I met Ginny, Lynne and Adrian a couple of months ago in Thailand. Since then we have travelled together through Malaysia, into Singapore and now find ourselves in Sumatra, Indonesia. I think partly the reason we have stuck together is because we all got addicted to the card game '500' which I learnt in Africa and have played ever since. It requires four people to play, so it was perfect for us. We played it at almost every opportunity and in some strange places too! Apart from that we all got along well and always had a good time together.

We flew into Medan in the north of the island after hearing great things about the area. Most of the places I have been to since I started travelling are not out of guide books, but are from personal recommendation. Travellers love to share information and will always tell you the places to go...and the places to avoid! We had heard great things about Sumatra, especially Bukit Lawang with its orang-utan rehabilitation centre.

The vendor is trying to sell me one of these bats! Apparently they are very good to eat!

Medan is about 60km north of the equator, I'm not overly impressed with the city itself, it is one of Indonesia's largest cities and port towns. It does have some nice buildings, and interesting 'crowded-as-hell' markets but it is also polluted & dirty. It is a very busy city and just crossing the road is something to be done with extreme caution.

I am approached by a street vendor who has a 'stall' with a frame over it and hanging from this frame are several live bats! Their feet are tied to the frame so they hang, at least in their natural position, upside down. These bats are huge, I've never seen anything close to this size before. They can have a wingspan of over 1.5m, weigh a kilogram and have faces that really do look a bit like foxes. Unlike most bats they are not blind and have huge shiny eyes that have excellent sight. They feed only on fruit and can be seen, as I would discover later in my travels, in groups of thousands, flying from one island to another at sunset and returning to roost at sunrise.

The vendor is trying to sell me one of these bats! Apparently they are very good to eat! With a bit of a grimace at the thought I refuse his offer & try to find a more wholesome Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch, making sure that the wings are at least normal chicken size!

We are going up to Bukit Lawang, home of the Bahorok

Eventually, most of the orang-utans leave of their own accord...

Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre. We take the rough bus ride for two and a half hours and we arrive in a stunning area of equatorial rainforest in the mountains. Everywhere I look is green and dense, plants and trees towering overhead. A beautiful, clear, crisp river rushes and crashes down it's own valley past banana plants, passion fruit bushes and other tropical fruits that grow wild on every available spot.

We walk alongside this river until we reach the Rehabilitation Centre. There one of the rangers and a guide meets a group of us. They are taking us to see the orang-utans that they are currently trying to release back into the wild. They give us some information on the animals; Orang-utans are one of mankind's closest living relatives, they are an endangered species and have been protected since 1931. There are now around 25,000 surviving in the wild a small fraction of their original number. This number is declining rapidly. They live only in jungle areas of Sumatra and Borneo, building nests in the tops of the trees. They can weigh up to 110kgs and can grow, in their squat form to over 1m tall.

The unfortunate reason that this centre is needed is because of the illegal trade in baby Orang-utans. People here, and in other Asian countries like to have the babies as pets. They are extremely cute when young and get shut up in small boxes or cages. The problems come when they start to grow. Firstly they become extremely strong and are therefore not suitable as pets anymore. Secondly, people get bored of them and just leave them in their cages so that as they grow they can literally become squashed in their own cage. They are also useful, because of their genetic closeness to us, for animal testing.

Mostly the 'liberated' animals are in a bad way when they reach the centre and are taken through several stages of rehabilitation. The first is observation, vaccination and quarantine which lasts a couple of months. After that they are let out with others into a large cage where they can climb, run around & learn a few basic social skills. From there they are let out into the open around the centre. Because they are being fed by the centre they generally stay close, but at the same time are being introduced to a more natural habitat. For final stage they are taken further away from the centre, but close enough that they can be fed twice a day on bananas placed on a three meter high platform by one of the rangers. Eventually, most of the orang-utans leave of their own accord having learnt what they can eat in the forest and no longer needing to be fed from the platform. Any that don't go away voluntarily will be taken by the centre to a new habitat deep within the jungle.

 

©Ian Picken 2004