Aspiring to Paradise

21 -25 March 2011

As we traveled inland and away from the wet, west coast the scenery quickly changed from dramatic and deserted coastline to steep glacial valleys where wide blue lakes are filled by impossibly wide and braided crystal clear rivers. From my perspective, one of the best things about New Zealand thus far are the wide, braided, and glacially fed rivers. Wow, I think I’m in love.

In Wanaka we visited the awesome Mount Aspiring National Park (but what is it aspiring to, we wonder?) and Rob Roy Glacier. After huffing and puffing our way up through dense southern beech and fern rich forest we were rewarded with a view of the retreating Rob Roy glacier. Over a lunch of our favorite PB&J sandwiches we kept an eye out for the Kea, a large, friendly alpine dwelling parrot, and watched as large chunks of the glacier paraded down the steep mountain sides in true avalanche style. After soaking up some Vitamin D and without a visit from a Kea, we reluctantly marched ourselves back down through the beautiful, lush forest and onto The Matukituki River floodplain.

After Wanaka we spent a few nights in Queenstown avoiding the advertisements for bungee jumping, sky diving, parasailing, bungee jumping while parasailing, and honestly any way you can imagine to throw yourself off something-- they probably do that here too. Instead of emptying our bank accounts on the promise of 15 seconds of true bliss a la freefall (and there is something truly blissful about it—I jumped off a bridge here when I came to New Zealand in 2004), we went hiking and I found myself a much needed yoga studio.

We spent a day hiking near the town of Glenorchy, a quick drive from Queenstown, just on the other side of the hill from the famous Milford Sound, where the multi-day Routeburn, Greenstone, and Caples, traks start or end. Without tent, sleeping bags, or stove, (and 30+ days of trekking behind us) we have pretty much ruled out any overnight treks- or tramps as they call them here in NZ (Shucks, I guess we’ll just have to come back).

After bumming around along the Dart River on some nice gravel roads, we walked the deserted trail to Lake Sylvan soaking up the beautiful beech and fern forests (as usual) and taking in the perfect reflections of the mountains in the lake. After our walk we headed up another gravel road toward the town of Paradise and while we didn’t reach the town we certainly feel as though we made it to the destination- paradise. Or maybe that’s the delicious brownie served up at a Glenorchy café talking…

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Along the We(s)t Coast

12-21 March 2011

After guzzling vino in the Martinborough wine region north of NZ’s capitol, Wellington, we woke up early and drove our campervan onto the Cook Strait Ferry. The Cook Strait is known for its treacherous seas, so we popped seasickness pills and crossed our fingers on this early morning cruise to the South Island. Lucky us! Calm weather allowed us to stow our barf bags and we enjoyed seas nearly as smooth as glass as we marveled at the gorgeous coastal views and watched dolphins playing in our boat’s wake.

The next stop on our exploration of the South Island was Nelson Lakes National Park. Situated in the middle of the island, it is home a pair of gem-like lakes, beautiful alpine peaks, and…billions upon billions of sandflies. Nobody loves (or likes) sandflies. They are vile little creatures. From sun up to sundown these little buggers search out any and every piece of exposed skin and bite, bite, bite.

While the bites themselves don’t hurt too much, their after affects are truly remarkable. The bites ITCH! The bites itch so intensely that they can wake you up from a deep sleep, and the bites I got on our first day on the South Island still itch today, more than a week later. You itch until it hurts. I may have scars by the time I leave NZ. I repeat, nobody loves sandflies.

After enjoying Nelson Lakes we made our way along the impossibly scenic, Buller Gorge on our way to the we(s)t coast awed by the beauty of the Tasman Sea. By any measure, the drive along NZ’s south coast from Westport to Haast is one of the world’s most scenic road journeys.

Along the way the highway passes endless stretches of rock strewn coastline, deserted beaches, glaciers, pristine forest, lakes, rivers, waterfalls…you get the point.

About half the way down the we(s)t coast we entered the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Area, over four million acres of national parks and conservation areas home to a hoard of mountain peaks, vast expanses primeval forests, and wild coastlines. Can we get a “woot woot” for NZ’s conservation effort. But, I digress, let’s get back to the title of this post.

On this so called we(s)t coast it rains a lot. So much, that some wetter, wet areas receive more than 25 feet of rain each year. Now that is a lot of rain.

With that in mind it probably does not come as a surprise that a couple of rain drops fell on our pretty little heads during the week we spent along the we(s)t coast. That said, we hope you enjoys the photos contained within this post, taken during those rare sunny moments (or the clouds parted for a second or two).

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NZ North Island

Auckland: 24-27 Febuary 2011

After flying 1^st class from Christchurch to Auckland, we spent a few days on solid ground getting used to the fact that every noise and truck rumbling past was not another aftershock. Auckland, a city built around 50 volcanoes reminded us very much of San Francisco.

The highlight of our visit was walking from the bay to Mt Eden (a volcano) and then on to One Tree Hill (…when the sun goes down over one tree hill…). Two weeks later this walk is most notable for introducing us to our favorite NZ beer, Monteith’s Summer Ale!

Coromandel Peninsula: 27 February- 1 March 2011

Our first stop after picking up our “Spaceship” campervan was The Coromandel Peninsula just east and over the Hauraki Golf from Auckland. We drove the coast, cursing the narrow road with a drop off into the sea as we oriented ourselves with driving on the left-hand (wrong) side of the road. We were immediately struck with the beauty of New Zealand’s coastline, and started to shake off our doubts about staying after the earthquake.

We spent two nights buzzing around the peninsula, visited a Kauri “pine” grove, went on a few short walks through dense forest and along refreshing coastlines, drank cappuccinos and French press coffee, made burritos, had picnics on the beach, and soaked up the near perfect weather complete with bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds!

Taupo & Tongariro 1-3 March 2011

We spent a few nights in Taupo boiling our bums in some pretty fancy hot springs before heading down to Tongariro National Park for some serious hiking. After one afternoon hiking in Tongariro, it started to rain and was predicted to continue for a few days. So much for hiking.

Forgotten World Highway & New Plymouth 4-6 March 2011

Driving being dryer than walking, we headed towards New Plymouth via The Forgotten World Highway. Along the way we ogled the geology, paused for the prolific tree fernage, crossed many a crystal clear river, were wooed by waterfalls, and stopped to stare back at some startled sheep. We even managed to stop off for coffee in another country --The Republic of Whangamonona—whose past presidents include a poodle and a goat. They do make a good cappuccino though.

After spending the night in our car during a pretty impressive storm, we decided to spend a few nights in a hostel for Rachel’s birthday and our own comfort. Because it was still raining, we spent Rachel’s birthday driving the Surf Highway south of New Plymouth, enjoying a picnic lunch in the car while staring at some pretty wild surf and afterwards a yummy dinner complete with sparkling wine and chocolate brulee!

The next day we attempted a hike up Mt Takanaki in Egmont National Park but after about an hour the mountain disappeared when the clouds came in and the rain began once again. We know what they mean when they say the weather here is “changeable”. Otherwise, it pretty much did not stop raining until we left New Plymouth and headed back towards Tongariro National Park where we still wanted to do some hiking!

Tongariro 6-9 March 2011

Arriving back in Tongariro and much better weather, we booked ourselves on a shuttle for the Tongariro Alpine Crossing the next day and headed out for a hike to some alpine vegetation and what is referred to as The Silica Rapids. These are named such because of the silica that coats the rocks and makes the rapids run white!

The next day we headed out for an epic walk across the volcanic landscape that makes Tongariro National Park famous. This was a truly grand walk, climbing up to the saddle of Ngauruhoe Volcano, setting out over a windy plateau, climbing back up to Red Crater, down to three perfect turquoise lakes, back down across another plateau, and then down through the alpine, further down through sulfur spewing grassland, through a forest, and out into…a parking lot. This was definitely one of the best day hikes we’ve done…ever.

The next day we went over to the charming town of Ohakune to hike in the southern portion of Tongariro to Waitonga Falls. Our legs were a bit tired from the previous days walk but we felt strong and remembered the days that we would walk 6 hours a day back in Nepal – this was nothing.

Martinbourough 10-11 March 2011

It didn’t take much to convince Nick that our next stop should be to the wine tasting region to the East of Wellingon where we could spend a day tasting wine and trying not to fall off some bicycles. We spent a few splendid nights enjoying the perfect weather and indulging ourselves with wine and good food.

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Christchurch Earthquake 2/22/2011

22-24 February 2011

Finally (sigh of relief), sitting in the Christchurch airport we can fully reflect on the events of the last three days. Our state of mind can only be described as distracted. This is conveyed in the way Nick placed our laptop in an airport screening tray and picked up the whole stack of them without even noticing (there were at least 5 in his hands). But we are also feeling positive about leaving Christchurch and our anxiety caused by the continuous aftershocks. In the airport there is still debris littering the floor, pieces of the ceiling missing, and from where I sit I can see 20 odd bottles of assorted cokes, waters, and juices that are still strewn on the floor of a closed airport café.

On the afternoon of the 22^nd we were leisurely exploring Christchurch’s city center, spending time in what is known as Cathedral Square, purchasing new boots for Nick in a lovely pedestrian mall, searching for plant books in used bookstores, and finally heading into a shopping center to purchase food for lunches and dinners which we could cook back at our hostel.

We had just left a used bookstore and entered a shopping center where there is a grocery store when the magnitude 6.3 quake hit. What I remember is entering the shopping center, looking about, exclaiming “Hey, this looks just like Sierra Vista Mall. . .” when I was suddenly running against the force of the earth’s movement, using all of my strength to stay upright and not fall down. The rumble of the earth mixed with people screaming, bending steel, breaking glass, and cracking plastic overwhelmed all of my senses. As we ran out of the doors we had just come in, balking at the thought that we were actually running straight towards glass doors, Nick remembers seeing the pavement outside rolling like waves in the ocean. I can’t remember seeing anything.

Once outside, car alarms and security systems were blaring, the pavement was cracked in many places and people were panicked. Many people jumped in their cars and frantically drove away. We stood around for a few minutes, picking debris from our clothes, wondering what to do, feeling shocked and totally bewildered. This was a big one. After a few minutes of chatting with locals who all said that this was far stronger than the 7.1 on September 4^th, we decided that we better head back to our hostel and see how it and our stuff had fared.

Walking out onto the street we suddenly realized we were in the middle of a serious disaster. Most of the buildings, old and made of brick, had crumbled and lay in piles in the middle of the street. It was just before 1pm and town was full of workers, tourists, shoppers, and locals on their lunch breaks. As we walked in the middle of the street and back towards Cathedral Square we understood that we could not walk in that direction. It was clear that there were many people hurt, some out in the streets bloody from their injuries and others that we knew we could not see. We were standing in the middle of an intersection when I realized that we were on the corner where we had bought a book not ten minutes before. The book shop was gone, it had crumbled. Up ahead of us all we saw were destroyed buildings, a large fire, and crushed cars and buses. All I could think was that I was so glad we had left that bookstore, that I could not actually be seeing this and that we could not continue walking in our current direction. We turned right and tried to figure out how to get away from the taller buildings. Everyone was screaming to stay in the middle of the road and away from the buildings that were coming apart around us.

We finally made it to a small corner park where we asked to borrow someone’s phone to send a text to our families to let them know we were unhurt and ok. After awhile we figured that we better try again to get back to our hostel, just a half mile away, and started walking farther out of town and away from out hostel.

As we walked and waded through liquefied soil (bubbling up to the surface as the result of liquefaction) mixed with sewage and water from broken water mains, avoiding downed power lines, we were accompanied by many who had nearly escaped their buildings. Many without shoes. There is a large park on the west side of town and we were all heading in that direction because it was an open area that we knew was safe. There had already been a few large aftershocks and we did not want to be anywhere close to buildings at this point. By now the traffic moving around the city was horrendous, with everyone trying to get home. The police had already closed a few of the bridges, and we could see large cracks in overpasses. Once we were in the park we felt safer, there were only a few fallen trees and a few large cracks in the lawns that we could see.

As we walked through the park with hundreds of others we were comforted by the cities beautiful botanic gardens. Arriving back at our shaken and partially destroyed hostel we were allowed to go in and pack our bags. Our room was still intact, though the TV and pictures on the wall had crashed to the floor. More surprising though, was that the fireplace in the common room had completely crumbled and the pool table had moved about 5 feet. In the midst of packing a large aftershock found us running straight for the back door where we watched as liquefied soil bubbled through a crack in the lawn. Packing quickly, we headed outside to accompany the dozen or so other tourists staying in our hostel now stranded by the quake. Everyone was planning on heading into the park where it was rumored that the city would make arrangements for us under a large tent set up for a flower show. Sitting on the curb and pondering our grim options, we were approached by a neighbor who asked what our plan was. When she found out that we had none, she offered us a place to stay in her son’s home, just a few blocks up the road. We only had to think about it for a few seconds before agreeing to go and see the house and headed there along with two other tourists.

We spent the next two nights with an incredibly generous and welcoming family who opened their home to us even as they were struggling to cope with the aftermath of the horrendous earthquake. Like us, they were all unhurt and happy to be safe and together. Without power and water for the foreseeable future, Nick dug us a pit in their backyard and we barbequed anything that we could find. The next two days passed with dozens of nerve-rattling aftershocks, very little sleep, good food, great company, an extremely comfortable bed, and a disheartening visit to the Red Cross tent where we would have ended up if not for the extreme generosity of this family. We cannot express the complete gratitude we feel towards this family who opened their home to us as if we were one of their nearest and dearest. We feel so lucky to have been taken care of during this time.

We are now headed to Auckland on the North Island, relived to be escaping this town where as tourists we are now a serious burden. While we did not opt to take one of the free flights to Wellington from the Red Cross, we are impressed with how swiftly they moved people out of harm’s way. We have entertained the idea of coming home, but think we will try to repair our shaken spirits with some time in nature (and maybe a few bottles of wine).

Our thoughts are with those who lost loved ones, who are still waiting to hear news about missing people, and the whole city of Christchurch as it endures the aftershocks, recoveries and starts the long process of rebuilding.

We feel so lucky.

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The Best and Worst of the Last 6 Weeks

8 January to 20 February 2011

This latest part of our trip was the least planned and it ended up being fluid and unpredictable. Using Bangkok as our base we first headed down to southern Thailand to the paradise island Koh Ngai. From there we headed northeast and spent a week exploring the beautiful temples around Siem Reap, Cambodia. Chinese New Year in Thailand forced us to flea jetbound to Penang, Malaysia. On a whim we island hopped over to the wild, jungle clad island of Sumatra, Indonesia. After a pitstop in Kuala Lumpur, we jetsetted up to Chiang Mai, Thailand where we indulged in a cooking class, Thai massage, and a whole lot of doing nothing. Tonight is the last of our four visits to Bangkok, a city we love, and our final night in Asia. It has been a wild, surprising, spiritual, and remarkably memorable seven and a half months. Tomorrow, with a little more than two months to go in our adventure we will find ourselves in New Zealand, a completely new part of the world. Today in Bangkok it was 98 degrees with about 90 percent humidity. We will arrive in Christchurch, NZ where the forecast high is predicted to be about 70 degrees (and this is a “warm day”). We sure are glad we bought those down jackets in Kathmandu!

Nepal By the Numbers

Countries Visited: 4

Days in:

Thailand: 23

Cambodia: 8

Malaysia: 4

Indonesia: 10

World Heritage Sites Visited: 3

Days Trekking: 3

Cooking Classes: 2

Massages: 4 (2 each)

National Parks/Natural Areas Visited: 2

Bus Rides: 3

Flights: 4

Train Rides: 2

Helicopter rides: 0

Stomach Illnesses: 1 (Nick ended his 6+ month healthy streak after eating lettuce-filled springrolls in Bangkok)

Photos Taken: 2089 (46 per day)

Best’s

Best Day

Nick: Trekking in Gunung Leseur National Park, Sumatra and seeing orangutans

Rachel: There was a lot of relaxing going on here…so any time I lay on the beach, in a hammock, on a couch, or on a massage table for more than 3 hours a day J

Best City/Town

Nick: Bangkok…is a GREAT city

Rachel: Bukit Lawang, Sumatra. It is less of a town and more of an atmosphere.

Best Meal

Nick: The feast prepared for us while we were trekking in Sumatra (tofu sambal, curry chicken, awesome veggies). It was gourmet and was prepared under a tarp in the middle of the jungle in the pouring rain.

Rachel: The first Gado Gado (peanut sauce over vegetables) I had upon arriving on Sumatra--- Obama and I both love this dish.

Best Wildlife Experience

Nick: The orangutans, of course. Being stung by a scorpion is a close second, pause…not.

Rachel: Spotting orangutans swinging in nearby trees while we were trekking!!

Best View

Nick: The sunrise over Angkor Wat, but Koh Ngai is a close second

Rachel: The view from the beach on Koh Ngai, Thailand

Best Surprise

Nick: Everything about Sumatra, although I had pretty high expectations already

Rachel: How easy it is to cook Thai food!!!

Best Hotel/Hostel

Nick: Our bungalow in Bukit Lawang. It is hard to beat a place where you can see three species of monkeys from the hammock on your deck and are awakened by marauding macaques each morning.

Rachel: This one is too hard- the best room is lost somewhere between rooms with amazing air conditioners and hot showers and the bungalow we stayed in the rainforest

Place to which we’d most like to return

Nick: SUMATRA!!!!!!

Rachel: SUMATRA!!!!!

Most Fun

Nick: Cruising around in our tuk tuk in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Our driver kept our cooler well stocked with beer

Rachel: rafting in an inner tube (also the most stupid thing we did)

Funniest Moment

Nick: Ditto the fish spa.

Rachel: Fish Spa: giggling as fish nibbled at the dead skin on our feet

Worst’s

Worst City/Town

Nick: Penang, Malaysia (I don’t understand why people like this place)

Rachel: Chiang Mai, Thailand

Worst Meal

Nick: Chili chicken in Berastagi. It was basically chicken cooked in ketchup-at least they left the rocks out of my dinner

Rachel: inedible Gado Gado in Berastagi, Sumatra ---rocks in my food!!!!

Biggest Waste of Money

Nick: Flying to Chiang Mai (another city I just don’t get)

Rachel: I would say all of the jewelry I’ve bought lately, but I wouldn’t call it a waste ; )

Most Disappointing Moment

Nick: Arriving in Chiang Mai, and realizing it is just a homely medium-sized city. That said, we had a pretty good time while we were there

Rachel: Every time we tried to get a tuk tuk or taxi in Bangkok. On the upside I think these interactions have taught me how to better express my anger.

Worst Hotel/Hostel:

Nick: The place in Berastagi w/o running water, although the owner was super nice and I would probably stay there again

Rachel: The worst place was still pretty nice, until the water stopped working…

Saddest Moment

Nick: The begging children in Cambodia

Rachel: When our tuk tuk driver cussed us out and forced us out of his rickshaw in a new city with all of our baggage five minutes after arriving in Cambodia because we did not want him to take us to see the temples the next day!! This definitely made me cry.

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Craters and Lakes

4-10 February

The town of Berstagi is situated in a relatively perilous position, between two active volcanos – Sibayak and Sinabung. If volcanoes were like young bachelors, Sibayak would be the steamy and quiet one while Sinabung would be the dashing and talkative one. Because of its overly excitable nature, erupting most recently in August 2010, we chose to climb Sibayak during our stay here.

The path to the rim of Sibayak’s crater was mostly paved, in part because of a defunct geothermal plant half way up the mountain and in part because having tourists scramble around on an active volcano requires a small amount of caution (even in Indonesia, where “car surfing” is an accepted mode of transportation). We walked along the path admiring the lush vegetation, encountering giant blooming begonias, rhododendrons, orchids, and other tropical beauties. As we approached the crater, we walked on surprisingly hot rock surfaces (don’t touch!) and gave the active sulfur vents a wide berth.

The crater’s bottom was filled with a few feet of water, and dozens, if not hundreds, of people’s names spelled out in large rocks. Writing your name on something beautiful is a great way to make it ugly--thanks guys.

After writing our names in stones (just kidding), we walked around the base of the crater, sidestepping boiling water and geysers before scrambling up the other side to get a view of neighboring Sinabung. The mist and highly changeable weather of this region made any view impossible (including seeing anything beyond a few meters from where we stood). Without a picturesque view to write home about, we headed downhill into the dense jungle and bamboo forests where a hot spring waited for us at the bottom.

We are now on an island on a lake on an island. Rather, we are on the island of Samosir on Lake Toba on the island of Sumatra. Lake Toba is the largest lake in SE Asia and certainly looks more like the ocean than a lake. We have spent four days here, soaking up the extraordinary quiet of this place. Yesterday I mentioned to Nick that if I ever have a midlife crisis and disappear; Lake Toba would be a good place to start looking for me. Nick, the perennial ranker, said “Lake Toba is at least one of the top 20 lakes I have ever seen”. As usual, this type of comment solicited a serious eye rolling from myself. And so the day goes on…

The highlight of our stay here on Lake Toba was the cooking class we took one afternoon. We learned to make Indonesian peanut sauce (for those satay lovers out there), a spicy coconut vegetable dish, and sauce called rendang, as in “(ren)DANG this sauce is good, what do you think is in it?”. When we get home we will cook for any who are interested to try something new!

Tomorrow we make our way back to Medan, buy some Sumatran coffee, and after a quick stopover in Kuala Lumpur, we will spend a week in Chiang Mai taking cooking classes, and hopefully discovering what exactly people find so charming about Thailand. Until then, “Indonesia rules, Thailand drools”.

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Stung by Sumatra

31-Jan - 3-Feb 2011

The island of Sumatra is a place that invokes visions of steamy jungles teeming with wildlife, volcanoes, and strong coffee. We hopped on a plane from Penang, Malaysia to Medan, Indonesia hoping to get a taste of this exotic isle. Lazing in the hammock on the balcony of our jungle hut in the village of Bukit Lawang, we were surrounded by monkeys. Thomas’ leaf monkeys (a charismatic and cute monkey endemic to northern Sumatra, complete with mohawk) and long-tailed macaques glided from branch to branch chasing each other and feasting on ripe fruits. The owner of our lodge, a British primatologist, informed us that just 2 weeks ago an orangutan built a nest in one of the trees just 100 yards across the river. How many places in the world give you the chance of spotting a wild orangutan while lying in a hammock? In Sumatra you feel like you are in a nature documentary-you half-expect to run into David Attenborough and a team of cameramen around the next bend in the trail.

Bukit Lawang is located on the border of Gunung Leseur National Park. This park is recognized as one of the most important nature reserves in the world. It is the last refuge of many endangered species including the Sumatran rhinoceros, Sumatran tiger, Sumatran elephant, and more than 6,000 orangutans. Hoping to run into some red, hairy apes we set out on a 2-day trek into Gunung Leseur’s steep and dense rainforest.

Jungle trekking is not exactly fun. Invariably, the rainforest is miserably hot, steaming with humidity, and equipped with masses of mosquitoes and legions of leeches. Gunung Leseur is no exception to the rule, and adds endless steep (sometimes nearly vertical) slopes to its list of jungle pleasures. Dripping in sweat, huffing and puffing up our first steep hill, the question: “Why are we doing this to ourselves?” lingered in our minds. Then, our guide, Pieye, whispered the words that made any discomfort vanish into thin air: “orangutan.” We inched forward and watched a large, female orangutan with a 3-year old baby grazing on leaves in a nearby tree. The experience of running into an orangutan while trekking is simply breathtaking.

Over the course of the day we encountered a total of eight orangutans (four females, four babies) while traipsing through the forest-one pair no more than 15 feet above our heads. We walked up steep embankments and back down again, using the roots of jungle giants to keep us from tumbling down the slippery slope. All the while sweating through our clothes, picking off leeches, and swatting mosquitoes. We also wandered through majestic forests, crossed idyllic streams, encountered a large lizard guarding a nest, and were peed on by a rather cheeky Thomas’ leaf monkey (did I mention the orangutans?).

We arrived into our camp by the river just as the raindrops began to fall. Since arriving in Sumatra we have witnessed splendid rainstorms each afternoon, and our night in the jungle provided quite a show. The rain pelted out tent (which happened to be a tarp stretched over a bamboo frame!) in grand aquatic outbursts, flashes of lightning turned night into day, and the nearby river seemed to double in size over the course of a couple of hours. Miraculously staying dry in our humble abode we enjoyed a gourmet feast prepared over and open fire (vegetable curry, chicken rending, tofu sambal, taro chips, and rice).

The following morning we made our way across the river via inner tube and spent the morning relaxing and swimming under a waterfall-aka “the jungle massage.” Following lunch, with a mix of awe and horror, we watched as our raft was assembled. Back in Bukit Lawang we agreed to take a raft back to town at the end of the trek-it sounded like fun. In camp we watched as five rubber inner tubes were lashed together with a few simple pieces of rope. Let’s get this straight. The river that we ended up “rafting” on back to camp demands respect. It is big, flows fast, and is equipped with a fair share of large rocks. The river has its share of “Class 3” rapids and, back home would be rafted (in rafts) by commercial rafting companies. Throwing caution to the wind (when in Sumatra, do as the Sumatrans do) we boarded our “raft” equipped with a long wooden pole as a paddle and embarked on our short trip down the river. Needless to say, it was a wet and wild ride.

This morning, back in Bukit Lawang, we awoke to the sounds of a raucous troop of long-tailed macaques masquerading in the trees and on our porch outside our windows. In the dim morning light we packed our belongings and were preparing for our trip out of town when a stinging pain shot through my foot. Initially I thought I had been stung by a fire ant, but the pain intensified. It felt like a bee sting, but at least 10 times stronger and kept on getting worse. Rachel and I searched beside our bed and found the culprit, a small, black scorpion. Terrified we rushed (I limped, wincing in pain) down to the lodge’s restaurant for medical advice. The first question they asked was “Was the scorpion big or small?” Noting our answer they said that I would be fine- that the sting would be painful, but not harmful. They rubbed fresh ginger on the sting site (this seemed to help a little) and said that the pain would last for a few hours. A few hours later I barely ever knew I had been stung by a scorpion, and tonight the pain is completely gone.

Sumatra is a wild place.

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