From the Jungles of Sumatra

Hello Everyone!

It has been a while since our last update and we must apologize, for the Sumatran Jungle does not lend itself towards widely available internet connections. However, it does offer a wide variety of adventures! Here's the rundown of where we've been and what we've done in the last while.

From Denpasar, Bali we flew into Jakarta on the island of Java. Jakarta is Indonesia's capitol and happens to be one of the most populated areas in the world at 8.75 million! We spent the afternoon wandering around the neighborhood near our hotel and were able to learn a bit about Muslim faith in Indonesia from a few older gentlemen at Mosques. The next day we headed out into one of the main areas of the city to see the National Monument. It is a huge obelisk in the center of a huge park square topped with a huge eternal flame. It was huge. It also afforded us great views of the sprawling capitol. Through the smog on the horizon we could see multiple city centers and high rises and even a large Mosque right across the street from the city's oldest Catholic Cathedral.

That evening we landed in Medan on Sumatra. We found a comfortable home stay run by a nice old Indonesian woman and hopped on a bus the next morning. 5 hours later, this bus dumped us off in the Sumatran rain forest in an area called Bukit Lawang. This is one of the last remaining places on earth to see the endangered Orangutan in its natural environment. It was so powerful to see these animals move about their element with so little effort. Some of the other wild life we've seen are Thomas Leaf Monkeys, more Grey Monkeys, large Pheasants that look like peacocks, and white handed Gibbons. We met two new friends from Australia, Aimee and Jasmine. They turned out to be really nice girls and fun to play cards and share stories with so we continued travelling as a group of 4 to our next destination.

We rolled into the town of Berestagi with one thing and one thing only on our mind... Summit another volcano! Welcome to Mt. Sebiyak! We awoke at 4:45 am to start our hike and Anders and I decided it was still too dark and that we'd sleep a bit longer. Of course we should have mentioned that to the girls in the other room... we caught some flack for that all day. However, when we finally did get moving for the day we had a great time. We decided to stop for a Chai tea on our way out of town. It was an... interesting... experience. Apparently in Berestagi they find a raw egg to enhance the flavor of their tea. So down the hatch with the raw egg tea and up the mountain we went! Mt. Sebiyak was not a super challenging trek, but it does have some unique characteristics such as large, powerful sulphur vents which blast hot, stinky sulphur into the surrounding atmosphere and dye the rocks yellow. When we reached the crater, the whole area was shrouded in steam and cloud and we couldn't see much. Anders and I decided to make a push to the very summit of the mountain and as soon as we scrambled to the top the clouds cleared and we could see the beautiful view of the full crater and all the surrounding land as it fell away from where we sat. On the way down we took a different path to some hot springs; a welcome relaxation after any trek!

The next day found us in a taxi to another big attraction in Sumatra, Danua Toba. Danua Toba is a fully large (Australians like to use fully instead of very or really) crater lake in the heart of Sumatra. I've been told that the lake is the size of Singapore. Inside the lake is a huge island (isthmus acutally) where most of the tourists stay. We stayed in a great little hostel called the Reggae inn right on the lake. The next day we rented motorbikes and cruised up and down the nicely paved roads lining the perimeter of the island. It was strangely reminiscent of a Minnesota summer hanging around the lake in the lush green humidity... except we were in Sumatra! It's a funny thing to get used to being in a foreign country. You actually have to stop and remind yourself where you are! This area of Sumatra is inhabited by a people known as the Bataks. The Bataks are predominately Christian today, but they keep many of their tribal traditions. They live in large wooden houses with upturned roofs and intricate designs on the gables that may pay homage to nautical ships. Traditionally the roofs would be made out of horse hair!

Right now Anders and I are sitting in Medan again, waiting to take our flight out to Yogyakarta (pronounced Joe-g-jee-karta) on Java tomorrow early morning. We look forward to seeing the culture of Java and one of the largest ancient Buddhist monuments in the world in that area. Who knows what other adventures lie ahead? We look forward to bringing you more in the upcoming days of our trip! See you all in a week or so!