Palau versus Fiji versus Maldives and Malaysia Indonesia

[Ben Prusinski]

I want to take a long dive vacation to Asia and not sure which is best for big animals, soft coral, food and conditions of healthiest marine environments. Which is the cheapest dive vacation and most expensive? I checked business class flights and Maldives is EXPENSIVE.
Would you do a live aboard or resort and why? Sorry to ask such a general question but hard to pick one place for a 2 week dive vacation to Asia.

 

[jake11]

I noticed you had Malaysia down. That is a great combo of big schools of barracuda and huge bumpheads combined with super macro. We did the Celebes Explorer which is an old boat but it was a GREAT trip!
Look at Komodo for both big and small and also Bali during Mola mola season. We went in September and saw 5 mola molas and lots and lots of mantas! Consider Lotus Bungalows resort in Candiasa for an awesome trip which is land based and consider Dewi Nusantara or Komodo Dancer for LOB in Komodo.
Of course, you can not go wrong with RA. Lots of LOB options there ! Have fun!

 

[Centrals]

Should consider PNG as well.

 

[Quero]

Whether to do a resort or a liveaboard depends a great deal on the destination. In Malaysia, there's no real need to do a liveabaord since the dive sites aren't all spread out at most places you'd want to dive, but at Sipadan there is a quota, and the best ratios are held by Celebes Explorer, so by going on the liveaboard there, you have more dives at Sipadan itself. For Maldives I've done both resort-based and liveaboard. The liveaboards give you the opportunity to follow the animals--go to where the whale sharks are and get to the manta cleaning stations, for example. But the resort-based places often let you do unlimited dives on the house reef, which is usually a very nice reef. Palau and Fiji don't require liveaboards, but you can visit some of the more isolated dive sites. For a two-week trip to either of those, I'd probably bundle one week land-based, for example around Fiji's Bligh waters, with a one-week liveaboard to get to Savu-Savu and Taveuni, or for Palau land-based out of Koror and then get a liveaboard for a week to spend more time at places like Velasco or Anguar more easily.

 

[Ben Prusinski]

Thanks, I am thinking of spending 2 weeks in PNG this year and next year to dive Palau, Yap and Truk for the big animals and wrecks. Figure I can do that and next year even check out Fiji. I've heard Indonesia is amazing place as well like Wakatobi and Komodo for diving. My plan is to visit all the exotic cool places in next few years and then head to Galapagos. By then I will have a few years of both cold water diving here in Monterey and worldwide to tackle the rough conditions of Galapagos. I've heard mixed things about the Maldives. It is much farther than the other places and expensive as hell to get there on business class tickets.