Sumatra: Orangutans, Berastagi and Lake Toba

Arrive in Medan

Kualanamu International Airport to central Medan, then the Kesawan heritage quarter

• Welcome dinner
• Nuit : Medan
• Environ 1 h de route

Soir

Then we sit down to a welcome dinner and a briefing on the week ahead: the jungle walk, what the park asks of visitors around orangutans, and what to pack for the cool highlands.

Compris

• Pick-up at Kualanamu International Airport (KNO)
• Late-afternoon walk with your guide: Maimun Palace, the Great Mosque and the Kesawan quarter
• Welcome dinner and briefing

To Bukit Lawang and the jungle edge

Medan to Bukit Lawang on the Bohorok river

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Bukit Lawang
• Environ 3.5 h de route

Matin

After breakfast we leave Medan at about 8:30 am, before the worst of the city traffic, and drive north-west through Binjai and rubber and oil palm plantations to Bukit Lawang, about 90 km and three to three and a half hours; the last stretch is narrow and bumpy. Bukit Lawang is a village strung along the Bohorok river where it leaves the forest of Gunung Leuser National Park, and its guesthouses look straight across the water at the trees.

Après-midi

Lunch is by the river on arrival. In the afternoon a local guide walks the group through the village and along the forest edge, where Thomas's leaf monkeys and long-tailed macaques often come down to the trees by the path, and explains how the park works: the licensed guides, the rules around orangutans and why food never goes into the forest. The rest of the afternoon is free to swim in the river or sit on the balcony.

Soir

Dinner together in the village. Two nights here, so nobody repacks tomorrow.

Compris

• Drive from Medan to Bukit Lawang with your guide
• Lunch by the river
• Afternoon village and forest-edge walk with a local guide
• Dinner in Bukit Lawang

Orangutans in Gunung Leuser

Bukit Lawang into Gunung Leuser National Park on foot, then back down the Bohorok by tube

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Bukit Lawang
• En bateau

Après-midi

Lunch is a packed meal of rice, fruit and tea in the forest. In the early afternoon we come out at the river and float back to the village on inner tubes lashed together, with life jackets on.

Soir

The evening is free.

Compris

• Guided walk in Gunung Leuser National Park with licensed park guides, park permit included
• Packed lunch in the forest
• River tubing back to Bukit Lawang, with life jackets
• Dinner in Bukit Lawang

Up into the Karo highlands

Bukit Lawang to Berastagi via the Sembahe valley, then Gundaling Hill

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Berastagi
• Environ 4.5 h de route

Matin

A slow morning in the jungle: breakfast on the river, time to pack, and an optional half hour on the bank at first light, when the forest is loudest. We leave at about 9:30 am.

Après-midi

The usual route runs back towards Binjai and then climbs south into the Karo highlands through the Sembahe valley, about 130 km and about four to four and a half hours, the longest drive of the trip, so we break it in the middle with a sit-down lunch on the way up and stop at a roadside fruit stall. As the road climbs the air cools; Berastagi sits at about 1,300 m among vegetable fields and orange orchards, a hill town the Dutch planters used as a retreat from Medan's heat.

Soir

We reach it mid-afternoon and walk through the fruit market, piled with passion fruit, mandarins and terong belanda, then drive up Gundaling Hill for the evening view of the volcanoes Sibayak and Sinabung. Dinner is on your own in town.

Compris

• Drive from Bukit Lawang to Berastagi with a lunch stop
• Berastagi fruit market with your guide
• Gundaling Hill at the end of the day

Activités en option

• Half an hour on the river bank at first light with your guide, before breakfast

Sibayak, hot springs and down to Lake Toba

Berastagi to Mount Sibayak and its hot springs, then Dokan, Sipiso-piso and the ferry to Samosir

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Lake Toba (Samosir)
• Environ 3.5 h de route

Matin

We leave at about 6 am and drive half an hour up to the end of the road on Mount Sibayak, then walk up with a local guide on a track and rough steps for roughly 1.5 to 2 hours to the crater rim, at a little over 2,000 m, where steam hisses from yellow sulphur vents and on a clear morning you see Sinabung and the Karo plateau below.

Après-midi

Back at the road by about 10:30 am, we soak in the hot spring pools at the foot of the volcano and have lunch. The afternoon is a drive south, with two stops: Dokan, a Karo village with traditional longhouses on stilts under tall, curved roofs, and the viewpoint over Sipiso-piso, a waterfall dropping more than 100 m into a gorge at the north end of Lake Toba.

Soir

At Tigaras the car ferry crosses to Samosir Island in about an hour, and we reach Tuktuk, on the island's lake shore, by about 6 pm for three nights and dinner.

Compris

• Mount Sibayak crater walk with a local guide
• Hot spring pools at the foot of Sibayak
• Lunch near the hot springs
• Dokan Karo village
• Sipiso-piso waterfall viewpoint
• Car ferry from Tigaras to Samosir Island
• Dinner in Tuktuk

Batak villages and Samosir's hot springs

Tuktuk to Ambarita, Simanindo and Pangururan, and back

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Lake Toba (Samosir)
• Environ 2.5 h de route

Matin

Then along the north shore to Simanindo, where the Huta Bolon museum occupies a former king's house and a troupe performs tor-tor dances with the gondang orchestra and the carved sigale-gale puppet, at set times in the late morning.

Après-midi

Lunch is a Batak meal in a village house. In the afternoon we cross the island's western neck at Pangururan to the hot springs at the foot of Pusuk Buhit, the mountain the Batak hold as their place of origin, for a soak in warm, mineral water with views over the lake.

Soir

Back in Tuktuk by about 4 pm, with the evening free; the cafés on the shore serve fish from the lake.

Compris

• Ambarita stone chairs and Batak houses with a local guide
• Huta Bolon museum and Batak dance performance in Simanindo
• Batak lunch in a village house
• Pangururan hot springs

A day on the lake

By boat from Tuktuk along the Samosir shore to Tomok, then back

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Lake Toba (Samosir)
• En bateau

Après-midi

Then the boat pulls out for a swim in clear, cool water off a quiet stretch of shore, and lunch is on board or at a lakeside village. We are back in Tuktuk by about 2 pm. The afternoon is free: walk the shore road, rent a bicycle or a scooter, or sit by the water.

Soir

In the evening we meet for a farewell dinner by the lake.

Compris

• Private wooden boat for the group on Lake Toba
• Tomok and the tomb of King Sidabutar
• Swim stop on the lake
• Lunch on the boat or by the lake
• Farewell dinner in Tuktuk

Back to Medan and home

Tuktuk by boat to Parapat, then by road to Kualanamu International Airport

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Environ 4 h de route

Matin

A last breakfast with the lake in front of you, then at about 8 am a boat crosses from the Tuktuk jetty to Parapat on the mainland in about 40 minutes, while the morning light is still on the caldera walls. From Parapat the road climbs out of the caldera and runs north-east through Pematangsiantar and tea and oil palm country, joining the toll road towards Medan for the second half.

Après-midi

It is about 170 km and three and a half to four hours, with a stop for coffee and a sit-down lunch on the way. We drop you at Kualanamu International Airport (KNO) in the early afternoon, or at a hotel in Medan if you are staying on; your guide checks your flight before saying goodbye.

Soir

Book a flight leaving from about 4:30 pm onwards, or stay a night in Medan and fly the next day; we can arrange the hotel.

Compris

• Boat from Tuktuk to Parapat
• Drive to Kualanamu International Airport (KNO) or central Medan, with lunch on the way