Indonesia and Southeast Asia: Introduction

At my wife's insistence, I booked us on a 10-day cruise around Indonesia with Star Clippers on the MV Star Clipper, a sailing ship that can accommodate about 180 passengers.  The cruise started and ended in Bali, and visited several islands in Indonesia.  Since we had previously been to Bali, I had to find a way to cram in a couple more countries.  After extensive research, I managed to book us a series of flights that got us to Bali via Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Brunei, and Manila.  I had previously been to Japan and Malaysia, but Brunei and Manila were new to me.  Here's a map of the Asian part of the journey, which started with us flying from RDU to Washington Dulles, and on to Tokyo.

The blue lines are the flights and the green line is the cruise route

We used Kuala Lumpur as a hub in Asia, as there were cheap flights from there to Bali, Brunei, and Manila.  We got a fare of $698 (per person) from RDU to Kuala Lumput on All Nippon Airways, plus a fare of $219 from Kuala Lumpur to Brunei to Manila on Royal Brunei Airlines, plus a fare of $85 from Manila back to Kuala Lumpur on Philippine Airlines, and finally a round drip from Kuala Lumput to Bali for $179 on Malaysian Airlines (no crash included).  Total fare per person was $1181, which was not a bad deal, if I do say so myself.

We added 3 days at the on Bali before the cruise in Ubud, which is a famous art community on the island.  Then about a week before we were supposed to leave, I realized that the cruise ended on July 1, but the flight I had booked for our return left on July 3, so I was "forced" to book a 2 day stay at a beach on Bali.

Got it?  Let's go.....

Next: Days 1-5--Kuala Lumpur, Brunei, and Manila