I´ve done some travelling in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia in the past. But in Malaysia, only on the peninsular part. And in Indo, only some western parts (namely Sumatra, Java & Bali).

But Borneo, Sulawesi, all of Philippines, Maluku Islands, Papua, Papua New Guinea.............. there´s a huge number of islands, that are more or less like a "black hole" on my map! They don´t seem to be so much visited by overlanders either, especially if you compare to some other parts of Asia. For some years now, I´ve though about shipping my bike to Thailand or Western Malaysia, and exploring from there. Or buying a small bike or even a scooter from Thailand (Indo might also be a possibility). Or who knows, maybe even sending my bike to Philippines, or buying something from there, could be the way to go. I´ll have to research those options more.

I know it´ll probably take a lot of time to go to areas like this, but could even think about leaving the vehicle somewhere, and returning later on to continue. I´d try to stay at least 2-3 months at a time, and for me to arrange the time off from work, I´d need to do the trips starting around November-December each year.

So, what to do you do to get your bike to that region (I am under the impression, that there aren´t any ferries from Western Malaysia to Malaysian Borneo, for example)? From Java, (and it you´ve got plenty of time, as I´ve already noticed, their so-called timetables can be very flexible!!) you should probably be able to find some ferries going to most Indonesian islands, right? Those boat trips could be memorable, but I´d still probably do it that way, rather than freight the bike, if I can avoid that, because that´s guaranteed to wreck my nerves!

Pelni, who operates many longer boat routes in Indo, said they don´t transport bikes. Anyone have any idea, if that is negotiable (this is something, that made me think about a very small bike, as it might be easier to persuade them at the harbour)?? It´ll definitely be a setback, if bikes aren´t widely accepted into boats. Maybe it means only big bikes? And I know there´s nothing written in stone in that part of the world, either!

And a tougher one: are there any ´ferries´ or other boats, that one could use to move between Indonesia, Philippines, and possibly even Papua New Guinea (or maybe PNG could probably be best to do as a backpacker, so no bike – and in that case you could of course fly, too)?

I know that in some places, road conditions might be interesting, especially if there have been rains, and on some of the islands there practically aren´t any roads, so you move mostly by boat. And there´s still the paperwork side of things, especially with your vehicle, and that can naturally have a big
impact on your route-planning.

But just generally: if you were going to explore that region, had 2-3 months, aren´t even planning to try and see it all on one trip (and even if you´d perhaps prefer to start more on the ´easy´ side first, it doesn´t really matter, where you start, because it´ll all be uncharted territory for you), what would you do?