Dear all!

I have been traveling east towards my goal, Bali, for about 10 months. I spent about 3 entire weeks researching what was the best way to get my motorcycle from Malaysia to Indonesia. I decided that the best way for me was to get the RoRo ferry from Port Klang to Kota Kinabalu on Borneo. Now that I am waiting for my bike to get to me (no passengers allowed on the boat, so I flew), I have some time to write things up and I got a little carried away with trying to organize as much information possible into a single map.

LINK TO MAPS Detailed information on times, schedules and routes on the map.




CONCLUSION FOR MALAYSIA >< INDONESIA CROSSING
There are 3 options for motorcycles

1. Onion boat by Mr Lim /// Penang to Medan /// US$270 per person per bike
2. Passenger Ferry, if you fit through the door /// Port Klang to Tanjung Balai /// US$280 per person per bike
3. RoRo ferry to Borneo /// Port Klang to Kota Kinabalu /// US$180 per person per bike

The passenger ferry is the only option you do not have to fly, but it is technically not legal and only works if your motorcycle will fit through the door.



CONCLUSION FERRIES INDONESIA
Between the closest western islands there are plenty of ferries daily, no need to worry there. The further you go east, the less frequent the schedules get.

There are 3 ferry companies I can find online

1. Pelni /// Slow and mostly long distance, the quality/safety of this line as been questioned
2. PDLU /// Active mainly between Sumatra, Java and Borneo
3. Prima Vista /// Not many lines to choose from

The Pelni website is the worst to find information on, but they do reply to emails if you have a very specific question.



CONCLUSION SHIPPING DILI >< DARWIN
I am not planning on shipping to Australia so I did not do a lot of research here, but just collected the information I came across while looking for Indo information.

There seem to be 4 companies operating on this route

1. SDV/Perkins
2. ANL
3. Toll
4. Bollore

Quotes range from between US$500 - US$1200




Feel free to comment & correct me if I am wrong, hope this sums it up for a lot of people. The car peeps have less choice going to/from Malaysia and if not going via Borneo will need to arrange a container shipping.

Also, I will add the daily vlogs from a few of these topics whenever they come online. In the meantime come and checkout my YouTube channel!


Lots of love,


Nora

Hello!

All of the ferries I took in indonesia were run by ASDP, they were definitely the most common. Still, in the eastern islands some would only come weekly. Who did the quote for 500 from dili to Darwin?? Shoulda gone with them!

Hi Nora!
We are trying to go from Malaysia to Borneo and as you said the only options seems to be either the roro ferry from port klang or a container.
May I ask with wich company have you been in contact for the roro to Borneo. We are in the east coast of malaysia and planing to ship around april 25th. You also said you're not heading to australia, so where are you heading next?. We are heading after indonesia to USA and looking to share a container.
Best,
Javier

Nora: Hello and thank you for the informative post! Good luck reaching your goal/Bali.

I am at the tail end of a 2.5 months ride through Borneo, Sulawesi, Flores, Sambawa, Lombok, Bali and Java. Happy to share some info if helpful for anyone:
KL (Port Klang) to Kuching or Kota Kinabalu: Giga Ferries, good experience.
Inter-Indo ferries: ASDP seems to have most connections, also a functioning website with itineraries and schedules
Pelni is all passenger only, except maybe 2 or 3 cargo ferries, so don't look at them
Many other ferry companies exist but they don't maintain websites. Best is to go to harbor and talk to ticket agents or local port people. Maybe a travel agent in town or the (foreign) owner of a nearby hotel can help, too.
I think it is safe to safe that Indo ferry schedules are unreliable and can change - you need time and patience.
I received an itinerary from company Bollore.com offering me shipping of bike from Dili to Darwin, however decided not to travel to OZ.
I have no knowledge of a car ferry between Sumatra and peninsular Malaysia. Would be most helpful for ADV riders like us but I do not see a commercial justification for this, car ferry probably still doesn't exist.
Anyone seeking more info, please contact me.

Lims Onion Boat has not operated since Ausgust this year. Service discontinued.

Thanks for this awesome resource

I wanna chime in here as I'm about to enter Malaysia on Monday. I'm currently in contact with an agent to ship my bike to Sabah. So far the communication experience is mediocre at best, getting blue checkmarks on WhatsApp from the posmotor.com contacts.

After that I'll try to cross through Brunei and then into Indonesia and use ferries to Timur. Let me know if anyone is close

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@pakohan,

If you are getting mediocre service, look at my earlier post on this thread and there is a guy I have used a few times and his response is quite fast.

You might want to check him out.