Malaysia to Auckland - somehow
 

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Right - here's hopin' someone reading this has looked into the tricky part of this - i.e mainland Asia to New Zealand. I'm planning on doing a TEFL (teaching english course - highly recommended BTW) in NZ for 4 weeks, before heading back to South Korea to teach.

In a fantastic world I'd ride to malaysia > indonesia > Australia > NZ > Papa New Guinea > Philippines > S. Korea

BUT IN THE REAL WORLD... I'm not findin' much in the way of transport for a bike for 80% of this. Maybe I should sell the bike in, say, malaysia, and hitch hike or something?

Anyway, if any of you wizened old hacks (?) have managed to pull this off, or might have some pearls of, erm, wisdom, then I'd appreciate it big time. BTW it will be just me, 40 year old chap, leaving London maybe March/April through maybe Turkey > Iran > Pakistan etc. etc.
david
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We've just ridden to Timor Leste, then shipped back to Singapore, then by air KL to Auckland. For various reasons we didn't want to go to Oz. All the shipping is covered in other posts. I have posted elsewhere the ferries in Indonesia, other than the island-to-island options that everybody uses. In a nutshell they are:

Pontianak to Jakarta and Semarang and Surabaya
Surabaya to Flores (I think it's Ende)
Labuanbajo - Makassar (once a month)
Sandakan (Sabah, Borneo) - Zamboanga (Mindanao, Philippines)

Selling in Malaysia could be difficult, contact the HU communities there.

PNG? Are there many roads you can ride? Is it worth shipping there?

Customs in Akl are causing us major delays. We have been waiting for a week now for them to do their job. I'm asking myself whether it was a mistake to fly our bikes here.

Cheers,
Peter.

Tremendous advice Peter - I'll be getting my surfing hat on tomorrow and doing some one-finger touch typing. It strikes me that this wouldn't just take a month, or even 2, probably 3-4 months, riding 5 days a week (a man needs a weekend to break up the week!). The ferry delays would be significant (monthly!), and a hassle plenty. Tell me, out of 10, how has travelling this area cut it for you (and your partner)?
david

Hi David

We've just done Darwin to Malaysia via most of Indonesia and Borneo. Here's the ferries we took in Indonesia:

Kupang (West Timor) - Larantuka (Flores) weekly.
Labuanbajo (Flores) - Bira (Sulawesi) weekly.
Pare Pare (Sulawesi) - Nunukan (Kalimantan) weekly.
Pontianak (Kalimantan) - Semarang (Java) weekly.
The Pontianak - Surabaya ferry no longer runs.
The Java - Sumatra ferry runs hourly.

As you say there will be delays, mainly because its impossible to know beforehand which day of the week these ferries run. Unless you know someone like us who can tell you of course :)

To get to Malaysia from Sumatra we shipped from Dumai to Port Klang (KL), otherwise most people seem to ship from Medan to Penang.

If you need any more info we'd be happy to help.

Lucas

Hello everyone,

does anyone have any outstanding experiences from this area (SE Asia big Islands)? Things not to miss? Gorillas for example. Maybe just send me links if you're on a 9600 modem in Papa New Guinea...:)

David

I spent a year in Thailand, although most of that was in Mae Sot, teaching Burmese students. 6 weeks Malaysia, almost 6 months Indonesia. For that get a 2-month visa in Georgetown or KL. We then did visa runs from Bali and Kupang to KL and Bkk, respectively.

I may well end up living in Thailand, it's one of my favourite countries. Easy and cheap.

We liked Indo very much, especially the people who are very friendly. However, we decided to skip Borneo and Sulawesi, although we didn't even have to wait for the ferry. But at the end I couldn't wait to leave the country: the noise in the hotels at night just wore me down.

Favourite spots:

N India: Ladakh & Zanskar
riding in N Thailand, esp. around Nan.
Sumatra, Danau Toba, Danau Maninjau, Pulau Weh, wildlife in Bukit Lawang.
Amed beach on Bali: coral reef right on the beach and excellent accommodation.

Cheers,
Peter.

I feel like I've just discovered an alternative way of life here [tear]. This might not turn out to be a holiday at all (well, I'm about to organise a minimum year in Korea which is going beyond a holiday I guess), but the idea is dawning on me that you can teach english (if you're lucky enough to have it as a mother tongue especially) AND travel the world for the rest of your life, rather than save up for holidays and blow the money every year.

Now there's thought.

The world is my lobster.

david

Your name says it all David - Go for it!