The adventure in North Sumatra continues - this time with elephants!

Despite being more than a bit stiff the next day relaxation wasn't on the agenda, and we were off again early in the morning to continue our adventure in North Sumatra.

Our destination today was Tangkahan, a little "village" about 100kms north of Bukit Lawang ... driving on one of the shockingly worst roads I've ever had the pleasure of being on!!!  In fact the condition of the road contributed to today's 'adventure' being even more than I had planned for.  Not quite at Tangkahan and the vehicle we were travelling in broke down ... we suspect it may have broken it's axle.  Not having a lot of options in the middle of nowhere, we found ourselves being driven the last few kilometres on the back of two motorcycles that happened to be the first thing to pass by where we broke down.  In the cities a 'motorcycle taxi' is called an ojek, and given the traffic in Jakarta they are sometimes a much more viable option...even if they are a little fear inducing.  This particular time though these weren't really taxis as just two very nice people.

Shortly after leaving Bukit Lawang the road went up a hill to a little lookout area, and the view over the mountains and palm plantations was fantastic.

The crude palm oil (CPO) industry is increasing important for Indonesia - Indonesia is the world’s largest CPO producer - and it makes an enormous and vital contribution to the country’s export and employment rate.  But as important as that is, we know it's also the palm oil plantations that are threatening the jungle habitat here in North Sumatra.  During the last decade, the oil palm industry in Indonesia has been developing rapidly.  In 1999, the total area of palm oil plantation was approximately 3.9 million hectares and it had grown into a whopping 7.3 million hectares in 2009.   As you can see, the management of this situation is an important one for Indonesia.

This is one of the palm oil factories that I passed in my travels today, with the little "village" just outside the gate.

A long line of trucks filled with the palm fruits is waiting to go inside.  Here in Indonesia the palm fruit is processed and the oil extracted.  After the oil is extracted the liquid oil then leaves the factory in tanker trucks that take it to the coast, most often for export to Malaysia where it is further processed for either consumption or to be used in the various products that contain palm oil (e.g. soaps, cosmetics, etc.).

En route to Tangkahan we passed a couple of schools in the local villages.  I stopped at one to take a photo and was immediately spotted by some of the kids.  You can see what happened...

We finally arrived at Tangkahan which is not really even a village, rather it's more of another entrance into Gunung Leuser National Park with a handful of very basic bungalows.  The attraction to Tangkahan though is elephants!!

The Sumatran elephant is one of three recognized subspecies of the Asian elephant and it's native to the island of Sumatra.  In general, Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants, the Sumatran elephant has smaller ears than the African elephant and the Sumatran elephant also has a more curved spine than the African elephant.  Unlike the African elephants, the female Sumatran elephants very rarely have tusks, and if the female Sumatran elephant does have tusks, they are generally barely visible and can only be seen when the female Sumatran elephant opens her mouth.

Today, the Sumatran elephant is considered to be an animal that is in immediate danger of becoming extinct due to the fact that Sumatran elephant populations have been declining at a critical rate. Sumatran elephants are thought to be suffering primarily due to habitat loss in the form of deforestation and hunting for their ivory tusks by human poachers.

Today the adventure started by crossing the Kualsa Buluh River on a 'ferry'... of sorts.   We didn't have to use the bridge you can see in the photo although I must admit I think it would have been fun.

And the reason for the river crossing ... to get to the elephants that were on the other side!

Then for the next few kilometres I was in heaven, riding through the jungle on the back of one of my most favourite animals.

The organization that we did the elephant trek with has 7 elephants as part of their trekking troupe and all of them have been rescued from situations where otherwise they likely would have been killed (e.g. coming into a village).  Theo - the one I was riding - is the only male and there are 6 females.  There is also one elephant calf who is 17 months old.

After leaving the elephants it was time to head back to Medan - which was about a four hour drive.  I passed some of the time by trying to take some photos of the scenery.  As you can imagine, taking photos out the window of a car, while moving, and on a shockingly bumpy road wasn't a particularly easy thing to do but I do hope these photos will give you an idea.

 Building a new church around the old one.

Another palm oil factory.

A little food stand set up in the middle of the palm plantation

 Looking out the front windscreen and finally, something that indicates we're going the right way to Medan.

 We knew we were back in the city when we started to see becaks again.

We arrived back in Medan just in time to get the last flight back to Jakarta.  I was incredibly tired but boy did I ever have a wonderful four days!!

Trekking in the jungle - what an experience!

We arrived in Bukit Lawang about noon on Saturday and that afternoon we spent leisurely wandering around the village, meeting some of the locals, and simply relaxing in the jungle.  (If you haven't checked it yet, the previous post has the photos from all of this.)

And although all that was wonderful, as I said in my previous post, our primary reason for going to Bukit Lawang was to see the wildlife, and so first thing on Sunday morning we set off on a two-day trek through the jungle... basically to see what we could see and experience as much as possible.

To begin though, I should introduce you to our guide, Erwin, who is going to spend the next two days with us:

Gunung Leuser National Park is a named after Mount Leuser, it covers 7,927 km² and it protects a wide range of ecosystems.  An entrance to the Park is located just behind "On the Rocks", but before we got to the Park entrance we passed through a small area of rubber trees.  The milky latex which is extracted from these trees is the primary source of natural rubber.  The white or yellow latex occurs in latex vessels in the bark, mostly outside the phloem (the inner layer of bark).  These vessels spiral up the tree in a right-handed helix which forms an angle of about 30 degrees with the horizontal, and can grow almost as high as 15 metres up the tree.  Harvesters make incisions across the latex vessels, just deep enough to tap the vessels without harming the tree's growth, and the latex is collected in small buckets.  This process is known as rubber tapping.

After entering the National Park it didn't take us long to find what we were really hoping to see on this trip - orangutans!!!

The orangutans are the two exclusively Asian species of extant great apes.  Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, orangutans are currently found only in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra.  Orangutans are the most arboreal (moving through the trees) of the great apes and they do spend most of their time in trees.  Their hair is typically reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of chimpanzees and gorillas.  Males and females differ in size and appearance.  Dominant adult males have distinctive cheek pads and produce long calls that attract females and intimidate rivals.  Younger males do not have these characteristics and resemble adult females.  Orangutans are the most solitary of the great apes, with social bonds occurring primarily between mothers and their dependent offspring, who stay together for the first two years.  Fruit is the most important component of an orangutan's diet, however, the apes will also eat vegetation, bark, honey, insects and even bird eggs.  They can live over 30 years.  Orangutans are among the most intelligent primates; they use a variety of sophisticated tools and construct elaborate sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage.  Both orangutan species are considered to be Endangered, with the Sumatran orangutan being Critically Endangered.
We saw orangutans on both days of our two-day trek, but I've grouped all the orangutan photos together here.

(At this point I have to say I am very disappointed with my photos of the orangutans 😕.  I obviously didn't have the camera settings set properly - so whereas the photos here aren't very good the memory photographs are excellent!)

This is just an example of what the jungle was like that we were walking through, both the jungle itself as well as some of the trees and flowers we passed along the way:

We stopped for a fruit break after a couple of hours and this wild peacock came to check us out.

For lunch we stopped by this little water pool and had lunch on the rocks.

Thomas's Leaf-monkey is only found on Sumatra and although not endangered, it is threatened by habitat loss and it is rare to see it on these treks.

At one point along our trek we came across this local man who was repairing his fishing net, and then took it fishing in the river below.

Here we are walking along, looking down at the river.

Our camp for the night was out in the jungle.  Definitely no luxuries here!!

 Our "cabin" in the background with the dining room table out in front.

 The fruit platter that was prepared for us when we first arrived - and let me tell you, we were hot and tired and this tasted WONDERFUL!!

Part of our dinner that night - caught fresh in the river about 10 minutes before!  You couldn't get any fresher.

 The cooking tent in the background this time --- and now you've seen the whole campsite.

Breakfast the next morning - fresh banana pancakes!  Yummy!!

And not surprisingly, various species of wildlife could be found near the campsite.  Macaques were all over the place,

as were monitor lizards.  The ones we saw were between one and two metres in length.

Something else that I absolutely loved in the jungle were the butterflies!  Their colours were just beautiful!!

In addition to trekking on the second day we also went to a lovely little waterfall and we definitely took advantage of the swimming pool at the bottom!  Even though we knew we were heading back to a shower, it was still nice to rinse off just a little of the dirt and grime.

Back at "On The Rocks" again, this time in a different bungalow but the view was just as good.

Another bit of wildlife that was in the tree just outside our bungalow was this tree viper snake.  Don't worry, I didn't get too close.

And after the previous two days you couldn't have paid me to move out of this hammock!

Unfortunately I didn't get to rest for very long - only one night back at "On the Rocks" - and then the adventure continued the next day.  Stay tuned...