Ubud last gasp

We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Ubud. While it is very touristy and comparatively expensive to sumatra, it has a very authentic feel to it. Ubud was voted the best Asian city by Conde Nast. So yes you have a lot of boutiques but you also see an old lady taking a bath in an aqueduct on the side of the road.  We love the garden, fountains and statues.

 Yesterday afternoon, we visited the monkey forest.  It's a bunch of monkeys in a temple being feed by tourists.  The setting was gorgeous though, with lots of vines and moss covered statues. 

Today we did a bit of last minute shopping and got massages.  

Ubud birding

Today we went birding with Bali birding walk and guide Sumadi. Birds have been sparse in sumatra and Bali so we were eager to see some. It wasn't our best bird tour but our guide was quite the character. We saw around 30 different types of birds with the Java kingfisher being our favorite.

We also liked the pond heron and cisticolas. Kingfisher below

Tomorrow we head to jakarta and home on Saturday.

Cooking class

Today we took a cooking class with casa Luna cooking school. It was amazing to see how much work goes into Indonesian food! We made chicken saga, Vado Vado, corn fritters, bean salad and fern salad. All of it was yummy!

After that massage time.

Ubud

So yesterday, we left relaxation station and headed to Ubud, the arts center of Bali. Our first stop on the way was Temple Ulun Danu Batur.  We had to buy kurtahs to go in, which were over priced but still cheap.  It's a Hindu temple and had all of our favorite gods....Ganesh, pavarti, etc

From there we shopped and tried Luwat coffee, which is coffee that is digested by a cat first. It was ok coffee but not amazing, and very expensive.  They wanted $27 for 3 ounces of beans and we passed on that opportunity.  The coffee in Indonesia has just been ok, which seems to be the norm from coffee growing regions.  They probably export the best coffee.

Last night we saw Owen kecak Fire dance performing Ramayana epic. We had no idea what transpired but the music and dance were lovely.

Relaxation Station

We spent 5 nights at Octopus villa in north bali. It was very relaxing......massage. Snorkel. Read. Repeat. 

Five Keys to Happy Travels

Five Keys to Happy Travels

1. Always do the pat down. Referring to your passport. Especially if you get upgraded to first class and get shitcanned, we know this from personal experience.

2. Keep some T.P. on the quick release. Tummys get weird & US sanitation is a national treasure. So having some TP on your person is the way to go.

3. Learn some language basics. As we learned in kindergarten, Please and Thank You, warm peoples cockles, esp. if they can understand you.

4. At some point, be in control of your food. For trips spanning weeks find a self-catering place where you can cook up some familiar foods & have some tummy normalcy.

5. Keep a travel journal. At the end of each trip I ask myself the same questions & record them in my travel journal: trip takeaways, what do I wish I packed, etc. Then I read my travel journal before packing for a trip and I am set!

   

We ditched our tour guide a few days ago and now go the remainder of our trip on our own Seymour style. The Tour Guide had some pluses: 1) He knew the locations of all the clean toilets in Northern Sumatra , 2) And with the goal of this trip, aside from spotting some Great Apes, reaching Relaxation Station, having someone handle logistics has helped us get there quicker. But I am excited to be on our own. I actually miss the buzz you get after successfully navigating a stressful logistical moment in a foreign country. Or maybe I just miss the beer that we get to chill us out so we can handle the stressful logistical moment! :) 

Did you know we are celebrities?

One thing that happened to us in India was several times we were asked to take our photo with a family.  We found it odd then, but it happened again in Indonesia. This time it was much more frequent.  The first round of photo shoots were in Berstagi where we were asked 5 times for photos.  The requests came mostly from children, but one family asked to snap some pics with your favorite celebrities.  

In Medan, it happened again.  We were asked 4 times for photos.  In addition, I was also interviewed (recorded via cell phone) by a group of kids.  Here they are after the interview

Its both weird and awesome to be asked for your photo.  The whole act seems a little bizarre to us, as what are they going to do with the photos?  Why would they want a photo of some random westerner?  At the same time, it's sweet.  The requesters get really excited to both ask you and even more excited when you say yes.  They also expect not just a photo but a photo shoot!  We both feel special because they ask and leave the encounter with a large grin.  We expect that this won’t happen in Bali where there are more western tourists.  

Lazy Americans

So we spent 3 nights in Lake Toba, where we embodied our lazy american spirtis.  We had been going non stop for a week and well this is vacation, we wanted some lounge time!  The last two days we just lounged by the lake, took a few walks and got 3 massages!  Massages are crazy cheap here - $6-8, so we took advtange of that.  This place was probably a tad higher since it was a "spa." They aren't as good as US massages but definitely worth the price.

This is a picture of a waterfall we could see from our room.  It was flowing pretty heavily, as it rained a good bit.  

And this is a picture of us, as our tour guide said, being lazy americans!

Berestagi, Lake Toba and Beyond

So we had two long travel days back to back to get to Lake Toba.  Lake Toba is a local destination for Sumatrans to vacation at.  And we were going there during a national holiday - no not mardia gras for our LA peeps but instead chinese new year.

We left Bukit Luwang around 8am on Saturday, and had a long drive to Berstagi.  Its not distance but traffic, traffic in Medan is horrific.  Its just pure chaos and does not appear to have any rules of the road.  We got to Berestagi around 4pm, and visited the local market.  We felt like local celebrities in the market.  But we picked up some souvenirs.  We stayed at this absolutely dreadful hotel that night, we were awoken by karaoke, call to prayers, chickens, crying puppy and children throughout the night.

Anyway, on Sunday we made the trek to Lake Toba and had several stops along the way.  The first stop was Pecaarrn Village, a local Batak Village.  The Batak are the local tribe to this part of Sumatra, and famous across Indonesia.  Our Guide, Sool, does not think particularly highly of the men as lazy and not loyal.  They are also mostly christian, whereas the rest of Indonesia is Muslim.  We got a tour of the village, which is an actual village and not a museum.  We saw the traditional houses and got to see inside of them.  It was very interesting to see how 8 families would coexist in about 1000 sq ft.  

After that village, we stopped at a local hot spot, a waterfall.  It was like everyone in Sumatra had stopped there to see it.  Due to the weather, we really couldn't see the waterfall.

After the waterfall, we headed to a Batak Museum.  It was the site of where one of the local Batak kings lived.  We got to see his house, and got a bit of history on the Batak people and their culture.  The site has fallen into a bit of disrepair.  There is a pair of buffalo horns for each king.

Following the waterfall, we drove to Paparet where we had lunch and took the ferry to Lake Toba.  It's been raining the last days, but it was nice to be in a town vs. a small village.  We have been constrained to eating and drinking at our hotels, but we are going to sample some of the local delights at a variety of places.  Last night, the tour company bought us dinner to make up for the failed taxi pickup.  They provided quite the feast.  

What did we do at night while trekking?

Before the trek, we did wonder what is going to happen at night?  The guide and the chef's english was not all that great, and well we talked to them a lot.  What exactly were we going to do all night?  

First off, we were very tired after trekking.  Both nights we called it in early, laying down on the ground before 9pm.  So, there wasn't that much time to have occupied.  2nd off, what they did was really awesome - they gave us puzzles and performed magic tricks.  The chef was the one who was our chief entertainer and you could tell he loved doing it.  He started out with some puzzles involving match sticks in various positions, then moved to card tricks.  It was really enjoyable to do, and the nights flew by with us laughing in between yawns.

Our chef, am

3rd day trekking

Today we finished our trek.  Last night we got a jungle rain as we were laying down to sleep, so the trails were a bit slippery.  Since the trails were already somewhat treacherous, this made today's trek a bit exhausting.  

The day started out great with an early spot of an adult female oranguntan.  She was at the top of our first hill we climbed.  She posed and we got some good pics.  From there, we did a bit more trekking and we saw our first good spot of a bird.  Ash is trying to ID it as I write this, but it was spectacular bird, mostly black with some yellow on its wings plus a blue beak.  

After lunch, we saw three more orangutans, bringing our total spotted up to five for the day and ten total.  We did like seeing the two last night and this morning as they were fully wild.  The ones we saw on the first day and today are often bribed by guides with fruit.  They get dependent on humans for survival and in my mind are not really wild.  But the one we saw last night and this morning seemed uninterested in us.  To me that makes it feel more special.  

We are so glad we did the trek.  It was the most physically challenging thing we have done in years, but it was also very rewarding.  The jungle here is magical and we feel so lucky to have gotten to visit it.  

2nd day- the trekking was hard, the animals scarce

The 2nd day of trekking was exceptionally difficult. We started the day tired.  Last night as we we were going to bed, we saw a giant sumatran jungle rat in our tent. Eeekkkk. It ran away but it did freak us out a bit. That coupled with sleeping on the ground with only a thin may meant we slept poorly.

We had an excellent breakfast and then started trekking. The trekking was more strenuous and we were tired. Seeing the orangutans yesterday gave us energy, which helped power us through. Today we saw only a few hornbills, no monkeys or orangutans. So we didn't get that rush, and a very long descent zapped us.  We both fell and were close to a potential nasty fall. 

But once we got to camp, we were energized by a swim near a waterfall. It was refreshing to wash off the bug spray , sweat and dirt. The waterfall pool was truly lovely and we frolicked for a few hours.

We have run into cell coverage at times which is how I posted the last entry. 

Well a few minutes after I wrote that we saw a female orangutan from our camp site. She was far away to start but crossed the creek near us. Absolutely amazing

First day of jungle trekking

Today was our first day in the wild, and it was a good one. We left about 8:30 and walked through a rubber plantation to get to the jungle. We saw monkeys all day - Thomas leaf monkeys, long tailed Macau (? On spelling), pig tailed Macau, some gibbons from a distance. After about an hour we saw our first orangutan, it was a momma with her baby high up in the trees. Quite the sight to see the baby playing. 

The babies stay with the mother until they are 8 or so and this one was older. We continued to trek and saw another one high up, then we saw a mamma with a younger baby up close. We started to make lunch and she showed up, so our guide packed up quickly. He didn't get all the cucumber peels up but she was happy to help clean up. This one seemed somewhat tame and almost posed for pictures. Birds continue to be elusive but we are hearing hornbills just not seeing them.

We Trekked for several more hours until we got to our camp. It's semi permanent, and while not comfortable it will do.

Our guide, Udin, is definitely our favorite guide yet. 

Jungle Trekking Tomorrow

Last night we had quite the feast at Linnea lodge.  Two nights ago there wasn't much to choose from on the menu, and the staff felt bad about it.  So they went crazy and gave us seven dishes - chip cha, fried noodles, some sort of egg dish, chicken satay, soup, and the traditional fruit at the end of the meal.  They did give us looks when we didn't finish it, but we were not given an option on the ordering end.  The food so far has been stellar, we have really enjoyed all the vegetarian options.  

This morning we drove from Tangkahan to Bukit Luwang, where we are staying at the very generic sounding EcoLodge.  It was a 3 hour drive that was very bumpy, but we were constantly greeted by children yelling HELLO.  It was cute.  

We just ate lunch at the Eco Lodge and saw more wildlife at our lunch than we did the entire time at Tangkahan.  Its not to say we didn't enjoy Tangkahan, we loved the service we got, but would have liked to see more things than leeches!  

Tomorrow we head out on a two day jungle trek.  We hope to see orangatuns.  

We have enjoyed the tour so far.  Having all the logistics taken care of is pretty convenient.  Its also nice that its all private but our guide is always guiding and wanting to talk to us.  It can be a tad exhausting.  

Vacation Mode Activate...form of Jungle Fun

So after a really long travel day, we arrived at Linnea Lodge in Tangkahan, Sumatra.  The ride from Medan was very bumpy and we were feeling a bit sore by the time we got here.  We are the only visitors at the lodge, which is cool and slightly uncomfortable.  Its nice to be alone in this beautiful place, but a 7:2 ratio of staff to us is a little much.

Today, we started off on a jungle hike.  We hiked around for about 3 hours looking for wildlife and birds, we didn't see much of either though.  At the end of the hike, we did see a thomas monkey (below) which was cool.  What we did see on the hike were leeches, lots and lots of leeches.  I probably had about 10 of them, for a gory pic check out facebook.  The leeches were not painful, just really bloody.

After removing the leeches, we walked over to a local hot spring, which we had to swim to get to.  It was rather tiny of a hot spring but the warm water felt nice on our achy bones from the travel and hiking.  There were a lot of locals at the hot springs, but no foreigners.  All of the woman were swimming in long pants and tops, so while ashley started out in a bikini she added a coverup for the rest of the day.  

After the hot springs break, we swam to a waterfall.  And then swam (lots of swimming in Tangkahan) to a junction of two rivers.  At the junction, we hopped on some inner tubes and floated down the river where we ate a late lunch at a waterfall.  After we hiked back, I took a nap.  It was quite the fun filled day. This is the advantae of doing a tour, b.c if it was just us we would have only done one thing but instead we packed it in.  After all that intensive traveling, it was great to have some intensive fun!