The next morning we set off on our trek with Thomas & Co.: Bob and Addie are friends from birth...it's Addie wearing the I Love Bob t-shirt in the pics below. The Thomas Guide (as I call him) is a virtual supercomputer of information, he explained about rubber trees, chocolate, coffee, many of the other natural wonders of Sumatra. He knew every tree, plant, bird, and bug. He knew their living and mating habits, their relatives as well as their decendants, and anything else you could possibly want to know. The best part is his infectious enthusiasm, he clearly loves his job.

There's not really a lot to say about jungle trekking. By the time you start walking any wild animal within 3 square miles has alrerady taken cover so it's more about the peacefulness and the sounds...until you see a wild orangutan. Then everybody gets manic, or as Thomas says, retarded. The digital clicks echoed through the jungle as the others in the group climbed over each other to get the best shot. Right after seeing the wild orangutang the sky opened up and the rain started dumping. Can someone please tell me why it's always a Dutch girl who asks why it raining so much while standing in the middle of a rain forest? We hustled through the forest and down some pretty treacherous terrain before stripping off almost all our clothes so the current of a river we needed to cross wouldn't sweep us away. Finally, we set up camp. By 10pm we were sleeping like babies. The next morning I awoke to the poor guy who runs the raft shop schlepping inner tubes up the river to us. He'd left town at 4am and it was 7:30. Be broke camp and before our water ride Thomas passed out T-shirts as gifts. They had two muslim politicians on the front and the number 4 on the back. We realized they were left over from the local election two days before...hilarious...a very Thomas thing to do. If you ever take a much recommended tour from Thomas get him to recount how he thought the automatic toilet in the Singapore airport was actually a closed circuit TV and someone was spying on him. You'll laugh until you cry, I promise. You know, we always write about the lunacy of us westerners going east, well he tells it from the other perspective.

We finally decided to add flight to our transportation plans so the day our itinerary included a bus, a plane flight and boat. Being tired, sore (I had a good jungle fall), and cranky I boarded the bus for the first leg of the journey. About an hour into our journey two guys jumped aboard, one had a ukulele and the other a home made drum type contraption. They sat with us and broke into broke into Indonesian punk rock songs. I mean, how can you be in a bad mood after that, just look at the guys.