We head by local bus (endless, terrible roads, overcrowded) to Bukit Lawang. Trekking centre and jungle paradise. Unfortunately, events over the last 5 years have not gone well in Indonesia, tourism is down and the village was hit by a major flood a few years back that killed 400.

This has led to an insane amount of hassle. In fact few westerners get here without being ‘escorted’ by a guide. It takes us 48hrs to shake ours off as he waits outside our room. Everyone else refuses to help us making it very difficult to do anything other than trek with the guy who attaches himself to you outside of town.

We begin to realize that most tourists make no effort to go with a recommended guide. So they go with these touts who lure the wild orangutans with inappropriate food and even engineer photos of tourists feeding them.

It’s a pretty shameful situation for a place that offers the last chance to see Orangutans in the wild. And unfortunately the tourists are just as culpable as the locals for taking away the animals independence and threatening a species with human borne diseases through contact.