Batu Kapal Guest House & Jungle Trekking

If you want a real genuine and experience of the jungle, and meet locals to learn about the real culture of Bukit Lawang this is a great place to stay. The team at Batu Kapal is big and they all work together to make your stay a very special experience. They have certified, professional and experienced guides for jungle treks that are very environmentally responsible. It is located out of the tourist area so you need to be comfortable getting on the back of a motorbike on a dirt track to get there( awesome fun) you can also walk this track once you know the way which is a great activity in itself. There is a river that is a beautiful swimming spot and a great place to do your laundry, great food options at the guesthouse and great entertainment, So much to explore around the area you can easily fill a 7 days here! The team are great but it is difficult to understand who manages the place and the bookings , they could definitely improve the booking and payment process by clearly outlining who to pay for what and having it recorded in writing somewhere so it can be checked by everyone, We had some trouble with our arrival and they did not arrange our transfer as planned we found it difficult to get in touch with them and had to make our way there with no wifi or idea of where we had to go, so make sure you establish a clear line of contact before your arrival so if you have a problem finding them they can help you. Luckily we could rely on locals to help us when we arrived late after a 3 hr taxi journey in Bukit Lawang. Despite the lack of process's, this is often the Indonesian way so we understand the need to be flexible. You will not be disappointed if you love adventure! This place is amazing. We would 100% stay at Batu Kapal guesthouse again and hope to get back to spend more time with the great guides and staff again soon!

The Nature around this place is fantastic. The river is great to take a dip in, and the are chances of seeing Orang Utans and a lot of monkeys and birds and the forrest sorounding this place. You can only go there on the back of a motorbike, so travel light. The bar/Restaurant is fantastic, great people and great food. Suggestions for the management: Make sure that the rooms are clean at check-in, ours wasn’t really! 😕 The bathroom is made by a lot of stones/rocks, the idea is good, but everything in the room gets dirty from it, you drag dirt in from the bathroom. Also a lot of spiders, mosquitoes and geckoes live between the rocks. Buy new mosquito-nets, they smell and have holes in them.

We had an amazing experience here in Batu Kapal with Aji, Bayu and their crew! Surrounded by the lush green jungle, absolutely full of life and the awesome Landak River for a swim! We had the astonishing luck of seeing a wild female orangutan and her baby on the ficus tree just up our room 2 days in a row! And then they arranged us with a 3 days/2 nights trek in Gunung Leser National Park jungle and it was amazing. We saw 3 semi wild females with their babies and a wild male, super close to us (5m away)! Our guide explained everything to us about wildlife but also about plants and culture. The food was super nice and the bound fire and rafting on the final day were awesome! Truly recommend, and we will be back for sure, as we felt like family here, in the Batu Kapal tribe. Life-long lasting memories guarantees!

Amazing guest house and amazing staff. The rooms are simple, but big and well taken care of. The staff is really the best you can have and help you out whenever you need ANYTHING! From airport pickup, bringing you out of and into town, showing you around and even finding rare fruits, that you have always been looking for. They are really great at showing you around and contrary to a lot of the other places, they really care about the cause of preservation, conservation and living with nature and not just about money! We had the greatest jungle tour and saw Thomas Leaf Monkeys, Macaques, Urang Gutans (really close), Black Gibbons, White handed Gibbons, Tortoise, ... . It was such an amazing adventure and this is also due to the way they do the trekking and their highly trained scouts.