Sumatra: Orangutans, Berastagi and Lake Toba

1. Day 1: Arrive in Medan

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

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in Medan
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Kualanamu International Airport (KNO), about 40 km east of Medan, where a driver meets you for the transfer into the city, usually 45 minutes to an hour on the toll road. If you land by about 2 pm, join your See Sight Tours guide and the group at about 4 pm for a first walk as the heat goes out of the day. Medan is a trading city shaped by Malay sultans, Dutch tobacco planters and Chinese, Indian and Batak families, and it shows in a short circuit: Maimun Palace, the yellow residence of the Sultan of Deli, the black-domed Great Mosque (Masjid Raya Al-Mashun) nearby, and the shophouses and colonial offices of the Kesawan quarter, where the Tjong A Fie Mansion, the house of a Hakka merchant, stands on the main street. 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.

   Included

   • 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

   Free time: Free until the late-afternoon walk

   Activity: Land by about 2 pm to join the walk; later arrivals meet the group at the welcome dinner. The mosque may be closed to visitors at prayer times; dress covering shoulders and knees.

   

2. Day 2: To Bukit Lawang and the jungle edge

   Medan to Bukit Lawang on the Bohorok river

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Bukit Lawang
   Day 2 details

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

   Included

   • 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

   Free time: Late afternoon free

   Activity: Bukit Lawang has a simpler standard of lodging than the cities: rooms with private bathrooms and fans or air-conditioning, but not hotel facilities. The last 15 km of road is slow.

   

3. Day 3: Orangutans in Gunung Leuser

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

   • By boat
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Bukit Lawang
   Day 3 details

   The day the trip is built around. We set off at about 8 am with licensed park guides, in small parties of no more than six guests per guide, and climb into the forest of Gunung Leuser National Park, part of the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra listed by UNESCO. The orangutans here are wild or the descendants of animals released by the rehabilitation centre that once ran in the village, and they move through the canopy where the fruit is. Sightings are likely but never certain. When we do meet one, we keep at least 10 metres away, keep our voices down, use no flash and never offer food, and the guides move the group on after a few minutes so animals are not crowded. Gibbons, leaf monkeys, hornbills and monitor lizards are part of the walk too. 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. The evening is free.

   Included

   • 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

   Easier option: A shorter walk of about two hours on the lower trails with its own guide, back in the village for lunch.

   More active option: A longer walk of six to seven hours deeper into the park with a guide, booked the evening before.

   Free time: Evening free

   Activity: About four hours of walking on steep, muddy and root-covered paths in heat and humidity, with the tubing at the end. Wear closed shoes and long trousers. If you have a cold or a stomach bug, stay in the village: orangutans catch human illnesses. River tubing runs only when the water level is safe.

   

4. Day 4: Up into the Karo highlands

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

   • Drive about 4.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Berastagi
   Day 4 details

   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. 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. 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.

   Included

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

   Optional experiences

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

   Free time: Evening free in Berastagi

   Activity: The drive of about 4 to 4.5 hours is the one day over our usual 4-hour limit, broken by lunch and a fruit stop. Berastagi is cool in the evenings; bring a warm layer.

   

5. Day 5: 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

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Lake Toba (Samosir)
   Day 5 details

   An early start while the summit is clear. 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. 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. 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.

   Included

   • 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

   Easier option: Skip the climb and sleep in; the vehicle brings you to the hot springs to meet the group for a soak and lunch at about 10:30 am.

   Activity: The Sibayak walk is roughly 1.5 to 2 hours up and about 5 km return, with close to 400 m of climbing on loose stones and steps, slippery after rain. Bring long trousers and a warm layer for the summit. Ferry times are confirmed with your final itinerary.

6. Day 6: Batak villages and Samosir's hot springs

   Tuktuk to Ambarita, Simanindo and Pangururan, and back

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Lake Toba (Samosir)
   Day 6 details

   Samosir is the heartland of the Toba Batak, and today we see it by road with a local Batak guide. First Ambarita, a few minutes from Tuktuk, where the stone chairs of the Siallagan clan stand under a banyan tree in front of carved and painted Batak houses; your guide explains how the village council met and judged here. 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. 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. Back in Tuktuk by about 4 pm, with the evening free; the cafés on the shore serve fish from the lake.

   Included

   • 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

   Free time: Evening free in Tuktuk

   Activity: Simanindo's dance runs at set times; we plan the day around them and confirm with your final itinerary.

7. Day 7: A day on the lake

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

   • By boat
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Lake Toba (Samosir)
   Day 7 details

   A day on Lake Toba itself, the crater lake of a supervolcano whose eruption about 74,000 years ago was one of the largest known, and today the biggest volcanic lake in the world, almost 100 km long. A wooden boat chartered for the group collects us from the Tuktuk jetty at about 9 am and follows the east shore of Samosir, below the cliffs of the old caldera wall. We land at Tomok to walk up a lane of stalls to the stone sarcophagus of King Sidabutar, carved with his face, centuries old and still visited by his descendants. 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. In the evening we meet for a farewell dinner by the lake.

   Included

   • 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

   Easier option: Stay on the boat at Tomok; the walk to the tomb is about 300 m on a lane with a gentle slope.

   Free time: Afternoon free in Tuktuk

   Activity: Bring a swimsuit and sun protection; the lake is at about 900 m, so the water is cooler than the sea.

   

8. Day 8: Back to Medan and home

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

   • Drive about 4 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   Day 8 details

   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. 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. 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.

   Included

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

   Activity: Book a flight leaving from about 4:30 pm onwards. Road times on this route vary with traffic around Pematangsiantar.

Wildlife and weather: May to September is the drier part of the year around Lake Toba and the highlands, with clearer mornings on Sibayak and calmer boat days. The rainforest at Bukit Lawang gets rain in every month, usually as afternoon showers, and the trails are muddy all year. October to December is the wettest stretch. Orangutans can be seen year-round; where they are depends on which trees are fruiting.

• Medan1 night
• Bukit Lawang2 nights
• Berastagi1 night
• Lake Toba (Samosir)3 nights