A good two or three stop trip in Indonesia in November?

[Vigfus]

Hi,

Me and my friend are planning another resort based trip to Indonesia this November. Previously we've been to Bunaken, Lembeh, Alor, Flores and Bali (twice). We're flying in to Jakarta and like to build a route for roughly 25 days divided into two or three stops. We're both experienced divers and are mainly into macro photography, but don't mind mixing it up with some big stuff dives. Our budget/day is around 150-200USD, but we can spoil ourselves with one stop for around 300USD/day.

We would like to visit either Ambon or Raja Ampat and think we can squeeze one of them in on our "high end" stop.

Do you have any recommendations/suggestions for a good itinerary including either Ambon or Raja Ampat? We're bringing our own equipment so flights with a limit to 10kg is not really a viable option.

For example I saw you could fly directly between Lombok and Ambon so that would be an option, but since we did Alor-Flores-Bali last year we're not that keen on adding Bali again this year so that might be an trip for another year unless we could have another stop than Bali. For Raja I don't really know what would be good connecting flights for a smooth route, but hopefully someone does

Best Regards,
Andreas

 

[Indah]

Hello Andreas,

there are two direct non-stop flights from Jakarta to Ternate. If you fly Garuda you can bring 35 kgs per person with you. From Ternate you can fly to Ambon. For this short flight the extra over weight charge can not be too much I guess.
The complete journey from Ternate airport to our Weda Resort takes 4 hours. But it is a very beautiful trip.
Have a look at Weda Resort - Diving Halmahera, Birding Halmahera, Maluku in Indonesia

 

[Andreni]

Hi Andreas

Ambon and Raja Ampat can be combined perfectly! We will do this trip again in September (as we did last year). From Jakarta you can fly by Batik Air or Garuda directly to Ambon. For diving and if your budget is not that big I can recommend Dive Bluemotion in Laha. The dive shop is directly in front of some of the best spots for critters. I enjoyed diving there even if the conditions weren't perfect last november.
Then from Ambon you can fly directly to Sorong with Lions Air. The luggage allowance is 10 kg, but the price for excess baggage is only around 2$ per kilo. There I stayed and dived with Raja Ampat Biodiversity. A relatively new but nice, small resort with very nice dive sites close by. I really really liked it and will return this autumn.
From Sorong you can fly back to Jakarta directly with XpressAir. I was a bit scared to fly with them but survived it. Hope it will be the same this time ;-)...

Another option could be to combine Ambon with Banda. Also a really nice place for diving and "living the history". It can be a bit difficult to reach the island as flight schedules are "flexibel" and the ferry takes a long time but it is worth the trouble.

Hope some of the information help you to decide where to go.

You can see pictures of all destinations on my blog: andblogt.wordpress.com. Unfortunately it is only on German.