Last Days

Malone and I had originally planned to see the orangutans in Bukit Lawang, then travel to a nearby spot to visit with some elephants. Instead of riding an elephant in any of the other places we had visited, we did research to find the best place where the elephants were treated well. We had settled on a spot in Indonesia where elephants had been rescued from mistreatment and trained to patrol the forests, looking for illegal loggers. But we fell in love with Bukit Lawang and decided to spend our last days together there. Unfortunately, we had no money left because our trek was so expensive, and Bukit Lawang had no ATM. So we took a terrifying ride on the backs of Haidir’s and Andy’s motorbikes to the nearest ATM, about 10 kilometers away. I was afraid for my life and could do nothing but put all my faith and trust in Haidir. I survived, but the ATM didn’t accept VISA. So we went back into town, shared a plate of fried banana with coconut and chocolate, and later had a delicious dinner with Rick and Emily from our trek. I ate the Indonesian national dish—Gado Gado—peanut sauce on mixed vegetables with rice and hard-boiled egg. It was so good; I was eating so well in my days leading up to my trip to Pulau Bangkaru, where I was told the food was simple and not very exciting (which wasn’t entirely accurate). In the evening, we got together with Haidir and Andy and sat by the river with palm wine (which was disgusting) and strawberry Fanta (which was also disgusting) and sang songs and talked. The natural serenity of the town and the positive energy and friendship were so fulfilling; these were some of my happiest days in Asia.

The following day, Malone and I had to take the public bus to Binjai, the nearest town, to use the ATM. This wasn’t terribly exciting, but I got to read on the bus, and we ran into Hendri at a pancake stand, so I tried an Indonesian pancake with chocolate and peanuts while Malone tried Obama’s favorite dish, Bakso. When we got back to town, I was slowly walking along the main street, thinking about what souvenirs I wanted to purchase, when I ran into Gabe (pronounced Gabby). He was an older man, sitting on the steps of his little shop, carving wooden sculptures, bed posts, and other things. He said hello to me and asked me if I spoke German. (I guess I look German?) I said I could, ein bissien, and then was surprised to find I could have a conversation with him. He told me to sit down and he would buy me a drink. I asked for an iced tea, but he came back with a strawberry Fanta, which I was forced to drink. It was sickeningly sweet. But I sat in the heat with my strawberry Fanta, mosquitoes clustering around my ankles, and talked with Gabe for about an hour. He had been a sailor and traveled a lot. His wife was German and had died in the flood that ravaged Bukit Lawang in 2003. His demeanor was light-hearted, but you could tell that he was lonely. I was happy to give him some company, even though he kept poking my arm and tried to tell me that he went to school with Obama, and Obama had punched him in the schoolyard, knocking out nearly all of his teeth.

I spent the evening with Emily, Malone, and Andy, and in the morning, Malone and I had our last breakfast together before she caught an earlier bus to her next destination. It was strange to watch her walking away; we had spent the past two months together, becoming closer friends than we had been before. It was even stranger to leave Bukit Lawang by myself, later that morning. I said goodbye to Nora, and Andy gave me a hug. As I walked down the shop-lined river path, I passed about everyone I had met in the town, except Haidir, who was out on a trek. I said goodbye to our river-rafting guide (never did catch his name), Gabe, and finally Hendri, who gave me a big hug and told me to stop thinking so much. Even people I had never met stopped me to say goodbye, ask where I was headed next, and wish me well. It was the first place I’d visited in Asia, other than maybe Pai, where it was sad to leave, knowing that I would probably never be back, and definitely the first place where I felt like I had made friends, and friends who would remember me if I returned. But I continued on my journey alone, prepared for my final destination: Pulau Bangkaru to volunteer with the sea turtles for the rest of the month.

On the River Again

Our trip leaders cooked us dinner over a fire when the rain let up. We sat on a matted floor in a circle under the larger tent, with a bowl of white rice in front of each of us and bottles of boiled and cooled river water spread out amongst us. In the middle were bowls and bowls of food. They made me my own bowl of scrambled eggs since I wasn’t eating meat, and there were fried tofu and soy beans and a delicious vegetable curry. It was the vegetable curry I’d been wanting the whole trip but could never have anywhere else because it was always too spicy. It was a wonderfully filling dinner.

After we ate, we moved back to the smaller tent and played card tricks, matchstick games, and silly laughing games that I probably wouldn’t do any justice describing. In any case, it was a fun evening. The rain continued falling but I stayed dry and it wasn’t cold outside. Amar was right about his promise that there would be no mosquitoes at the campsite.

I was one of the first to wake up in the morning and I met Hendri down by the riverside. We sipped some tea and talked as the sun came up. Breakfast was sandwiches of scrambled eggs and tomato on fried toast, served on forest leaves, and watermelon and pineapple drizzled with passionfruit. Once we had eaten, we commenced on a difficult, barefoot journey less than a kilometer away to a waterfall. We had to cross the raging river twice to get there. Rick, the man from Holland, led me across the first time (the current was too strong for me to make it across by myself), and one of the rafting guides in the other group gave me a piggy-back ride across the second time. Hendri strung everyone’s cameras around his neck to make it across, which seemed like a risky move to me, but they all stayed dry.

 

 
The waterfall was cold for swimming, but I went in anyway, since I was already wet from crossing the river. After a while, we went to sit on some large rocks in the sunshine, and Haidir made us crowns of fern leaves and painted our faces with red mud. When we had dried off in the sunlight, it was time to get wet again, and I was ferried across the river in a tube and then led across by holding Haidir’s hand and literally floating behind him. We had noodle soup for lunch and packed up. My clothes, which had been soaking wet that morning, were completely dry now on the rocks where I had spread them, and butterflies collected on my undies.

All of our belongings were packaged into large plastic garbage bags and strapped to our raft, which was made of four inner tubes lashed together. None of this looked trustworthy and I worried that everything I had brought with me would be soaked. But Haidir and Hendri seemed confident about it. Once our gear was strapped in, we got into the raft. Haidir sat in front and another guide in back, and Malone, Emily, Rick, and I shared the two center tubes. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it wasn’t a long ride back into town. The trip downriver was exciting, especially because I had never been rafting before. There were a couple of slow spots on the river, but overall, it was a bumpy ride. Our guides used long wooden poles to steer us away from rocks, and at one point, they turned the raft around so we were floating backwards.

The sun was out, the sky was blue, the river was topped with small, white waves, and to either side of the river, the trees rose up like giants. There were people hiking along the shore or sitting by the river and every person we passed smiled and waved. It was such a refreshingly friendly place. We floated and bumped our way back into town, where we found that our things had, indeed, stayed dry, and we temporarily parted with our guides and went back to Nora’s for a shower and a nap.