Tej Turner

Travelblog#32: Pulau Weh – Sumatra, Indonesia

14^th-19^th December, 2014

During my time on Pulau Weh I stayed at Yulia’s Guest House. It may not have had a sandy beach but its restaurant area balanced over the water, and the background sound of waves breaking against the rocks, more than made up for that.

I was a little tired from my jungle trek and my bus journey through the Gayo Highlands, so I didn’t do much at first. I rested, slept, and the next day I woke up with enough energy to jump into the sea and swim over to the nearby Rubiah Island for some snorkelling. There wasn’t much coral – much of it had been swept away by the tsunami in 2004 – but there was lots of fish, and I even spotted a moray. There are some efforts currently underway to create an artificial reef, and on the day I was there I witnessed some divers busily attaching corals to concrete objects which had been dropped to bottom of the seabed, to help encourage more to grow on them.

When I swam back to Yulia, Dominique had arrived and was sat in the restaurant area. For those of you who haven’t read my other blogs; Dominique is a Canadian girl I keep bumping into because we are taking similar routes through Sumatra. The last time I saw her was at Lake Toba, but we already knew when we parted back then that our paths would cross again. She had a new friend with her; Oleg, a young German man she met on the boat.

After a quick catch up over breakfast, the three of us wandered over to Iboih Dive Centre: Dominique was interested in getting her PADI Open Water Diver certificate, and Oleg and I were just interested in general diving. The prices we were quoted were remarkably cheap (probably the cheapest I have come across in Asia so far) and the outfit seemed quite professional, so I told them I would be going under with them the next morning.

Over the two days which followed, I ended up blowing the last of the funds that I had put aside for diving. I saw barracudas, turtles, several mimic octopi which we watched for a while as they shifted their shapes to impersonate the corals around them, dozens of morays, and countless of other species that I cannot even name. Most rewarding though, for me, was the underwater landscapes of dramatic canyons, caves and ocean walls – all covered in beautiful coral, and teeming with schools of fish.

I spent the rest of my time on Pulau Weh relaxing: I read books while lazing in my hammock, wandered around Iboih, I made a few friends, and in the evenings I ate at Oongs Restaurant, where Oong herself a cooked up a delicious family style buffet dinner of vegetables and fish every night.

On my final day there it was raining but I knew that, despite this, there was one last thing I needed to do before I left: a motorcycle tour.

I still had not got back behind the wheel since my little accident on Lake Toba, and it felt like something I needed to do soon to regain my confidence. Pulau Weh was an ideal place for this because the roads are good and there are some attractions around the island which I wanted to check out, so, I packed my raincoat, snorkel and a bottle of water into my daypack, and set off.

I drove quite slowly and carefully at first, but I soon got the hang of it again and within a few minutes I was roaming around with confidence. Aneuk Laot Lake and the volcano near Jaboi village were both quite disappointing, to be honest – the lake was not very pretty and surrounded by sludgy banks and houses, and the volcano didn’t have a crater and was just a sulphurous gash in the mountain – the coastal road, however, was great.

What I did find very interesting was the underwater volcano which is just off the shore from a beach near Gapang. It didn’t take long to find it; I just swam out and suddenly found myself surrounded by bubbles escaping from a series of fumaroles. They were only about 10 meters down, so it was very easy to duck dive and get a closer look at the volcanic cracks on the ocean floor.

More photos from Pulau Weh can be found on my Flickr.

Travelblog#31: Journey through the Gayo Highlands – Sumatra, Indonesia

12^th-13^th December, 2014

I had just returned from a trek which had been organised through Johan from Wisma Cinta Alam guest house, so it was there that I spent the rest of the day relaxing upon my return to Ketambe village. My guide had suddenly turned ill four days in, so the trek had been cut short. They offered to take me out the next day or for another night walk, but I declined, deciding that there didn’t seem much point in venturing back to the jungle just for a mere few hours: I was back in civilisation now, and the spell had been somewhat broken. I began to make preparations for the next stages of my journey through Sumatra.

Shaved and showered, I put on a clean set of clothes and sat by the river for most of the day while going through all the photos I had taken. Johan came and sat with me for a while and we chatted. His brother and neighbour, Sam – a local ranger whom I met before the trek – also came over to say hello. They seemed to be a very nice family.

I left the following morning on a minibus heading north, along a road which cut through the middle of Gunung Leuser National Park. It passed through lots of small villages, and the mountain views were incredible at times.

I was heading deeper into the Aceh province, which is Sharia Law territory. Well, technically, anything north of Kutacane (a town I stayed in on my way to Ketambe) is governed by Aceh and under Sharia Law, but these people, who have lived for generations in the forested highlands, were Gayo long before they were Aceh and are a little harder to tame. They all call themselves ‘Muslim’ now, if asked, but many of them drink beer, pray very little, and are far from devout.

A bus change in Blankenjeren, and then it was a further six hours of winding mountain roads until I reached Takengon; a charming little highland town nestled by the side of Laut Tawar Lake.

I had four hours to wait until my sleeper bus to Banda Aceh, so I went for a walk. This was obviously not a place very used to seeing foreigners: wherever I walked children (and even some adults) ran out of their houses to yell random, nonsensical phrases at me, like; “Good morning” (it was evening), “Thank you” (what for?), “Wasyur name?” (“Tej”), “Where you going?” (I don’t know, I’m just walking…), and, of course, the usual; “Hey meister!”

I eventually spotted another Caucasian person; a girl whose name I have forgotten but she was very nice, and she seemed quite excited to see another foreigner. I was on my way back to the bus station at the time, but we quickly ate nasi goreng together while she told me how she had been living there for over six months while working on a project to teach the locals to make bricks which are more earthquake proof.

And then I went back to catch my bus. ‘Sleeper’ wasn’t quite a fitting description, as it was actually a minibus and the seats didn’t recline. I closed my eyes thought hopefully of sleep.

Travelblog#30 Gunung Leuser National Park – Sumatra, Indonesia

9th-12th December, 2014

Day 1

It was not twenty minutes after stepping off from the road and into the jungle, that we caught our first sighting; a startled owl flying away. Its companion though, remained stubbornly upon the branch.

After taking a photo we carried on walking, taking breaks every now and then. This first three hours would be the hardest of the entire excursion for my guide, Udin, who was carrying most of the food and equipment. Once we reached basecamp it would be much easier; as we would only have to carry water with us when we went out on hikes. I told him to take his time.

This was a very fortunate arrangement, for it was during such a break that we heard some branches snapping, looked up, and spotted a family of orang-utans.

Mummy, Daddy and baby. We watched them for a while as they climbed between the branches, gathering fruit. I had seen orang-utans before when I visited the Rehabilitation Centre in Borneo but that was three years ago, and they were creatures that had been tamed by the human care they had received. These orang-utans were truly wild; born and raised in the jungle.

An hour or so later, we bumped into another group of people who had been in the jungle for three days, and still not seen a single one of these amazing creatures.

We also came across a group of Thomas-leaf monkeys that morning, but they were quite far up in the trees. I was hoping to see one up close before my trip was over.

Basecamp was, typically, set beside a river and the porter for another group – the same group we passed on our way in – was already there, tending to a fire. Udin finally took the heavy backpack off of his shoulders and began making lunch; noodle soup – a meal I would get very accustomed to during the next few days.

Halfway through eating it I saw a rustling in one of the trees on the other side of the river and ran over to look, seeing something with long arms swinging between the branches. It was too big to be for a monkey, but yet too small for an orang-utan, I realised. Maybe it was a-

“White-handed gibbon,” Udin said, appearing beside me.

Shortly after I finished eating lunch I saw my fourth primate of the day: a group of long-tail macaques.

During our afternoon trek we found another group of orang-utans; a mother with a small baby and older child. We sat down and watched them for almost an hour as they fed on leaves. At one point a group of wild pigs walked near to us, not realising we were there. They soon fled in that piggy-like way, making lots of grunting noises.

Possibly the highlight of the day for me was when the younger orang-utan swung onto a tree above us and proceeded to urinate. Fortunately, his aim was not so good.

We wandered back to camp at about 4pm, and I had a wash in the river while Udin began preparing dinner.

Day 2

After a stormy night in a leaky tent, I woke up feeling very tired. Yet I was also eager to get going and see more of the jungle.

I managed to get close enough to Thomas-leaf monkeys to see their funky hairdos that morning. They were noisy and playful creatures.

Later on the sound of woodpecker sent our eyes up to the sky. We never spotted the bird, but instead, we found a ratufa high in the treetops. They are large tree squirrels with big, fluffy tails.

There was another family of orang-utans passing through our part of the jungle that day and we spotted them twice. It was a mother with a baby and child of around five years old (and nearing an age of independence). We witnessed them encounter a group of Thomas-leaf monkeys, who made a big show of making loud sounds in an attempt to scare them off. The orang-utans, of course, being much larger creatures, paid them no heed, and carried on swinging through the trees.

After a supper of noodles, rice, vegetables and egg we rested for a while and then, after it got dark, we got ready to begin our night walk.

For the first hour or so we didn’t see much, apart from lots of strange and beautiful creepy crawlies, like this little critter.

It was nice to be out in the jungle at night though, and eerie. Eventually we found a kingfisher sleeping on one of the branches. I managed to get quite close to it.

The flash of my camera caused it to fly away. Just as I was climbing back up to the trail Udin yelled out; “Quick! Quick!” as he pointed at something in the undergrowth. I ran, getting there just in time to see a porcupine scrambling away.

We carried on walking, occasionally spotting big spiders, crickets, and strange caterpillars. The highlight of the night was definitely the mouse deer I found. It was a very timid and shy creature, with big yellow eyes which glowed in the night. I never managed to get a photo of it; we followed it for a while as it tried to slink out of sight, but it was impossible to get my camera to focus on it in the dark. For the purposes of illustration though; here is a photo of one I lifted from the internet. Just so you can see how awesomely cute they are.

Day 3

By then I had reached a place where every time I saw a Thomas-leaf monkey I would just look at it for about ten seconds and then think; Great, another one. Next!

Which I guess makes me spoilt.

We didn’t find anything else that third morning, apart from a fleeting sight of a rhinoceros hornbill flying between the trees, an eagle soaring over the river, and a trogon resting in a tree.

I guess our orang-utan-athon had to end somewhere.

Udin was being a little bit lazy that day, which I guess was understandable with me getting him to take me out on a night-walk the night before as an extra. We were both a little tired.

As it was my last night in Camp 1 (which is said to be better for wildlife than Camp 2), I said to Udin that I would like to watch the orang-utans make their nest if we could find them. Udin seemed quite confident and said; “Okay, we leave at four.”

At 3:30 I woke him up from his nap and we got ready. I didn’t take us long to find them. It was the same three we bumped into the day before; the mummy/baby/junior family.

And then it was a matter of waiting. We watched for over an hour as mummy orang-utan gorged herself on endless leaves. Eventually it began to rain, forcing the orang-utans to climb down a bit lower and begin searching for a suitable place to make nests for the night. We followed, and the rain got heavier. By the time the orang-utans finally pulled branches of leaves from the tree and arranged them into their beds for the night, it was pouring. When it was over, Udin and I ran back to camp.

Day 4

Udin had been coughing all night, and by the morning he didn’t look well at all. He slowly made breakfast – noodle soup, again – and, after eating a few mouthfuls, he ran into the trees and threw up.

He had a fever: it became clear that we were going to have to go back. He was very apologetic about it. I told him it wasn’t his fault and helped him pack up.

We walked to Ketambe slowly, Udin stopping every now and then to rest or cough up bile.

For more photos, click here.