rhkkmk

putu has been extensively reviewed here on fodors and is an exceptional guide

araya

Yes, we would like to include some nature/outdoors trekking as well.

It seems we should try to avoid the west coast of Malaysia/Thailand and focus on the east coast- so we will look into that.

After looking at some of the pictures linked by you all (and others I've seen), Java and Borneo look wonderful. We live in a huge city now, so it's not that city life intrigues us, but new cities. We are of Indian descent as well, so both KL and Singapore appealed to us- but my husband has been to Singapore.

I'm not confused as much as I want to ensure that the itinerary we go with doesn't have too much complicated travel.

We definitely agree with sticking to 5 cities max.

Are there any other methods of travel besides Air Asia that are easy to book?

Kathie

Any of the airlines are easy to book online, so don't confine yourselves to Air Asia. Other airlines will be more expensive.

araya

Wow- I think we finally settled on an itinerary. Any advice on the Java leg would be great.

Bangkok (2 days)
Java (4 days)
Bali (9 days)
Koh Samui (4 days)
Bangkok (1 day)

We can fly directly to Surabaya from BKK. However, it seems Yogyakarta is about 6-7 hours away. We have all of our flights solidified for the parts of the trip... to and from Java is the only one remaining. It takes 2 stops to get to Yogyakarta from BKK, though, so we want to avoid that.

Thank you, again, for all of your suggestions!

Kathie

2 stops from Bangkok to Yogjakarta? On Air Asia, you can fly Bangkok to KL to either Solo (an hour or so from Yogja) or Yogja. You can fly Bangkok to Jakarta on Garuda then to either Yogja or Solo or you can fly Bangkok Singapore to Solo (last leg on Silk Air). I wouldn't fly to Surabaya - too far from where you want to go.

My only other comment on your itinerary is that I think you don't have enough time in Bangkok. But if you are like the rest of us, you'll be back again and again.

marmot

For Central Java you have three airport choices: Yogyakarta, Solo (also called Surakarta) and Semarang. Yogya and Solo are about equal in proximity to local attractions. Semarang is farther away (about 3 hours to Borobudur), but has the most flights.

Surabaya is much farther than 6-7 hours by land, but has frequent flight connections to Central Java. It means back tracking, though so you'd be better off transiting through Jakarta or Singapore.


In Central Java, you can either stay in the town of Yogya or outside in the Borobudur area, or a combination of both. I prefer the countryside, but choices of accommodations are few.

The Amanjiwo is spectacular, but pricy. Losari is quite nice but about an hour's drive from Borobudur.

In Yogya the Hyatt is good, but basic. Everyone seems to like the Phoenix; I haven't been there yet.

Cicerone

1. IMO you have way too short a time in Bangkok. You will be arriving after 25 hours or so of flying, at least one connection, and most likely won’t arrive until 10 pm or later. You will then only have 2 days to sightsee. Bangkok is a huge city and its sights are spread out in several areas. Traffic can be horrendous, and while there is a good subway system, it does not go everywhere. Also, you might not accomplish a whole lot on your first day as jet lag and heat/humidity take their toll. At the end of the trip, you will only have 1 day, bookended by what could be long trips to and from the airport. Again, IMO you won’t will not be able to cover a lot of ground in 1 day. Much as I hate to say it, I probably would cut out Bangkok altogether and focus more time elsewhere. I don’t feel quite a bad about saying that for a trip planned for July of this year, when potential issues with the election could make a trip there problematic.

2. If you want to go to Bangkok, then include 4 days in total, preferably not in two trips. While not ideal, 3 days is OK if you don’t have to split it up into two trips. If you are doing the 1 day in Bangkok at the end because of the international flights to and from NY, consider other options for getting back home rather than having to go back to Bangkok. Do an “open jaw” flight which allows you to fly into Bangkok and out of Hong Kong or Singapore. They generally do not cost any more than going into and out of the same city and will save you a lot of backtracking. You could get an early evening flight from Jogya to Singapore (via Jakarta) and then connect directly to one of several flights departing for NYC (via connections). You could also take an early morning flight from Jogya to Hong Kong (via Jakarta) and connect to the great non-stop flight to JFK on Cathay.

3. If you decide to include Bangkok, there are 3 daily non-stop flights between Bali and Jogya on Gardua that only take an hour. I would re-arrange the schedule to go from Bangkok to Bali first, then to Jogya. There is a non-stop Thai airways flights between Bangkok and Bali which puts you into Bali by 2 pm, quite decent.

From Jogya you can get to Bangkok on Garuda via a change in Jakarta (2 hour layer), which is not bad. The trip overall does take the better part of a day, which makes in unattractive to me. That is why I would return to the US from Singapore or Hong Kong and not trek back to Bangkok.

Another option would be to split time <i>in Bali</i> by going to Jogya in between Seminyak and Ubud. That one-hour non-stop between Bali and from Jogya is hard to beat for convenience. I’d much rather fly in and out of Denpassar twice than Bangkok airport twice. Also you have 9 days in total for Bali which makes the split much less hectic than 3 days in Thailand. Denpassar is a very small airport and is quite close to Seminyak, and about 45 minutes from Ubud. If you do that, you could get non-stops to and from Bangkok which would save you time. You could also get a flight from Bali to Hong Kong where you could connect to the Cathay non-stop to NYC.

araya

Thanks for your honesty here- we can still add a day in Bangkok. Unfortunately we had to book our flight with airline miles, and therefore could only book roundtrip out of Bangkok, so we cannot change that aspect of it.

We can still do 3 days in Bangkok up front and then at the end we have our one full day (not including the day we fly out of Bangkok).

We are not staying in Seminyak now, but we are staying Tabanan.

We might rearrange so we do Ubud first, then Jogya, then Tabanan.

marmot

I usually agree with Cicerone's logistics, but I'm less enthusiastic about putting Central Java in the middle of two Bali stays. Even though the flight's about an hour, the travel time on both ends, plus security etc etc will eat up most of a day. Domestic airports are not the highlight of the country. I'd just want to experience them once going in and once going out.

Just curious, what are you looking at in Tabanan?

Cicerone

The OP will be going in and out of Jogya twice no matter how the itin is arranged. My arrangement only adds one more arrival and departure in Bali. Between Bangkok and Bali airports, I would prefer Bali, as it is smaller (you can have a loooong walk to gates in Bangkok, in my experience), and then getting by car to your destination is generally much faster than Bangkok would be. That is why I think going in and out of Bali twice is preferable to in and out of Bangkok twice. But it appears that the OP has to go to Bangkok twice anyway as they bought tickets on air miles. I am still not convinced splitting time in Bangkok is necessary. Have you looked into skipping Bangkok initially and just connecting from there to Bali? And then do 4 days in Bangkok at the end? Alternatively, have you looked into whether you can connect directly in Bangkok from a flight from Indonesia to a NYC flight? Either option is admittedly going to take some fortitude as you will be looking at 30+ hours of travel, but to avoid multiple airport treks in Bangkok, and have 4 continuous days in Bangkok it may be worth it. If you tell me what flight you are in and out of Bangkok, I can look into options for going on directly from Bangkok to Bali.

I also am not sure I understand going to Tabanan and Ubud. Unless you mean the beaches in the Tabanan district, and not the city of Tabanan, which is fairly far inland. Otherwise, you are going to have pretty similar geography and terrain in both Ubud and Tabanan. Both quite pretty, but not sure you need to stay in both. I would think you could see the Tabanan area as an easy day trip from Seminyak, and I think you will find a far larger selection of luxury hotels and good restaurants in Seminyak than you will in Tabanan beach areas of the town of Tabanan itself. (You can probably find some quite interesting home stay and other options in the Tabanan area, but for luxury I think you won’t have a lot of choice, and you seem to indicate you are interested in luxury. But if you want rustic and less touristed/more quiet, than Tabanan may be preferable to Ubud. Then add a beach area as well. )

If you decide to go to Jogya in between Bali stops, I just realized that with the time difference between Jogya and Bali, on the flight between Bali and Jogya, you literally take <i>15 minutes</i> out of the day. There is a 7 am flight from Bali which arrives at 7:15 am Jogya time. That IMO would be a great way to go, see sunrise on Bali (which does come up like thunder as Kipling says) and then fly to Jogya and still have the full day. There is also a 7 pm flight to Jogya which arrives at 7:15 pm, plenty of time to have dinner when you arrive.

On the return, there is an 8 pm flight from Jogya to Bali which means you would not would not miss any daylight in Jogya, and would arrive into Bali at 10:30 pm, and could be at a hotel by just after midnight. There is also an 8 am which arrives at 10:15 am, so you could be at a Bali destination for lunch.

marmot

I'd agree that Seminyak has a lot more going on than Tambanan, but maybe that's the point. There are some new luxury resorts -- like the Alila Soori -- and a lot of new villas in the area. Also the Bali Nirvana at Tanah Lot (which I wouldn't recommend).

Getting from Ubud (or Tabanan) to Bali Denpasar airport takes a lot longer than it used to. On bad traffic days, it's an hour from Seminyak. You have to leave your hotel at least 2.5 hours before your flight departure time. I'm a conservative traveler, so I'd make it 3 hours.

StanKase

Having been to Bali twice, but not since 2003 other than an overnight lasy year, and returning again in Sept.I really think 9 days may be too long. Though 4 days in Yogya is just right, I assume that really means 3 full days of touring, I may have missed it but if you can get 2 extra days in Bangkok, considering the first day will be less than fully productive, I doubt you would find many who woukld argue that 3 full days in BK is too many. But maybe because of using miles it does not work for you. Yogya is almost 10 hours and we are doing it with our guide Wiedy with an overnight. So, the 45-50 minute flight is the only way to go. Yes, it will take 3-4 hours from hotel to hotel but it's a lot better than 10. We are doing it because of the number of interesting small villages we plan to stop at so it will take us 8 hours each day with stops.
I disagree with marmot about the Hyatt. It is very nice. the entrance and lobby area you could call elegant and the rooms are large and well appointed. If you use our guide, by chance, he got us a rate about $25/night lower than I was able to get from the US last March this year with the US dollar worth 15% less he only is saving us $18/night. Though marmot suggested the Arman resort near Bobodurur it will cost $750+ USD/night with tax/service.

singabob

wow, so many opinions it'll make your head spin. I would choose Lombok over Bali, Singapore (big thumbs up, if you think you know it, you don't) over KL, Yoyakarta and Bourabadour over much of Thailand (right now), although its a lovely country. Penang over Langkawi, and a day in Malacca. Add Ankor Wat and Phenom Penh, if possible. JetStar and AirAsia are the budget choices, the other ones you can't always count on. Have fun and happy life!

nishilal

Ever considered Chiang mai in Northern Thailand ??? It's absolutely an experience...