Theres a travel report in gt-rider dot com about a guy going to Sumatra, and he didnt have a carnet. Spent about 2 days banging his head against the wall with the customs, though...

And I went to Indonesia from Malaysia at the end of January this year, and I believe they officially do require the carnet. You may find a way to work around this, but its definitely not guaranteed, and expect it to be a big hassle.

I do not mean to depress you, but during our stay in Indonesia we met several people, who had big problems getting their bike into the country - even though they HAD all the papers, including the carnet!!

There was a German, who´d flown his bike to Jakarta airport, where it had then been stuck for 2 weeks. And another Italian who lives in Bali, and was trying to bring his bike in, only to find out they will not let it through the customs in Surabaya port.

The German had been asked to produce a letter from the United Nations, otherwise the bike will not be allowed entry, thats how ridiculous it can get.

Also heard there may be severe problems, if going from Melaka in Malaysia to Dumai, Sumatra, so at the time the only port to use was Belawan, near Medan. There everything worked real smooth (with the carnet, and I dont know how it wouldve been without it, probably much harder!) The Italian guy actually said he´s going to ship it now from Surabaya to Singapore and then try to enter the country from the same port that we did.

We planned to proceed all the way to East Timor, but then decided we had to ship to Australia from Bali, so I dont know how it will be over there. Did hear, though, that the land border from West to East Timor is one where you can NOT get a visa-on-arrival, so you have to arrange it beforehand. And 30 days that it gives you is not enough for Indonesia, anyway.

Still, its definitely worth going, if you can manage to get your bike in! It seems more like a lottery, whether or not you will get trouble with the customs, so who knows if you might get lucky.