I should point out that in the cultural stuff it should have been avec not sans driver, that was just me trying me franglais.
Once again we hit the road, via the doorstep pick up by the ferry. We were met at the other dock by a charming young man with a nice shiny car with lots of dangly bits. Very tasteful. So a seven hour taxi ride through the still very confusing highways and byways of Sumatra and an interesting lunch at a roadside eatery where you could have anything you liked as long as it was chicken. Hol had rice. So after meandering our way towards the final destination of this trip we arrived at Bukit Lewang or at least the tourist village vaguely attached to the town of the same name. Once again the cases were grabbed and whisked off by some rough looking types on scooters, but by this time we were immune to this and assumed that they were on their way to the hotel. So the cases had a ride and we had to walk well fairs fair I guess. It wasn't that far and it was interesting wandering through the souvenir stalls. So we arrived at the Hotel Orangutan, yes that is it's real name booked in and it looked an excellent place with a bar and a small but perfectly formed restaurant. Now Holly had told me that some of the rooms were up a hill but the odds of getting one of the top ones was remote so imagine my surprise when remoteness came home to roost right at the top of a bloody mountain. I shall endeavor to show a video of the way down from nose bleed country. In the mean time pictures will stop the waffle.
Once again we hit the road, via the doorstep pick up by the ferry. We were met at the other dock by a charming young man with a nice shiny car with lots of dangly bits. Very tasteful. So a seven hour taxi ride through the still very confusing highways and byways of Sumatra and an interesting lunch at a roadside eatery where you could have anything you liked as long as it was chicken. Hol had rice. So after meandering our way towards the final destination of this trip we arrived at Bukit Lewang or at least the tourist village vaguely attached to the town of the same name. Once again the cases were grabbed and whisked off by some rough looking types on scooters, but by this time we were immune to this and assumed that they were on their way to the hotel. So the cases had a ride and we had to walk well fairs fair I guess. It wasn't that far and it was interesting wandering through the souvenir stalls. So we arrived at the Hotel Orangutan, yes that is it's real name booked in and it looked an excellent place with a bar and a small but perfectly formed restaurant. Now Holly had told me that some of the rooms were up a hill but the odds of getting one of the top ones was remote so imagine my surprise when remoteness came home to roost right at the top of a bloody mountain. I shall endeavor to show a video of the way down from nose bleed country. In the mean time pictures will stop the waffle.
Meet the new bridge same as the old bridge. Except this one is metal and a bit more stable and apparently won't get washed away if they have a wet season. The hut thingys are for the locals to desport themselves in the absence of a beach this will do for pic nicking and outdoor sporting actitivities if you don't break your neck on the rocks.
This is the rain forest and this should have been before the last one. If we talk about birding then this is probably the hardest environment on the planet to do it. I did manage to get a few species but the guides were to into mammals to worry about mere avifauna. Still it was a nice walk through the rubber plantation and a bit of the jungle. We went on a day walk but some of the more intrepid went for days, as it poured with rain most days I hope they had decent shelter from the humidity, bugs and other inconveniences that you could encounter.