Bukit Lawang is a magical little village built next to the orangutan preserve in Sumatra. The cars remain on the outside. A river runs through it with a swinging bridge over it and has little children diving off of it. There is a night club in a cave. There are some native rock climbers that live in a tree house and climb all day on the cliffs by their place. People come down to the river to wash their clothes and beat them on the rocks. I stayed for three weeks and would have stayed longer if I could have changed my ticket.
A lot of the orangutans were pets and were being rehabilitated. Western women flocked there, and lined up for a chance to work with them. Twice daily ungainly orangutans who were in the middle stage of their rehabilitation would come to the feeding center to be fed bananas.
I had the honeymoon suite at a place on the river. I got it because it was the only place in Bukit Lawang that had a hammock. There was lots of artful tile work. Water worn branches were bent into a canopy bed. The bathroom only had a roof over part of it, as is common in Indonesia. A tree grew up in the middle of the bathroom and from a tilted terra-cotta pot in its branches cold water flowed for a shower. There were tropical flowers growing in the bathroom. But the biggest attraction for me was the covered tile porch with a hammock.
I was lying on the hammock sleeping when I heard screaming. I opened my eyes to see across the river an orangutan with a t-shirt on and a bunch of natives from the city yelling and running away. Then this orangutan took off the shirt and started washing it in the river and banging it on the rocks like the people do. Then it tried to put the wet t-shirt on again, but because it was wet it couldn’t get it back on right and had it all stretched out.
Costs: When I was there in 1999, the first place I stayed at was .62 cents USD(United States Dollar) a night and had a private bath. When I moved up to the beautiful place on the river it ran me 7.50 USD a night. A plate of fried rice and a plate of passion fruit was less than one USD total. Whitewater rafting, overnight treks, rock climbing, orangutan watching and inter-tubing down the river were all affordable once the bargaining was done.
Note: According to this article, Bukit Lawang was washed away in 2003 and a lot of people were killed. According to the Wikipedia article they are rebuilding higher up and are back in business.
