Bukit means a hill and lawang means door. bukit lawang is called that because its the “door” to one of sumatra’s biggest national parks.

I had big expectations for Sumatra regarding animals but I learned that you would mostly see monkies there.
for a $100 you can trek in the jungle for a day and night then you come back next day to see many monkey species.
Too expensive for me though. I don’t care about monkies that much.
Why pay to go to the monkies when they come to me for free?

Bukit lawang is also a good place to see the Urangutan but you can do that cheap by going to the Urangutan feeding center where they give food to the wild Urangutans on daily basis. They come for the food then head back to the deep jungle.
Visiting the feeding center only costed me $2 and I got to see a mother with her child and another young one. sorry fellas no pictures, camera cost $5 extra.

bukit lawang also has a fast running river.

all hotels including mine are located on its both sides.

I couldn’t imagine swimming in such fast river but when I tried it it was really fun.
another thing you can do in this river is tubing . A big tire (tube) you sit inside it and let the fast current take you!

the river is shallow so not so much danger although there are still rocks which can pose slight risk. tubing was also very cheap $1 per day and its very popular there.
Be aware of monkes though, they can and will try to steal your food. They recognize tourists and will try to scare them at the hope they would run and leave the food.

Rain can sometimes get really strong

I spent 8 days in bukit lawang, mostly doing my online work by the river. met many nice people there.
After that I applied for volunteer work in a school in Surabaya. I was accepted so I booked my plane ticket to Surabaya (in Java) then I went to Jemeber where the school is.