Our driver Banjeet, was a cordial friendly fellow, even at 4 A.M.  He loaded our photo and audio equipment, canteens of water, plus our bag of goodies for our very long day.  Lee, my partner, and I for this film project, were in Medan, Indonesia on the island of Sumatra heading north to film orangutans for our documentary film.  Asia, in the 1970’s, had heavily traveled rutted roads that were the only way to travel short distances.  The early morning departure was to avoid traffic, avoid the tropical heat, and spend as much time as possible with the orangutans.

We had been speeding through the night when we hit something big and the jeep swerved to a stop.  We backed up and heard people yelling at us in the dark.  The driver said, “let’s go”, and we left in a hurry.  Later I learned that we had hit and killed one of the farmer’s pigs.  If we had stopped we could have been shot.  Glad we left.  We arrived a couple hours later, at Bukit Lawang, in northern Sumatra, a World Wildlife sponsored venture, to reintroduce orangutans into the wild that were caged pets or displaced. We hired three young fellows to help haul equipment up the mountain.  All was well, but Lee made a mistake paying them in advance.  We crossed a small stream by dugout canoe one at a time pulling ourselves along with a rope strung across tree to tree.  I was glad to stop and wait until all were across. The jungle was quiet, unlike Hollywood movies.  I sat on a large rock along the stream waiting for my turn to cross.  A very large blue butterfly with a small yellow mark flitted across the water heading here and there.  Soon, he was there, alighting on my sweaty, salty arm.  In awe, I dared not move.  He was slurping up the salty sweat for a full minute before flitting off down the jungle stream and into the jungle.

We were sweating, huffing, and puffing, hauling the equipment. Our first rest stop was half way up and we collapsed on the trail for a well deserved rest. We were stopped for maybe ten minutes before I noticed that Lee and I were alone.  Our pre-paid helpers had abandoned us to our destiny.  Did we feel silly?  We were half way to our destination with equipment that required five men to carry.  No problem.  I was a big guy so I made two round trips to our destination, the Bukit Lawang center.  Wild orangutans have lived here forever and come to feeding stations twice a day, for easy free food and have encounters with the orangutans that were pets in cages and too much human contact.  The Indonesian government has banned orangutans as pets and aggressively retrieves any pets for re-introduction to the wild.  At one time there were 19 orangutans on two feeding platforms on the edge of the jungle.  We could see the apes swinging through the tree tops 80 feet up, heading our way.  They stayed for about an hour before moving away and hopefully taking some of the former pets with them.  I was filming a young one who was very brave and came down to within twenty feet to look at me.  His mother was not happy and kept hooting and grunting for him to get back up the tree.  I felt a little wetness on my face and then something hit me in the head.  The little guy had very good aim because he hit me with all he vacated from his body.  He hooted and giggled as he returned to his mother. I had urine and feces on my face, my close encounter with a wild orangutan.  The center was closed in 1996 because of overcrowding and a new center opened in 2002 near the city of Medan.  It is not open to the public.

The trip down the mountain was easier, but still a chore without our helpers.  The trip back was in the dark and I slept while our driver beeped his horn every 30 seconds, and bumped and weaved back to Medan.   More in later posts.                                                 Published every Wednesday, at least.