The two day one night trekking and camping expedition within Gunung Leuser National Park was most certainly our best camping trip ever, even beating my Ray Meyers Survival weekend last year and that took some beating.

We met our group on the ferry from Malaysia to Indonesia and have been with them since and decided to trek together. From left to right: Keiran (UK), Catherine (US), Kate (UK), Sam (no fixed abode), Zoe (Canada) and our guide Ali G (Bukit Lawuang).

Within an hour we spotted our first orang-utan followed by a variety of other monkeys and animals. Ali G was fantastic, showing us edible and poisonous plants and foods and explaining the variety of ways in which the locals make a living from the jungle including the rubber plantations, palm oil, coco plants, honey and of course magic mushrooms and weed which was in abundance everywhere. 

It was amazing to see the food the porters knocked up on an open fire, we had sweet and sour chicken, vegetable curry with steamed rice and crackers.  For breakfast it was toasted club sandwiches and bucket loads of tea throughout the day.

The sleep was a little uncomfortable as we had only a sleeping liner and no bag. The noise of the jungle was just incredible but extremely loud.  In the morning we were greeted by a variety of monkeys who came to forage on our left over food – some really aggressive little feckers.

Catherine slipped on a wet rock and either sprained or broke a bone in her foot which meant the porters had to carry her back to base camp – 5 hours!  I fell over a zillion times and ended up spraining my wrist – I blame my slippy trainers. 

Overall, a great experience and enjoyed our group’s company very much.  We all plan to head to Danua Toba (Lake Toba) together in the next day or so.

Hope you enjoy the photos, as usual there are plenty more on the picture tab above no.44.