Luwak Coffee

Luwak coffee is the most expensive coffee in the world and it's exclusive to Northern Sumatra.
In the early eighteenth century the Dutch established coffee plantations in northern Sumatra, planting various varieties of coffee, including Arabica, from Yemen. Then from 1830-1870 the Dutch prohibited the Batak farmers from picking coffee for themselves. The clever Batak farmers noticed small animals, called palm civits, eating the ripe coffee berries, and when they inspected the animals' feaces they found that the coffee beans had been excreted intact. So they collected the excreted coffee beans, washed them carefully, dried, roasted and ground them to make an exceptionally mild, smooth coffee. It was not long before the Dutch heard about this wonderful coffee and started drinking it themselves.

The coffee berries ferment inside the palm civit's digestive tract, where a unique combination of digestive enzymes breaks down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste.

Lake Toba

      Bukit Lawang

I finally succumbed to the jungle trekking in Bukit Lawang – against my better judgement. The paths are steep and treacherous, in places slippery from the previous day’s rain, in places interlaced by networks of roots with holes between them. Trees blown over by the high winds frequently block the paths, forcing us to climb over them or scramble under them. The jungle is dense with huge lianas that wriggle along the ground until they find trees to climb, and then they shoot up them like giant snakes. Some of the trees are massive, with buttress roots standing out from the base like huge wings. But I was disappointed that there were not more big, old trees.

Bukit Lawang is famous for its orang utangs, which make nests out of branches and leaves at the tops of the trees in the national forest where they are protected, and the whole purpose of the trek is to see them. Our guide knows all the orang utangs by name and he seems to recognise them when they are at the tops of the trees. One called Sandra, with long, soft, orange fur and a black face, came down with her baby and rolled around on the ground, playing with her baby. There is a breeding programme for orang utangs, and medical help is provided if they get sick. Sandra’s first two babies died, which apparently is normal, but her third baby, which clings to her fur as she swings through the trees, is already two years old.. There are other species of monkey in the forest, but they are very shy and move very fast. As I was climbing over one of the fallen trees, it collapsed under me and I hurt my shoulder. Our guide was very careful after this to help me over all the difficult places. I think he had visions of me twisting an ankle and him having to carry me back to Bukit Lawang on his back, which, he told us, he had done on occasion, when a tourist had injured themself.

We arrived back before the four o’clock torrential rain storm – you can practically set your watch by it, it’s so punctual, leaving all the more intrepid trekkers, who are going on two day treks, even seven day treks, still in the forest, in the rain. I was immensely glad to be back, went to wash the mud off – I was coated from head to foot – and went straight to sleep for several hours.

Next day I caught a local bus to Medan. About half an hour into the journey, ominous clonking sounds came from under the bus, which stopped. The driver climbed under the bus, while the passengers all got out and hung around, wondering what to do. I decided to try my luck hitching and headed off with my luggage. I failed miserably. Bus aft.er bus came by, too full to stop. One indicated the roof. Did I want to cling to the roof for three hours? I thought not. Finally a bus stopped and squeezed me in to the front seat, already occupied by the driver, two women and two children. I managed to get half one buttock onto the edge of the seat. Half the other buttock was on the door handle, which was a couple of inches higher than the seat. So I was at an angle, one leg on top of the other. Just when I reached the limit of what I could bear, one of the women got out. When we reached Medan  I handed the bus conductor a fifty thousand note. “OK” he said. “Not OK” I said; “the fare is twenty thousand. Give me my change.” He handed me ten thousand. “OK?” “No. Come on. Give me more change.” He handed me five thousand “more” I said. Another five thousand. Eventually I managed to extract all but one thousand (about 7pence) from him. It was like pulling a tooth.

Medan is a horrible, mafia infested, ugly town. I had been warned not to go there on my own. I don’t know what people thought would happen to me – rape, murder?? In the end the bus from one bus station to the other ripped me off (about a pound) and somehow my sunglasses, which were on my hat, managed to disappear. (oh well easy come easy go – I found them on the ground in WOMAD festival).

The local bus from Medan to Lake Toba is full of men who smoke continuously. I had been warned about this. But I had also been warned that people smoked in the air conditioned buses, which I thought would be worse. At least the local buses have windows. Indonesian men smoke everywhere and Indonesian women, who don’t smoke, put up with it uncomplainingly. What I hadn’t bargained for was that the windows were high up, so the smoke just blew back through the whole bus. By the time we got to lake Toba I had a sore throat and a headache.

The bus got to Lake Toba too late to catch the last ferry, so the bus conductor said

“No hotels here. Last ferry gone. Get in bus,” hoisting my luggage back onto the bus, and off we went back up the hill. The bus stopped. “Plenty hotel here” he said, hoisting my luggage down. The first person I asked suggested I try the hotel opposite. I dragged my luggage with difficulty across a piece of rough waste ground, to be met by a child who spoke no English, but who indicated with signs that she had rooms. I asked her how much and eventually managed to persuade her to write the price on a piece of paper – 200,000! (about £15). I left. Round the corner I found a place for 30,000 (just over £2).

Lake Toba is inside an ancient volcano. Sheltered by the steep sides of the volcano, the water is glassy calm.

Next day I caught the ferry across the lake to TukTuk, a small town perched right on the edge of a circular peninsular. TukTuk is full of hotels, guest houses and homestays built in the traditional manner, but with corrugated iron roofs, which have been left to rust. It was difficult to find anywhere to stay because the place was inundated with Chinese people, who had come here for the Chinese new year. Everywhere had hiked their prices. It seems that the Chinese are considered very rich. It also seems that they are prepared to pay.

I found a room – actually a traditional house. It looks nice from the outside but is very dark inside and has the most uncomfortable bed I have encountered yet in my travels. Hard mattresses I can cope with but hard lumpy ones that dip in the middle are a bit more of a challenge.

Bukit Lawang, Sumatra

Everthing everyone said about the terrible roads in Sumatra is true. They are pockmarked with potholes and huge craters, and the traffic tries to slalom between the holes and craters, regardless of what is coming in the opposite direction. At times the tarmac is missing from the road surface altogether, which slows the traffic to a crawl amidst clouds of billowing dust. Our minibus had doors that didn't shut properly; there was a half inch gap between the doors and the frame of the minibus. The engine cover was in front of the back seats warming up everyone's feet nicely and oil leaked from the dashboard onto the feet of passengers sitting in the front seats. The driver stopped for anyone who waved him down, until no more passengers could squeeze in. At this point people climbed onto the top and sat with our luggage on the roof rack, as the minibus careered round corners, potholes and obstacles in the road.

As we went further and further from the city of Medan with its endless sprawling suburbs, the villages grew smaller and smaller, always surrounded by the ubiquitous palm oil plantations that are spreading like a fast growing, green cancer, devouring the lush, tropical rain forests that once covered this beautiful island.

I was travelling with a young German couple, who I met in the airport in Medan. (The ferry from Penang to Sumatra  went out of business due to the excessively cheap plane tickets everyone could buy in Penang, so, reluctantly, we flew from Penang to Medan, in Sumatra.) When we got on the bus a man from Bukit Lawang got into the front seat. He greeted us with a smile. It started to rain. Our luggage was on the roof. Eventually the driver climbed up and took it all down and stacked it inside. When the rain stopped he put it back on the roof again. The man from Bukit Lawang chatted to us, showing us photos of jungle trekking. "Here we go" I thought "He's going to take us to a guest house and pressurise us into paying loads of money to go trekking."

After several hours we came to Bukit Lawang bus station - a piece of rough ground where mini buses seemed to park more or less anywhere they liked. Our 'friend' from Bukit Lawang piled us into two motorbike rikshaws and jumped onto the back seat of one of the motorbikes. Sure enough when we arrived he took us across a wobbly, swinging bamboo bridge to a guest house, where he seemed to know everyone. The rooms were cheap so we checked in. Then he sat with us and started the hard sell. I walked away and left my new found friends to argue with him about prices and numbers of days hiking. He ran after me and asked "Do you want to do one day's trekking tomorrow? I can give shoes. What size your foot?"

"No thanks. I don't want to go trekking."

Bukit Lawang was presumably a tiny village by a river overshadowed by steep, forested mountains on the edge of a national park. then some years ago it became an obligatory stop off on the tourist trail. So bamboo huts and small tasteful guesthouses sprang up like mushrooms. Then, according to some people, tourism waned due to long haul flights no longer stopping in Sumatra, according to  others this is the low season, because it's the rainy season. April is supposed to be high season, but I would have thought it would be too hot. Anyway for whatever reason tourists are very thin on the ground and most of the guest houses are empty. Hence the touts riding the buses to drag tourists to their guest houses and sign them up for expensive treks.

My room had a hole in the floor, mould on the walls and a hole in the mosquito net. I decided to look for something better. Many of the guest houses seemed to have no staff - maybe they had given up and gone to sleep in a back room - but I found a room with traditional woven bamboo walls, right on the river bank for £3. One of the young men who worked there came with me to fetch my luggage. He told me he was a flexible Muslim, meaning he drank alcohol and charmed the young female tourists into his bed whenever he could. "I want to marry western girl" he told me "but very difficult. They stay with me few days, then leave. But I try and try." Like many of the young Indonesian men aiming his sights at young western women, he kept his hair long. I'm getting a feeling of deja vue. Wasn't it like this in Bali thirty years ago?

www.sumatra-indonesia.com/jungleinn.htm

This hotel is thriving. The rooms are beautiful, with private balconies looking out into rain forest. The is restaurant stylish with hand crafted furniture. They charge ten times what the other places round here charge and they have a continuous stream of guests!

What a relief to have left the city. On the last night in Penang, where ten of us were paying £2.50 each for a bed in the dormitory with one fan, it seemed to be hotter than ever. A  slight breeze from the fan just reached the left side of my bed but not the right side, where mosquitoes were free to linger, waiting for a chance to home in on a piece of unprotected skin - usually my face - and launch an ariel attack. I tossed and turned, sweated, and turned some more. Eventually I got up and crept out to the terrace to read my book. People came and went along the corridoor constantly. Carl got up, got dressed and took his computer downstairs. Chinese voices rose up from the street below. It was one of those nights.

Here you get a whole room for £3 and apart from the occasional motorbike, no traffic. Just the deafening sound of crickets, followed by a thousand Japanese drummers on the roof, as torrential rain drums on the corrugated iron. Then a little later a band of shrieking monkeys running through the guest house compound. It's hot and very very humid but nights are not hot like in Penang.