Thomas' Retreat Bukit Lawang

The 2D1N jungle trek with Ren was amazing. Highly recommended to stay at thomas retreat before and after, the staff looks after you and the place is very good.

Thomas the owner is very nice and carrying. He organized a fantastic jungle trekking tour for 4 days. I also stayed in one of his convenient rooms before and after the tour. He also is very helpful with every other Inquiry such as laundry, shuttle etc. The food in the restaurant is also very delicious. Would always come back to stay here !

The staff was very friendly, except for Thomas, who is the owner of the hotel. The place is very nice, and it is right in front of the river, which we liked very much.

The reception we received from Thomas was unacceptable. We didn't even get to our rooms when he made us sit at a table and reproached us for not taking the jungle tour with him. He started to ask me personally, in a very unfriendly way, why I had not answered an email that he said he had sent me, and that I had never seen. He was a very violent person in the way he said things, and made us feel impossibly uncomfortable on our arrival. Worst of all, he had the audacity to criticize other booking users for leaving him bad reviews, saying that he didn't treat people badly. He treated us terribly, and tried to make us feel guilty about the tour we had taken, saying that it was foreign people coming to his land to take jobs from the locals. This upset us very much, as we were very concerned that all the tours we took were ethical, so hearing this made us feel very guilty. However it was all a lie, our tour was very ethical, and was also run by locals, so everything Thomas told us was a lie. It became clear to us, as he told us himself, that when someone took a reservation at his hotel, he expected them to take the jungle tour eith him as well. If you take it with someone else, he harasses you and tries to make you feel guilty. I would not recommend this hotel for any reason. I feel sorry for the other people that worked ther, as they were very nice, but they became mute, as soon as Thomas showed up. Along with all this, at 3.30 am, some drunk people tried to get into my room, which was very scary.

SEcond time we have stayed here -Thoimas and his staff are excellent and tend to your every need. I would recommend a stay here without hesitation. Rooms are clean, staff are attentive and go out if their way to ensure your have an enjoyable stay. The jungle tours just add further to my recommnedation, Thomas's guides can accomodate are extremely knowledgeable, eco aware and accomadate all levels of fitness.

nothing to report - everything exceeded our expectations.

Thomas Retreat was the perfect place to start and end trekking tours into Gunung Leuser National Park. Thomas has 30 tremendous experience in trekking tourd and the guides on my 3 day trip were just azing. Everything from sleeping, food etc was 100% taken care of. Thomas Retrest is located in a calm area of thr village amd is easily accessible. Overall, loved my stay which exceeded my expectations!

Thomas and his team are just awesome! They organized a fantastic trek through the Jungle! Erwin our guide has a great knowledge and respect for wildlife. Plus a fantastic humor! We felt safe all the time, though there were adventures every day! Stay for a 3 day, 2 nights trip with them in the jungle.

everything was just great!

The staff were amazing and took such great care of us. We did the tour with Lillic and Arnold who were lovely and funny and made sure we had a great day. Food was nice too and reasonable price. Stayed in the budget room which felt very fancy compared to other budget rooms I've stayed in!

Shower wasn't great, defo not a hair wash shower

The staff at Thomas retreat were really friendly and lovely, we felt really welcome and at home staying here. The beds were comfy and the location was excellent, right on the river in close proximity to the village. We went on a jungle trek with them and had an amazing day and thought it was really good value.

No hot water (but I understand this is the case for pretty much everywhere in bukit lawang) and quite noisy when the bar across the river had a karaoke night but I put my earplugs in and it was fine

This place is clearly popular, lots of rooms for all budgets and one of the few places with AC. like all the hotels you can book your orangutan tour, airport rides, rental bikes etc here. They’ve got a restaurant with good food and WiFi was decent for the area (I wouldn’t try to working from here on video calls). Thomas was always around making sure you’re ok. We didn’t book our tours with him since we didn’t know all hotels offered this service but Bukit Lawang is an awesome little town, super unique in that it was connected by all these suspension bridges. We stayed in 2 different rooms and they were both spacious with large beds. We did the 1 day hike and it started right by the hotel which was great! Jungle taxi also ended within walking distance of hotel. Tip: if you turn left out of the hotel walk upriver, there’s a shallow spot you can wade into where the current isn’t strong.

To get to the hotel, you get dropped off at a store, and from there you need to walk about 10-15 mins down the main “street”, across a rickety suspension bridge and along the river before getting to the hotel. It’s usually raining there so this is not fun esp if you have luggage (you’ll need to carry it) if your driver/guide doesn’t help you. We arrived late at night in the pouring rain and this really sucked. But almost all the hotels are like this so not unique to Thomas