Monkeys and Muslims

There is this great guest house in Malaysia, the rooms are nothing out of the ordinary, in fact they seemed to be very sauna like, but them again it is in Malaysia. The thing about this guest house seemed to be its roof top garden, it had a good view, but then again nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe the thing about this guest house was free wifi, for me this was beautiful, feeding my internet addiction nicely for an hour or so before I slept, and for an hour or so before I started my day, but not everyone there used the internet, and that leads me to the real reason it is a great guest house. The people that passed through this guest house made this guest house a great guest house. For this place is the reason why my friend Jules who came to travel with me had a really amazing time, as aposed to just an amazing time, it also points out one of the best things about traveling for me, the new friends I make along the way.

Good times with new friends, who I met at the afore mentioned guesthouse.

So now I am in Jakarta, all alone for the first time in a long time, which gives me time to write about my travels. I’ll do a quick recap of the route I have taken to start with, last thing I wrote about was the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. So I’ll recap from there. First thing was I headed back to Kuala Lumpur, met my friend Jules at the airport, then met up with two Norwegian girls who decided to travel with us. First place we went to was Maleka on the coast of Malaysia, then we got a boat to Dumai in Indonesia, got stamped in met a guy called Claude from france who caught a 12 hour bus to Bukutingi with us, just south of the equator. Then from here we met up with a spanish guy called Albert, left Claude behind and left for Bungus a town on the coast just south of the city of Padang, then the Norwegians left us, so did Albert, so it was just me and Jules. We flew from Padang to a city in the north called Medan, got a local bus to a town called Bukit Lewang, saw some Orangutang’s, left for Medan and got a bus right away out for a town called Berestagi, 2 nights later we left this town for Lake Toba, after some days here Jules left to go home and I met up with a friend I made in Malaysia, a girl called AC from Canada, she had met up with a guy from England called James. All 3 of us left for Bukutingi again, on a bus that took 20 hours, AC left us and me and James went to Harau valley on rented motorbikes, we stayed here for 2 days, then rode back to Bukutingi, James left and I flew to Jakarta! Which gets the whole journey up to date! Now I’ll see if I can recall some stories to interest y’all.

Jules, Nina and Johanna having a sleep on a bus.

Meeting the two Norwegian girls was great, they were up for anything, hopping on boats, on bikes, on busses. what I found amazing about them was that they only came on holiday for two weeks and they didn’t mind traveling such long distances knowing they had to come back rather soon.

This is Nina and Johanna (and of course Jules in the first picture! More on Jules later). In the second picture they look a little sad, I think this is because they were nearing the end of their trip.

Norwegians and monkeys.

I have been re-treading a lot of ground these last weeks, since I came to Indonesia in 2003, it was great to see these places again, and mostly they hadn’t changed, only the price, which seems overall to have doubled, almost, its not so bad really, still incredibly cheap, allowing the freedom of travel that I love. This is a constant in my mind, how privalged I am to be able to travel like I do, I feel quite extravagent, at times I do feel guilty about this also, its just not fair that life is so unequal for different people, all because of where you are born, the world would be a radically different place if everyone lived like I did (for a start not much would get done). Anyway, im drifting, it has been nice to see these places again, and also I have met up with a friend I made last time I was in Bukutingi, a guy called Lala. For all the years I have been away from Sumatra I have realised over and over again just how special a place it is, the more countries I see, the more I think of how much there is too see in this one country, Indonesia, and even more so, just in Sumatra. Its a wild land where nature seems to be the leader, in the month I traveled around I didn’t see one highway, just winding country lanes everwhere. The land is highly rugged, and coated in dense rich jungle, with some of the most amazing wildlife that I have ever seen, it doesn’t take much exploring to see something amazing.

Lots of pictures of one of the biggest flowers in the world, the Rafalasia, and yep, its kinda smelly, have to get real close to get a wiff of it though.

So after arriving in Bukutingi, being dropped of next to a mosque in a unfamiliar area after a 12 hour bus journey, the mosque then started its call to prayer, at a volume that just seemed unnesesary, it was so loud we couldn’t hear each other talk. We walked past many bleary eyed muslims who were heading to the mosque for their morning prayers. We were all tired and carrying your bag for distances is never so much fun, so we found some local transport, a minivan that acts as a public bus/taxi hybrid, they are cheap and will deviate from their normal path if need be. Since it was so early and we were the only people around he took us right where we wanted to go, right into the familiar (for me) centre of Bukutingi, we checked into a guesthouse that was owned by a German guy, the sun hadn’t come up yet and everyone went to sleep right away, I didn’t feel tired though, more and more I seem to be able to get a good sleep sat upright on busses, good talent to have really. So as soon as the sun came up I went for a walk around the streets, right away I met up with my friend Lala from the last time I was there, I’m not one hundred percent sure that he recognized me, I explained that my hair was long when I first met him and then he said he remembered me, we went for a short ride around on a motorbike, looking at all the familiar streets and feeling very happy to be back there again. Its such a great town, a perfect size with many features around.

Some views from around Bukutingi, and a picture of us all enjoying food and a Sheesha with Lala, and a picture of Lala. (notice how im stacking the pictures up quite heavily, I have so many that I want to put online!)

Things to do around Bukutingi include going to see the above giant flower, going to see the nearby lake, lake Manninjau, going to look at the amazing market there, and lots more! Very quickly we all decided to go for a trip to a nearby village where we had just been told there was a Rafalasia flower that had just bloomed, so we hopped on some rented bikes and sped there, paid a guide to show us where it is, and gawped at the amazing flower. It really is unreal to see, it looks like it should be under the ocean, its just too brightly coloured to look natural, looks like plastic even, after getting back from the trip we got told numerous times after showing our photographs of it that it was a small one! Still, it may have been small but it was still amazing to see.

The next day we rented some motorbikes again and decided to ride to lake Manninjau, which was about an hour and a half away, down the canyon, cross the river over the bridge, follow the floor of the canyon, take a right at the only junction you come across and keep on going, eventually you come to the lip of a steep drop down, and down below you is the amazing Lake Meningow.

Big look at Lake Manninjau, the middle two pictures are HDR pictures (composites of 9 photographs taken at a range of speeds), the monkey was on the road going down to the lake, the last picture I slipped in for want of somewhere else to put it, its the valley leading to the jungle where we saw the Rafalasia flower.

Lake Manninjau is a lake inside the crater of a long ago erupted volcano, I guess its all good and safe now, there’s no volcanic activity at all, no rumblings or vents of steam, or bubbling mud pools, unlike many many other places in Indonesia.

One night in Bukutingi we were all in a cafe we enjoyed to frequent, and a bat flew in! Right past us, flapping around in mad circles, then it shot off into the bathroom. It was so surreal, as many people there didn’t seem to pay much attention to it, other travelers included, for me it was pretty exciting! I went into the bathroom and saw it flapping about banging into the walls and looking more and more tired. At points it just lay on the floor or next to the sink, then it would take off again flapping around wildly. I went out and got a towel from the bar, and armed with this I marched back in and caught it as gently as I could, when I came out I got a round of applause from the crowd that seemed not interested 5 minutes ago! Felt a bit silly as they clapped at me. I had never been so close to a bat, it was pretty cute as you can see below.

Awwww Lookaditslittleface!! When I think of bats I picture mice in mad panics flapping their way through the air, startled looks on their faces, amazed at what they are doing, silly little things! How can they be associated with evil like they are!

One thing about being back in Bukutingi, and I guess its about being back in a full Muslim country, is the call to prayer that I mentioned up there. They blert out their messages at incredible volumes about five times a day, in same places though it is sang in a beautiful way, the times I have heard it like this I have smiled at it, adding a beauty to wherever I am. However this is a rare thing, most of the time I have heard it its an angry, distorted with volume rant, it sounds very hatefilled and not peaceful in the slightest, spreading its message to everyone whether they want to hear it or not. Despite my hard opinion on religion I try not to be outright rude about it, only when faced with things that shock me or disgust me, well this call to prayer often disgusts me. There are people in Indonesia of chinese descent who arn’t muslims, also there are christians here, but the people manning the mosque megaphone don’t seem to care, they want everyone to hear their angry messages. And honestly, im not lying when I say that the messages are hatefilled, sometimes its unmistakable the anger in the voice of the speaker, its ignorant and stupid to think that firing anger across the land can help anyone solve anything. In my opinion Islam in Indonesia seems to be a very rude and obnoxious religion, at least Judaism keeps quite about its believes, unless of course it mistakes you for a Jew then finds out your not, at which point you are then shown a rude and arrogant side of it (this mistaken identity has happened to me twice). Religion rant over (abandon religion! athiests unite! Critical thinking can save us all!).

After Bukutingi we all headed to the coastal town of Bungus, quite a sleepy little town just south of the ugly sprawl of Padang. Here we stayed at a great guesthouse called Losmen Carlos, named after the owner, Carlos. Here we took a trip on a boat around some of the island just off the coast, some paradise tropical islands, one of them we walked around in 20 minutes, despite its small size it was full of jungle and many lizards we were told, we didn’t see any but I did see the tracks of them, claw scratches in the sand with a swooping down the centre from the tail draging behind it. Im guessing they were iguanas, as they are also good swimmers and can swim from island to island.

This is Mona, a male gibbon that was someones pet next door to Carlos’s guesthouse. He would sing and woop at the sky when it rained, making a gesture at the sky as if dragging something out of it. He was so tame and calm, he didn’t mind me looking at his hands and feet like this, I took him fruit and nuts everyday I was there.

I think im gonna leave my stories here for now, im rushing them because im on the internet now and I want to leave to go and buy a train ticket, I don’t really want to rush them, I feel like they are a bit souless to be honest, just recalling what I did without actually reliving the events. I have many more pictures I want to put, i’ll put some more under here. Look forward to your comments, hope you are all ok. Enjoy these random pictures!

Any questions about the pictures I’ll be happy to answer, some i feel warrant an explanation

Sorry for the bad grammar, and most probably spelling mistakes, running out of internet time and no time to do a spell check, any corrections that need doing tell me and ill get round to them! Cheers people! Oh also, since I aint got time to check, if you find a dead link on one of the pictures, let me know, i hope they all work fine!