Progress has been made on Oct 2008 trip to Bangkok & Java (created a new post due to poor titling of the last one…still learning).

Thanks again to Kathi and Marmot for the great tips that have us headed in the right direction.

Here is our preliminary itinerary for our two week trip in October 2008:

1 night Novotel Airport: Arrive Bangkok Sunday at 1:00 am – immediately crash at Novotel at the airport see how long we can sleep and then taxi or limo in to the Peninsula the next morning.

4 nights Peninsula Bangkok (Mon – Thurs): Need your recommendations on room types and packages. We are considering the spa package with balcony room. Includes 2 spa treatments which I would have booked anyway.

Guide Bangkok: Will contact Tong. Need your recommendations on how many days to book with Tong and what sites to see with her or her team. If Tong is not available, what team member is recommended?

Fly to Java on Friday morning: Booking this is proving a challenge - husband is at his computer now and the gentle curses and heavy sighing have begun. Any tips to ease and speed the airline booking process (researching Thai, Malaysia, Singapore / Silk…Garuda (have read the cautions)? Discounted regional airlines would be our preference for the potential cost savings. Is this a flight that would be better booked with an Asian travel service representative?

7 nights Amanjiwo (Fri – Thurs): Need your recommendations on room types and packages. We are considering the cultural trails package with pool suite through Expedia.

Guide Java: We will use the Aman guides as part of the package mentioned above and for early morning hikes – etc. but always like to have our own independent guide lined up as well due to huge difference in pricing. Any recommendations? Kathi mentions Rohmad Hidajat in her 4-2007 posting but since, at that time, he was employed at Amanjiwo (where we will be staying) we are not sure if it would be in poor taste to try and book him independently. Thoughts?

does air asia fly to java??

most of us see no need for a balcony at the penn....its way too hot to sit out there....with the floor to ceiling windows you get a significant view in a/c comfort...but a few have reporting liking the balcony....

personally i prefer looking up the river or down the river, rather than directly across (all balconies look directly across)....

if you want to spring for suite, you will be overwhelmed....that's the place to do it...

go on the penn site and click on bkk and note the specials at the top as well as the ones listed down the page....they are very good about making adjustments if you later find something else that you prefer....

personally i would go there my first nite....if for no other reason than that your room may not be available before mid-day on day 2???

i'm off to bkk tomorrow and it can't come soon enough...

I wasn't the one who talked about the guide in Java. You'll pay a lot to use Aman guides, but if you don't mind that, go with them. I agree that if a guide is employed by the Aman, it would unwise to ask him to guie you independently. I expect the Aman has rules against that. I recommend that you do some research ahead of time so you know where you want to go, as I expect otherwise you'll just hit the most popular sites.

I'm not sure why you are staying at the Novotel your arrival night. It will take you perhaps 30 minutes to the Pen from the airport. That allows you to settle in and not have to move hotels when you get up in the morning. The flights I take to Bangkok always get in just before midnight, and I go directly to my Bangkok hotel. I'm not a Pen person, but do read others' advice on balcony rooms. People either think they are great or that the balcony is unusable (due to the heat) and only makes the room darker. In general, you are wise to choose a package that includes breakfast. The Pen will send a driver to pick you up, but you'll pay for it! I use AAC limo, and the cost in November was about 1000 baht to a river hotel. I always make arrangements both ways, so I get a 10% discount. You'll pay in baht when you meet the AAC rep at the airport.

Flights from Bangkok to Java are not easy. I recently researched this myself, as Java is our second option if Nepal becomes unstable. The route I would take is to fly Singapore Air to Singapore and take Silk Air to Solo form there. Silk is a subsidiary of Singapore Air. Our bags would be checked through to Solo from Bangkok, and once we arrived and Changi, we could relax until our Silk Air flight. (We'd have a pedicure if we had time. Great facilities at Changi!)

While you could take a discount airline to Singapore, it makes everything more complicated. The discount airlines would require you to pick up your luggage in Singapore (that means you have to go through immigration and customs) and check your bags in at the next airline counter - which is probably in another terminal. Discount airlines have quite limited baggage limits, and the charges for overweight bags is significant. The only airline I'd take to central Java is Silk.

You could ask a Bangkok travel agent to book those tickets for you... do you fly back out of Bangkok or are you flying home from Singapore? I use Eddie at the AmEx agency in Bangkok to book intra-Asia tickets for me. If the tickets are electronic, he'll email it to you, if they are paper tickets, he'll have them delivered to your hotel so they are available to you on your arrival. Sometimes he can get a better deal than I can, sometimes not. [email protected]

i see air asia flies to solo through both jakarta and kuala lumpur....cheap flights...

there are however severe luggage limitations and no seat assignments....they do have an option for early boarding for a very small fee...

Thanks rhkkmk and Kathie-

Just checked Air Asia which flys a non-stop into Jakarta (CGK) once a day arriving CGK at 8 pm...a little late to catch a hopper and transfer to Amanjiwo. The return flights from CGK to BKK do open some better options for us though so thanks for the tip. Will check out the Kuala L to Solo idea.

We have checked the Singapore / Silk flights which unfortunatley don't mesh with our Friday departure schedule.

Our most likely choice is to do as you both advise and skip the Novotel and check into the Penn the first night. My original thought on the Novotel was to skip a long taxi ride into town and just focus on getting to sleep ASAP - we are both horrible at sleeping on planes. But I am sure I would question my logic once arriving in BKK.

Kathie - Thank you for info on the AAC Limo and the Bangkok travel agent, we will be flying in and out of BKK and will be able to use both of these contacts.

Garuda Air has an insanely early flight at 2:30 am on Friday from BKK to CGK and on to Yogyakarta (JOG)arriving 8:45 am. Shortest flight time and lowest cost (buyer beware?)of all the flights we have found. Husband has just e-mailed Eddie at AmEx to see if he can help us.

We are currently huge fans of using airport terminal hotels to accomodate odd flight times or layovers. That being said, our thoughts are to check out of the Penn on Thursday, have the Penn hold our bags while we spend the day touring, have an early dinner in town and plan on arriving at the airport that eventing to check in and get through security. The goal would be to use the terminal BKK hotel for a 4 hour nap prior to flight time of 2:30 am. Key is to find info on this rumored terminal hotel (Louis Tavern?) - alternative is the Novotel. Our jet lag patterns often find us awake at 2:00 am anyway so while this may sound grueling, it may be a good use of our time - who knows.

Will skip the balcony at the Penn and look at potential for a suite.

Kathie - sorry for misquoting you, you are correct, it was "Becalm" that recommended the guide in Java April 2007. Will definetly do our research on preferred sites prior to arrival. Having just returned from Egypt during high season, we are desparate to find areas of interest away from the usual tourist attractions.

rhkkmk - The Air Asia flight idea of routing through Kuala L looks promising - thanks. djd2

djd2 - We just stayed at the Pen and used theriverretreat package. Gave us a transfer from the airport to the Pen, breakfast, afternoon tea and Skytrain pass. It was lovely coming out of immigration and having the hotel limo there waiting for us. Not the most cost efficiency, but very reliable.

djd, Re flights from Bangkok to Java: Did you reschedule or are you still traveling in the middle of the Islamic holidays? I ask because Jakarta airport will be quite difficult during the holiday season, difficult meaning expect delays.

Connecting to through Singapore or KL to Yogya would be my first choice and that way you can avoid Jakarta altogether. As Kathie notes, you can also fly into Solo (also called Surakarta).

Otherwise, the Garuda connection sounds OK, aside from the tortuous wakeup time.

All of the suites at the Amanjiwo are more or less the same. They're arranged on concentric circles so you're either on the lower tier or higher tier. The lower rooms abut the rice padi or tobacco fields. From the upper tiers you can see Borobudur in the distance.

I expect the resort will be seriously empty so you'll have your pick of rooms. I actually prefer the rooms without pools as they have more courtroom space and the main pool is quite nice.

The Aman is the major employer in the area so the guides will all know each other. I can't imagine that there would be any official pressure to use the Aman guides, though unofficially you may feel it's so. Indonesians are not particularly aggressive and I don't think using an outside guide would be a problem. You'd most likely be employing someone's brother or husband.

The good thing about using the Aman's services is that you know they will be reliable which is no small thing in Indonesia. The downside is that everything at the Aman is wildly expensive. Remember that ++ 21% that goes on every single charge.

I urge you to try to connect personally to the manager, Sean Flakelar. The Indonesian staff are quite good, but he's phenomenally helpful and really understands what his guests want to do and see.

Thanks for your reply Marmot. We will definitely contact Sean at Amanjiwo directly and will relish the thought of having an Aman resort to ourselves.

Our travel dates are the same - Oct 5th to Oct 18th, in and out of BKK.

Given the Islamic holidays, we decided to move the Java leg of the trip to the second week, in hopes that the travel frenzy following "Ramadan" will have subsided a bit by 10-10-08 when we plan to fly out to Yogyakarta.

rhkkmk suggested we look at Air Asia and we did find an AAsia flight from BKK to Kuala L and then another Air Asia flight from KL to Yogyakarta.

From first reading of Air Asia's web site it appears that you cannot check baggage through on connecting flights but rather have to claim it and recheck for your next leg (theory yet to be confirmed). This adds about 2 hours to the flight duration as compared to Garuda but the departure times are much better and we would avoid Jakarta. We have e-mailed a travel agent that Kathie uses in BKK for asistance with the flights to Java.

Our first week will be spent in Bangkok.

Ah, I didn't know that Air Asia was now flying to Jogja. The connection through KL would be convenient. And my understanding also is that Air Asia does not allow checked though baggage. So it would add to the time and hassle. But I must say that the Silk Air connection through Singapore is expensive.

one more thing from me....if price is at all an issue with you the basic rooms at the penn are just as nice as the other more expensive ones... they are just not as big and are on floors 3-9, which also is fine....

Hi djd2!

We are just coming back from Java, we stayed on Yogyakarta (we flied from Singapore to Solo, so I don't know about flights from Bangkok), and we stayed in a great hotel Gran Mercure Yogyakarta, very good price for the hotel it is, and food very nice also.

For the guide I highly recomend you Indri, at this moment I don't have telephone numbers from her, and telephones from the agency she works in, but tomorrow I can send you all the details. The tour agency has an office in some cities in Java, so they could arrange even from Amanjiwo, I suppose.
I send you all the details tomorrow.

Greetings

Hi
When staying at Amanjiwo, if you want to use Rohmad who is excellent I'd hire him through the resort. I suspect he wouldn't be available to Aman guests out of loyalty to his long term employer even if Sean did not object. One could however hire one of Rohmad's associates at Borobudur Tour and Travel. This is a local tour agency in Borobudur village. Their current rate is IDR 350,000 for a car with driver for 8 hours (gas included) and 150,000 more for a guide. Contact Reenie in their office who is very helpful at [email protected]. website: www.borobudurtourandtravel.com

In contrast, the Fall 2006 Amanjiwo prices were Rp 225,000 for a car with driver for 1 hour and a guide 400,000/day. pick up and drop off at Borobudur is complimentary.

Do email Anna at Amanjiwo and request a copy of their guest directory that includes their activities list with prices. Although we used Amanjiwo exclusively for all our activities and tours including a trip to Prabanam for the ballet and feel we got our monies worth, your idea of combining the resorts services in conjunction with a local tour agency makes sense. This is especially true if you wish to take a longer trip such as to Gedong Songo.

We stayed in a Borobudur room on the lowest level and we could still see Borobudur in the distance but do realize from on any level it appears fairly small from the resort. Being on the edge of the tobacco field and watching the local children fly their kites close by was enjoyable for me However climbing the steep stairs to the main building from there is requires a degree of fitness. I agree a room with a pool is not necessary as the resorts pool is beautiful and tremendous in size and very lightly used.

We particularly enjoyed the Dagi Hill picnic in the park overlooking Borobudur and do not miss the lemon souffle pancakes which are alone worth the visit.

Let me know if I can offer you anything more. Sean, the entire staff and even his dog Tigger are all super friendly. So much so, I'm looking forward to a return visit, hopefully this Fall.

Thanks to all for the tips on local guides in Java. All of your generous input is greatly appreciated.

Becalm - we will be sure to request Rohmad as our guide on all of our Aman adventures - we're thrilled to have this personal referral. We too think the Aman excursions are always incredible adventures and the prices are warranted given the level of professionalism and attention to detail that you can always count on.

Thanks for the recommendations on specific activities; I am sure that I will have more questions after I make contact with Anna at Amanjiwo.

When you contact Sean and Anna - do you simply e-mail them using the general address for Amanjiwo:

[email protected] ?

Great progress is being made on our trip:

We have made contact with Tong and secured her services for Bangkok. We will be working out details of daily itineraries soon. Fishing Village sounds like a "must do."

We made contact with Eddie at Amex Travel Services and he can help us with booking flights from BKK to Yogyakarta on Garuda but not Asia Air. Still debating which flight to book.

Booked our room at the Pen in Bangkok directly with the hotel after searching for comparables on the internet. As rhkkmk and susncrg recommend - the packages on the Pen site are a good way to go. The Pen agreed to extend the validity dates of the summer splendor package into October - package includes breakfast and a room upgrade(or a few other options).

Kathie - do you book AAC via internet? We are having trouble with the AAC limousine web site - fill out the form and then can't send it - will try again later.

Have read the postings on the Face Bar / Spa. Will consider booking a treatment there and having lunch or dinner afterwards. I assume that they have full shower and locker facilities.

Thanks again for all of the invaluable advice.

I sometimes have problems with AAC's internet reservations page. Simply email all of the info asked for in the form to the email address listed at the bottom of the page. I've often gotten a return email from them within 15 minutes!

Face has two treatment "rooms" small teak buildings with treatment space for two. There is a full shower etc in the back of each building, and you simply leave your clothes, etc, in this area. Do make sure to make reservations, as Face can accommodate only two parties of two at a time.

Manager of the Amanjiwo:
Sean Flakelar [[email protected]]

Update on travel plans 5-2-08:

Your recommendations to contact Sean Flakelar, the manager at Amanjiwo, proved very productive. We had originally e-mailed the general Aman reservation’s address and had not received a reply after 3 days. Once we forwarded the request on to Sean directly we received an immediate and very helpful reply.

We have booked 7 nights at Amanjiwo using the Cultural Trails Package which includes breakfast and various activities of our choice.

We have booked our flights from BKK to Jogyakarta. We will stay at the Pen in BKK one more night (Thurs 10/9) and fly out around 7:00 am on Air Asia the next morning to Kuala Lumpur.

We have a 4 hour layover in KL before we fly on to Jogyakarta. This will allow us enough time to collect our luggage and go through the check-in process again for the second leg of our trip as is required when flying Air Asia.

Air Asia had better flight departure times (7:00 am vs 2:30 am) and significant cost savings when compared to Garuda. The only difference is an additional total flight time of 2 hours and the hassle of having to recheck our luggage in Kuala Lumpur.

Now that the flights, hotels and guides are booked it is on to the fun part….intensive research and planning of daily activities.

Your recommendations for suggested “wow – I wouldn’t miss it sites” and suggested daily itineraries for:

1. 4 days in BKK

a. 3 days with Tong
b. first day on our own

2. 7 days in and around Amanjiwo

would be very welcome and thank you again for all of your help getting the structure of our trip organized.

djd, I'm glad to hear that your Java trip is taking shape.

I have utmost respect for the Indonesian managers at the Amanjiwo and find their hospitality boundless; however sometimes you need a Western mind to understand what a foreign tourist wants to see and do in Indonesia. Some of the most mundane attractions -- like a local market or irrigation system -- can be infinitely fascinating.

Sean is a specialist in primative "mountain" music and dance (as opposed to the refined court gamelan and dance that you will find at the Kratons and other upscale venues.) Ask him to help you find performances.

He is also a chef. The Aman's menu is limited but they really will prepare just about anything you request if given time to secure the ingredients.

Guides are good at Borobudur but it's also important to have some contemplative time on your own. I'd get a copy of the book on the Borobudur's freizes "Golden Tales of the Buddhas" to bone up before your visit. Try to spend some quiet time matching up the carvings with the stories in the book.
http://www.amazon.com/Borobudur-Gold...055&sr=1-1

Hi
Regarding your request for suggestions on sites and activities in each location, just run a few searches here. No shortage of previous threads for inspiration.

Some suggestions for Central Java: consider a trip to Gedong Songo or an even longer drive to the Dieng Plateau, a day trip to Solo by the scenic route through the pass between Merbabu and Merapi mountains. On your return, visit Prambanan in the mid-afternoon. Have dinner nearby and attend a Ramanyana Ballet performance if held that evening. Attend an evening dance performance at a local village near the Aman, bike through the villages and meet the residents working in the fields (if you take photos of them offer a modest sum as a courtesy), walk the paths through Borobudur Park to view the site from the hillside, dawn and sunset from atop Borobudur. Also, hike the trails through the Menorah Hills just outside Amanjiwo, visit the Buddhist Temple for chanting, stroll through the local market filled with friendly residents doing their daily shopping and have the staff arrange for a local shopping trip. Btw, the gift shop at the resort is filled with many fine and interesting pieces.

Finally, just spend time relaxing at the resort and soaking up the peace that fills this area.

The only aspect of Amanjiwo we thought was just average and I couldn't recommend especially considering the price were the massages.