning people not to linger). You’ll need a torch (flashlight) to explore the cave.
TUBING
A shed along the river en route to the orang-utan centre rents inflated truck inner tubes, which can be used to ride the Sungai Bohorok rapids. Don’t underestimate the river though; currents are extremely strong and when the water is high, tubing is officially off limits, though few will tell you this. People have got into difficulties on the river, and life jackets aren’t available.
Sleeping
The flood wiped out many of Bukit Lawang’s family-run losmen and only a few have decided to rebuild. The following are listed in geographic order from south to north.
Nora’s Homestay & Restaurant. Big Mama Nora has a brood of bamboo huts built in a quiet corner between the main road and the rice fields. Ask the bus driver to drop you off 3km before the river.
On the western bank of the river are the following:
Bukit Lawang Eco Lodge. The village’s most upmarket lodging, Eco Lodge has a range of hotel-style rooms set back in the forest. There are many commendable attempts at ecofriendly business: an organic garden provides produce for the restaurant, a medicinal plant garden preserves the pharmaceutical aspects of the jungle and there is recycling.
Wisma Leuser Sibayak. Only a few rooms are open, while others are empty shells from the flood.
Wisma Bukit Lawang Indah. A little further upstream is this stereotypical budget spot.
On the eastern bank, another 10 minutes walk from the visitors centre, are several peaceful riverine guesthouses.
Indrah Valley. Two bamboo huts squat beside the river, with small balconies facing the forest and gangs of monkeys scampering across the rocks.
Garden Inn. Immediately behind Indrah, Garden has basic rooms in a nondescript building.
Jungle Inn. Kitty-cornered to the park entrance, Jungle Inn has got personality. One room overlooks a cascading waterfall, while another incorporates the hill’s rock face and the bathroom sprouts a shower from living ferns. Local woodworkers designed much of the carved railings and furniture from driftwood.
Eating
Most of the guesthouses have restaurants, where the guides camp out for new arrivals.
Tony’s Restaurant. Although it looks closed, Tony’s is still firing up pizzas. It is located directly behind the bus terminal.
Several open-air cafés along the river en route to the park entrance serve fruit salads, nasi goreng and a chill ambiance.
Durian trees are abundant in and around Bukit Lawang. The fruit is as fresh and as cheap as you’ll find anywhere and perfumes the whole place with its distinctive scent.
Getting There & Away
What should be a quick trip into the country is a four-hour rover mission on the surface of the moon. The road has crater-sized potholes, and buses have to yield to heavy vehicles overloaded with palm oil bundles from the local plantations.
There are direct buses to Medan’s Pinang Baris bus terminal every half-hour between 5.30am and 5pm. Public minivans also leave for Medan throughout the day.
If you catch the first bus out of Bukit Lawang at 5.30am, you might be able to return to Medan in time to catch the boat to Penang, but the flexibility of time in Indonesia is unreliable in a crunch.
