Kidproj Home Page Sumatra Rainforest Trek Page

A Virtual Trek in a Sumatran Rainforest

is being organised by the teachers and students
of Dhahran School, Saudi Arabia

Here are reports from the Indonesian students about their Sumatran Rainforest Trek in November 1996.

The Car Ride by Ashley

The Hike by Ashley

Boat Ride by Brad

Swimming in the River by Chris

Student Projects for 1997 by Karen

First Impressions by Kelly

Gunung Leuser Park by Leann

Poachers Caught reported by Patrick

From Sumatra :-

 THE CAR RIDE
BY : Ashley W

The car rides to and from our jungle home were quite an experience. Rocky, bumpy roads sent the four of us girls flying around the car as if we were riding on a roller coaster ride!

We were squashed into the back seat like sardines. But gripe and complain we didn't because we had put our mouths to better use by singing. The songs sung varied from oldies to pop rock, to rap, to religious music, to country, to folk and kid songs. Some songs sung were "California Girls" (to which we made our own lyrics as well), "Dream Lover", "Gangster's Paradise", and "This Little Light of Mine". Two of our many favorites were "Black Socks" and our own versions of "Boom Chicka Boom".

You can imagine what we sounded like as a group. But, it was either be in a car with a bunch of noisy girls getting a little carried away, or be in a car with the sleeping boys. So, the teachers in the cars traded off.

Much of the car ride was actually spent out of the car. You see, before and during our stay it rained a lot, which meant the roads became very slippery and muddy. Trenches made by the tires came up to my knees! The trenches were quickly filled with stones and additional pieces of palm tree branches to provide traction for the four wheel drive cars. We also helped in the burdensome pushing and the harsh pulling of the cars. To tell the truth, Chris Shepherd (a bird specialist and professional photographer) really did most of the work in pushing the cars. Chris even had to ride on top of the cars for the entire rough part of the trip home.

When we stepped out of the van at the school (i.e.,the "pick-up spot") our parents saw a bunch of scraggly kids. Our pants were covered in mud, our shoes were dyed a murky brown, and our shirts had mud sploiches all over them as though they were tie-dyed. And if that wasn't enough, our socks were stained with blood from leech bites, and our hair was totally messed up also. We were muddy, tired, but very happy! What a sight to behold!

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THE HIKE

By Ashley W

After our exciting lunch with the poachers ended, hiking was next on the agenda. The purpose of this hike was to enrich our knowledge of the nearby forest and collect some plant samples to send to the information center. Many samples were collected and only a few were identical. And yes, our knowledge of rain forest botany was greatly enriched as to what kind of plants are found in the rain forest.

I found the hike very interesting. Getting to interact with a plant specialist like Eti Ningsih was very helpful, for she helped us gather the samples correctly and gave us additional information about what we were doing. We found that collecting samples from the wild was tricky because some stems were tough and hard to break loose. Also, you had to be careful that you collected enough leaves and stems so the researchers in the lab could identify the plant.

The surrounding area was extremely dense. In fact, if you stepped one meter out of the forest, you couldn't walk! Rough brown vines dangled from every tree, which added a Tarzan-look to it. The sizes of the trees varied greatly from huge Diptocarps to tiny little sprouts only 1 inch off the forest floor. Then there were the huge tree roots that people tread on to avoid slipping into the filthy mud that awaited them on the slippery forest floor. Everyone was amazed at the depth, greenery, and variety of the plants growing in the forest. I felt like I was in the movie The Jungle Book. Everything was so green! I'm sure we will all remember this hike because it was so different from the pine trees and sidewalk gardens from back home. I feel that our plant samples will be helpful to other researchers and that this hike inspired other classmates to study plant life in the rain forest. While walking through the forest we were constantly stooping down and picking off those horrid leeches. I think everyone shared my amusement over Chris' leech collection. So, it was a successful trip through the "unknown".

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"Besitang Boat Ride"

By Brad S

The boats we used to travel up the Besitang River were speed boats. To people who come from a more modernized country the boats were just a canoe with a 9.9 Liter engine. The boats we took were not self bailing. The driver used a little bowl to throw the water overboard.

It took about two hours to go up most of the river. A lot of the places in the river were very shallow, so sometimes a few people had to get out and push the boat upstream. In some places it was exceedingly deep. The water was even over our heads in some spots. When it was very shallow as many as five people would get out and help push the boat. For some reason the boat navigator always stayed near the bank of the river.

On our way to the resting point we saw a variety of animals. We even saw some monkeys. They were not very loud. I saw a lizard, but I didn't know what kind it was. The lizard disguised itself as the color of the rock that it was sitting on. It was kind of hard to spot this lizard because he was so well camouflaged.

I also saw different kinds of butterflies. There was a butterfly that I saw that had black and blue on its back. We frequently saw this kind of butterfly.

The river water was a light brownish color, but it was not too bad. The water was a bit murky, so you couldn't see fish in the water. There was presumably a lot of fish in the river. The bottom of the river was rocky, but at other places it is covered with sand and leaves that had fallen off of the trees surrounding the river.

When we started off on the boat ride you could tell when we went from secondary to primary forest. I could tell this because there were not many animals in the secondary forest. This is because many people trampled through the secondary forest and the animals moved away.

When we entered the primary forest it became darker. It was louder than an old pair of rusted wheels screeching to a stop. It also got a bit cooler; also in the primary forest there were many more trees.

Both boats stopped at a big sand bar to have lunch. The owners of the boats did not need to bring any food for lunch. They just went up river and caught fish. They did not need to bring anything with them for lunch.

After we all ate lunch we saw the poachers. The poachers were just coming around the bend in the river as we finished our lunch. They had a very surprised look on their face, so we knew something was wrong. After lunch we took the boats across the river to get to the place where we would hike.

On the ride back in the boat we had to wear our life jackets because the boat had a better chance of pitching everyone overboard on the downstream trip.

On the way back the hot sun beamed down on us and reflected off the water. All of the vines that were hanging down would make for great swinging. I actually ate most of my food on the way back. After we got back from the boat ride we went swimming. The boat ride was probably the most fun part of the trip for me.

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SWIMMING AT THE BESITANG RIVER

BY : CHRIS H

On the Leuser Field Trip we did a lot of neat things. We hiked through the forest, went on a boat ride, and went swimming. Now I am going to tell you about some of our swimming activities in the Besitang River.

We went swimming at the river after the boat ride. Swimming in the river was really interesting. The water that we swam in was freezing.

It was also hard to swim in the river because there were rocks everywhere. Those rocks hurt your feet so badly it almost felt like you were walking on glass. The rocks had this type of slimy, mucky stuff on the top of them. The muck was green. And when you would step on the rocks, you would slip and it would feel really disgusting. One time Kelly picked up a rock with that slimy substance on it and rubbed it all over my back. The slimy stuff felt like mashed-up bananas.

The river also had fish and river turtles living in it. The reason we know there are turtles and fish in the river is because poachers caught some from the river. We didn't see river turtle or a fish in the river when we were swimming, however.

Chris Shepherd, the nature photographer from the Leuser project, started to dunk everyone for fun. It was amazing and very funny when he dunked people. He dunked the boys mostly while protecting the girls.

He would flip us and do all of these other type of things with us in the water. Sometimes Chris Shepherd would pull us into the deep.

One time I remember Chris Shepherd was pulling Brad and Brad said to one of the girls "I'm going to kill you." It was hilarious.

Everyone was saying how humorous it was when Chris Shepherd flipped me. He flipped me, then brought me up to surface and I would scream. He did it over and over and when he was done I said "WOW", with a surprised expression on my face!

The water was also deep and shallow in weird places. Far out into the river it was shallow. In a part of the river that looked deep, it was actually shallow. The most shallow part of the rive was about one inch deep. Only a narrow strip of the Besitang was deep, and that was very close to the bank. In the shallow part of the river there was a tree stump with roots hanging out and some sand around it. I went up onto the stump and sat on the stump. When I stepped off the stump into the sandy water, I sank. It felt like quicksand. It was strange.

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First Impressions of the Rainforest

By Kelly

The morning of November 4th 1996 had started with my dad waking me up in the most evil way. He just switched on the lights and boy did I ever get up. I went into the kitchen and started to pack a snack for the trip. The time flew by like lightening. My dad's car ride was waiting at the door and Karen and I got our luggage and stuffed it in the back seats of the Panther. The back of the Panther was stuffed like a turkey ready for Thanksgiving. Usually we meet at school and Azwir, the school driver, drives us to the airport, but Azwir got sick so we had to go to the airport with our parents. We boarded the MOBIL company airplane and headed for Medan and that was the start of our adventure.

We stepped out of the Medan airport with all of our baggage, and waited for the car that was going to pick us up. It just so happened the driver was standing right next to us and FINALLY we identified him. Leann, Ashley, Karen and Mr. Lane travelled in a red Mitsubishi HiLine. The four of us girls cramped up in a two-seated middle car seat. The guys travelled in a black Rocky. They didn't do much, but we told many jokes to one another until we got to the main office of the park. At the main office, we met the scientists we were to stay with during the next three days.

The friendly people we met were Chris Shepherd, Ikram Sangag, Eti Ningsih, Hari, Rose and Fiti. Chris Shepherd is a specialist in birds. He is Canadian and he's also an animal photographer. He's lived in Indonesia for nine months and already speaks Bahasa Indonesian fluently. (He also hadn't had a cookie in that time.) Hari is a teacher and he comes from Indonesia. He doesn't like leeches, just like me. Ikram is Indonesian and is a little on the chubby side. He likes to sing and he has a good sense of humor. Eti is a specialist in plants and is short. She also comes from Indonesia. Rose and Fiti were the cooks and I don't know much about them.

We took our time and drove for about three hours before we reached the Leuser National park. We girls sang like mad for three hours straight. It was an enjoyment for Mr. Lane! When we got deeper into the forest you could see the slash-and-burn area and it was nasty. There were dead trees spread all over the eroding, orangey clay muck.

When we arrived at the sleeping site, I was surprised at what I saw. It was smaller that I had imagined. When Mr. Lane described the sleeping place he made it sound like there was plenty of room because he said that about forty of us could sleep comfortably in the big room. He also made it sound horrible, hot, and sticky, but it wasn't all that bad. We had plenty of room to sleep in and it was cool at night.

We started our first trail hike at about 2:00 p.m. We split into two different trails. My group consisted of Chris S, Chris H, Ashley, Mr. Jacoby, Etty, Riswan and myself. We went to some ponds while Mr. Lane's group hiked through the rain forest and was drained of their blood by blood-thirsty leeches.

We returned around 5 o'clock and went to cool down at the small river by the site. The funniest thing that probably happened at the river was I fell in. I was trying to avoid becoming drenched so I went from log to log without getting wet. I got to this one log full of green moss and I just stumbled over it and toppled in all the way.

I have to say that night was incredibly uncomfortable. There were mosquitoes, snoring, and sweating. It was unbelievably hot in a sleeping bag two inches thick with padding. Ikram did the most snoring. The bad thing about that was when he stopped snoring Eti, in the girls' room, would start snoring. I probably spent more time trying to go to sleep than actually sleeping. The snoring was so bad Mr. Jacoby left the room to sleep outside. Mr. Lane, who had been sleeping next to Ikram, had to bury his head in his pillow.

We started the morning with a delicious breakfast of avocado and bananas rice, tomato soup and Milo. We went on a boat ride lasting about six hours. We commenced at a very rocky area about five minutes from the site. As we cruised upstream and deeper into the forest, the scenery changed considerably from a very rocky area to an extremely lush green area with trees hovering overhead. Bushes and vines found their way from their roots to the bottom of the shallow river.

From the boat you could see birds, dragonflies, Thomas Lee monkeys, and SNAKES! Not!! Snakes were only sighted in the river we bathed in!!

Chris S. and Hari saw poisonous snakes and it was a good thing no one got bitten. We had been boating for awhile and stopped for a break. We stayed no longer than a few minutes and we were on the boat again. We went on a little more and we stopped again. We didn't just rest this time, but we ..........(I'll give you three guesses) ......... went swimming.

After swimming Mr. Lane found out the river was too shallow to continue the journey. So we just turned around.

We stopped for a third time to eat lunch. We had some unappetizing corn beef and mackerel. We had just finished our lunch when along come some poachers with fifteen endangered turtles and a whole bin of electrocuted fish. Fortunately, the forest rangers were there to arrest the poachers and we released the turtles.

We all went on a hike to collect twenty-five samples per group of plants for Etty to identify. When we were about fifteen minutes into the hike Chris started collecting leeches. He gathered about four leeches. That night, Chris let one of the leeches feed on his arm!

That night I slept like a baby. There were no mosquitoes, and if there was any snoring, I didn't hear it at all!

When I woke up at 6 o'clock I rolled up my sleeping bag and pad. For breakfast I ate fried rice and Milo. We discussed what our field projects; I wanted to do bird watching from the beginning. Ashley and I went with Chris Shepherd to watch birds. We took the same route as when we went on the pond trail. We headed back to the site at around 10 a.m. We all piled into our HiLine and headed for home.

As soon as I put a toe into the Mobil airplane I was relieved to see I was unharmed and going to have my regular life again, at least until our next trip in March.

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It is estimated that

an acre of rainforest is destroyed every second!

We hope you will join us to find out why!

The contact for this project is Bill Cason, Dhahran School, Saudi Arabia.

There are also many schools studying Trees and Forests during 1996 and 1997 and you can link to their progress reports or join their project by looking at :
The International Trees and Forests Project

Information Contact: Patti Weeg, Title 1 Computer Teacher, Delmar El. School, Delmar, Maryland, USA. Home Page: http://www.intercom.net/local/weeg

KIDPROJ WWW Contact: Grant Dougall, Educational Consultant: Technologies, Saskatoon Board of Education, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CANADA. Web Site: http://198.169.140.21/

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This page was last modified 3rd Dec, 1996