Helllooooo Miiiiiisteeeer

With local buses it took us only! 7 hours to cover 120 km. This is mainly because Indonesia doesn't have bus stops and the buses have no aisle in the middle. So in every little village with about 10 houses it stops 5 times where everyone has to get out of the bus and the new passenger climbs in all the way in the back before the driver continues the journey for another 50 m where the ritual repeats.

But our destination, Bukit Lawang, was worth it. This small village located on the riverbed of a fast flowing river looks right into the jungle. The other side of the river houses primary forests with one of the highest densities of orangutans in the world. The reason we came.

As we arrived in the little town we came a long a phenomenon that we have heard before in another Asian country, Cambodia. Every single local person is greeting us with HELLOOO MIIISTEEER, hooow are you tooodaaay and a big smile. They do not make a difference between gender, everyone is just simply a Mister. We love this kind of welcoming.

We hired a guide and went for a jungle trek to see the apes. We were stunned. Saw like 20 of these beautiful creatures which are so human-like. You could see the difference in their characters like shy, curious and naughty. Some of them came as close as 2 meters to check out.

One of the babies was a curious little thing. Caro was swinging on a liana, the little one came closer to check out what she was doing. He decided that it looks like fun and wants to try it out. He firmly hold the swinging liana and was making giggling noises as Caro swung faster. Both of them had a big lol and did not want to stop. Caro changed her mind as soon as the guide told that orangutans like to give humans warm showers.

Although the orangutans were the highlight of the trek. The Thomas leaf monkeys, gibbons and long tail macaques also deserve to be mentioned here. And a bit smaller but (one of) the largest in their kind 4-5 cm long ants were also impressive.

After the whole day hiking, using the river to get back was a welcome refreshment. Rafting like they call it with truck inner tubes was perfect.