Bukit Lawang, North Sumatra

 We arrived at Bukit Lawang after a full day in the car (with the craziest sick stomach symptoms ever, thanks Lake Toba mountains...). We had been in contact with 2 tour guides and had to pick one for the hike the next day. That was dramatic in itself, involving one of the guides telling us karma was gonna get us since we ended up deciding to go with someone other than him. One of the guides was at the place the car dropped us off, ready to walk us to our hotel. Introduced as Eddy, we later met Eddy #2. This was the second time a person'd introduced themselves as the person we were planning to meet, only to find out later that that person was just the friend of the real person. Why people do this is beyond me, as in the US this would be deception. They meant no harm, so why not just introduce yourself as Eddy's friend???

 That night we hit the hay hard! We were very satisfied with our little treetop bungalow, complete with a view of the river!

After a power breakfast of eggs and "pancakes," (SE Asia backpacking places are known as the Banana Pancake Trail because they all serve an assortment of fruity pancakes...really crepes, but still delicious!), we met our guides Eddy and Antone, and our two new friends, a German and Belgian guy solo travelling through SE Asia...whew, brave men!

Antone

Jungle Eddy
jungle_edie@hotmail.com
+6281397125596
fb = jungle edie 

Into the jungle! Our hike began with what is dubbed the "Jungle Breakfast," a straight 15-minute hike up the hill into the jungle. I think it was about 5 minutes into this that I was sweating through my shirt and Britteney was questioning the wisdom of this "fun vacation" choice! 

A typical path on the way up

The guides work together, one in front giving in information and one in back wandering off the trail looking for animals. We have to say, they were quite impressed that we random tourists spoke Bahasa Indonesia. Though they speak English really well, using Bahasa Indonesia really allowed us to have more conversation and joke around. 

  

Thomas Monkey, "Funky Monkey," has a distinctive mohawk!

The real attraction is the wild (rehabilitated) orangutans!! We saw 5, a couple, a mom and baby, and a male. They stayed way high up in the trees, so it was hard to see them, mostly just an orang blur!!

Orangutans are only native to Sumatra and Kalimantan, and we saw many of the Sumatran orangutans. Fun fact: orang means person and (h)utan means forest, so their name literally means "person of the forest."

Sometimes Eddy had to cut a trail through the brush with his knife...yikes!

WATCH OUT for the rattan!

Prepping lunch in the jungle!

While Britteney is a little blurry here, this is the one and one picture
 in which I do not look disgustingly sweaty, so there you have it!

The river we crossed and followed to our campsite

Then we bathed under this lovely waterfall, not unlike a cheesy romantic/jungle-setting movie! 

The resident monitor lizard (not quite a Komodo, that's another part of Indonesia!) at the campsite. 

This was the most intense camping ever, no air mattress, Mom! 

     Note to future travelers, this is just as rock-hard as it looks. And despite being in Indonesia where I always assume it is perpetually hot, it was chilly! I was not awake enough when the guides were asking us if we wanted blankets, so I slept without one until 3 AM, when one of the jungle men saw me "sleeping like a shrimp" and gave me his blanket!! Thanks, Ahmad!

The next morning we got up and trekked back up for about 2 hours. I was truly only sore from the sleeping, and just a hit in my calves. Otherwise, this is a very doable hike!

Our new German friend (above) and Belgian friend (below) modeling the way down the bluff!

Britteney, focused on getting out of the jungle! 

At the end, dirty but very happy! Ready for rafting back down the quickly flowing river! 

Upon our return, anyone else would have crashed, but Britteney and I set out to cleaning our stinkiest clothes ever. Again, anyone else may have found a laundry cleaning service, but we are self-sufficient PCVs, so I grabbed the laundry detergent packets I'd brought, and we set out to bringing my famous laundry parade to Bukit Lawang!

We decided to stay for one more night and catch the early bus back to the airport. I read by the water, bought a jillion souvenirs for all those who minta-ed oleh-oleh, and went to the orangutan feeding platform.

This also meant we could go to the discotheque Saturday night! Unfortunately for me, that meant very late and I am usually ready to sleep at 11 PM.  We really left at about 9 PM for a dinner hunt, up and down the hill time #16 and #17 (man I was sick of that path!). 11 PM was when we left for the discotheque...resulting in a vastly new record, out until 3:30 AM, home at 4 AM, packing until 4:30 AM, and leaving for the bus at 5:15 AM. A record 45 minutes of sleep! (The record for "least amount of sleep I've ever had" prior to this was about 5 hours of sleep...) The discotheque was definitely worth it! While maybe not the best music, it was refreshing to let loose after 6 months stuck in a village with no dancing!!

Looking human again! Getting ready for the discotheque! 

 Overall, Bukit Lawang was such a success! A perfect balance of relaxing, trekking and sweating, and adventure! Thanks for a fantastic trip, Britteney!!!!

Lake Toba

Britteney and I began our amazing trip by flying into Medan, Sumatra, where we (eventually) met our van to bring us the 4 hrs+ of winding roads to Lake Toba. Upon arrival, we called the hostel owner and he asked if we'd met the driver yet. I said no, but we were not hard to spot in the crowd. A black and a white lady sorta stand out in North Sumatra. I mean come on, really. 

Passing the acres and acres of palm tree forests was so refreshing after the overcrowded, polluted East Java we were used to. This part of the country is scarcely populated, the air is so fresh, and we were just happy to be in a new place! 

Next, we hopped on the ferry over to the island in the middle of Lake Toba. (Lake Toba was formed by a volcano that erupted 74,000 years ago, wiped out the pre-human population in SE Asia, and then the crater caved in. Thus, a crater lake. This is the deepest lake in the world today, reaching 450 meters in some places. Yikes! Here's a link to the LEGEND OF LAKE TOBA as well. 

On the ferry to the island. For a landlocked midwesterner, I sure do love water! Also, I have not felt such a freshness in a long time as was felt crossing the world's deepest lake, knowing that my amazing vacation was beginning!
 

This place is so darn gorgeous!

Britteney and I getting ready for a day of 15 miles of hiking back and forth around Tuk-Tuk and Samosir Island! Whew! She was the best travel buddy, so flexible, up for adventure, and one of the funniest people I have ever met!

Here I am, getting ready to hike to that waterfall in the distant background!!! 

      Air Turjun (waterfall): This trail up into the mountains was lots of fun…if you are adventurous! We just kept asking locals where the trailhead is because it looks like you are walking onto someone’s road or into their yard…The trail up the mountain was hard (almost impossible) to find during rainy season as it was overgrown and there was a lot of runoff water. upon entering the trail, there was a huge puddle of water with big ol' cow pies, and Britteney was like, "Um, are we sure about this??" I was like, "YES! We are doing this, lady, you got this!" And that is how her running shoes ended up in an RIP state. Sorry about that, Britteney! We hiked up maybe 45 minutes, searching for the trail. This involved me gleefully smashing through brush trying to find the trail while Britteney thought I was crazy. I finally found a big, white water irrigation pipe that would lead us all the way up. The trail crossed the river, and after that the trail was impossible to follow because of mud, so we didn’t make it to the waterfall swimming pool, but it is promised to be amazing!!! Off-roading (hiking style) is my favorite, so I'm so fortunate Britteney put up with me doing it! 

View from halfway up, which is about as far as we got! 

KING SIDABUTAR GRAVE

The Batak king who adopted Christianity is

buried in Tomok, a village 5km southeast

of Tuk Tuk. The king’s image is carved on

his tombstone, along with those of his bodyguard

and Anteng Melila Senega, the woman

the king is said to have loved for many years

without fulfilment. The tomb is also decorated

with carvings of singa, mythical creatures with

grotesque three-horned heads and bulging

eyes. Next door in death is the missionary who

converted the tribe, the career equivalent of

boy-band stardom. (I borrowed this information from Lonely Planet!)

We were asked to put these shawls on in order to enter the burial place. 

Traditional Batak houses have 2 points at the end of the roofs. One is for the parents, and one for the child. It is the parents' hope that the child will have a better life (up and out!) than the parent. The Batak colors are also black (netherworld), red (this world), and white (the heavens).

Carving of the nativity...here we are in the tropics a week before Christmas, weird! 

I have a new goal: taking pictures of Bapaks smoking. Sorta strange
as I don't love smoking, but the way they take drags of their cigs is picturesque...

 The Bataks are Christians, which was so interesting for us, as we live in basically 100% Muslim communities. People wearing shorts, drinking beers with the tourists at night, waking up at a "normal" hour (7 AM+ instead of 4:30 AM for the first prayer time). We were not there on a day that we could go to church, but it would have been cool to have done so. Here are some shots of the intricate graves they build to honor their dead.

Christian Batak graves. This is for one person...

One can see here that there are multiple places to be buried within this grave. A body is put at the bottom, and then about a year (??) later, moved up to make space for when a new family member dies. 

Britteney posing by the lake while we wait for our lunch from the sketchiest waitress/cook ever. She was either high on the marijuana that was legal in Tuk-Tuk, or she was just plan strange. If I remember correctly, Britteney said something about crazy eyes and warnings from her mom to be careful around people with crazy eyes!!! 

The Batak roofs were originally the hairy part of a coconut tree, but due to
worries of fire and modern access to tin, tin is the way to go now!

The stone chairs, where Batak tribes met to discuss important things, such as punishments for law-breakers.
The Batak used to be cannibals in times of war, but that practice has long stopped.

 The nightlife at Tuk-Tuk was, well, rather scarce! Juan our hostel owner (pictured below), recommended we go to Roy's Pub. After an amazing dinner of pizza, we headed over, only to find we were some of the first people there (trend in my life anytime I go out...why don't people arrive until like 11 PM? I am TIRED by then!) Anyways, the local band was great, taking our Journey and Bob Marley song requests and singing with such gusto that we simply had to dance a bit! We also played pool, which is probably a very un-ladylike thing to do in our Muslim communities, so it made our pool-playing time here even better!

Our hostel owner, Juan, who was a hoot! 

From naughty to nice

Happy New Year! Blog posts to come about my trips to Sumatra and Singapore, I promise! 

Each semester we have a PC report we must do, and one component of it is "Share Your Story." In this section, we reflect on a challenge we had, how we addressed it, and what the results were. Admittedly, I thought there'd be more of these inspiring stories when I joined Peace Corps, yet not too many pop to mind. Perhaps with some more reflecting...??? Either way, this story makes me grin just thinking about these guys!

 January 2013, reflecting on semester one of teaching in Indonesia:

When I first arrived at my school and began teaching, I immediately noticed the lack of discipline and consequence for students, namely boys, who did not attend school. Even when they do attend, these boys in class 10-2 were disengaged and sleepy. They were frequently absent and there appeared to be virtually no way to get them to come. Parents didn't seem to offer punishment at home for those who didn't go to school (granted, my sample size is about 3, but of the many more that are frequently absent, I bet their situation is the same), and the school certainly didn't threaten them with any failing grades. This is the land where everyone passes, hooray! As an outsider whose focus is sustainability and community integration, there is not much I perceived I could do by way of issuing consequences that would a) have a lasting effect after I leave or b) be culturally relevant (like detention...it just doesn't exist at my school).

Thus, my counterpart Bu Umi and I focused on what we did have the power to do- encourage and empower! We began to very frequently engage and interact with the boys who were often absent, reinforcing that we valued their presence and participation when they were in class. When they answered questions, I responded with a goofy grin and a handshake or high five, which in turn was met with the whole class cheering. Bu Umi spent more time helping these boys one-on-one when it was independent work time.

The results are in, and this method of encouraging and empowering has been perhaps my biggest personal success as a teacher! Many of the "naughty boys" from class 10-2 now attend class every day and participate. Granted, it is rather exhausting to keep them engaged, because the material must not be too hard but still fast-paced to keep their attention. But virtually all of their grades have gone up, they are much more respectful, and try to do their work during independent work time. Bu Umi and I certainly cannot take all the credit for this change, as it namely comes from the boys themselves. Yet I still could not be more proud of them for the way they have begun to take their schoolwork seriously. All it took from Bu Umi and I was persistently giving them the message that we believe in them, gave them plenty of opportunities to try, and showed them that we respect and care about them. It is not too often in my young age that I have been in a position to be so proud of someone I want to cry, but Nahru, Nanang, Fais, Fanani, Ahmad and Amrul  have put me in that position, and I coudn't be happier!

Naughty boys from IPS-I who are, well, still naughty at this point. But I didn't have any pictures of the no-longer-naughty boys from class 10-2...

It's hard to remember sometimes, but even the murid yang paling nakal (the naughtiest student) is gifted in so many ways that you don't always get to see in the classroom. This guy can's speak a lick of English after 11 years in school, learning English every year, mind you, but he's an amazing musician. 

...And this is where the boys are supposed to be practicing what to do in Mecca, though it obviously shouldn't involve a blanket on one's head...