It’s a gamble if you ask me. I have a chance to rack up 3 Traveler’s Century Club “countries” in a week for somewhere between $100-150 per country. I think that’s a bargain both in terms of time and money. The problem is that I won’t get to see a lot. It’s basically just a “visa run” for the stamps. I don’t see that as a particular problem for me as these are places that I would be unlikely to visit if they did not offer me a chance at scoring a “country” with my visit. Do I feel particularly guilty about that? Not at all. Do I think it’s cheating to do a visa run and not hang around to get some significant sightseeing in? Not at all. So, what’s the problem?
The problem is uncertainty. I have to rely on a lot of flights to get from Bali to Makassar to Ambon to Sorong and then back. After quite a bit of searching I found that It made the most sense to go from Bali to Makassar and then to Ambon and spend the night. Ambon has twice the number of hotels compared to Sorong so the cost would be less and the quality of the hotel would be better. I would then get up the next day and fly to Sorong in the morning where I would catch the afternoon flight to Yogyakarta.
The details of such a trip would be DPS – > UPG (8:40 – 10:10 = $50 USD) and UPG – > AMQ (12:10 – 14:50 = $50 USD). A hotel in Ambon is about $30 USD. The next day the flights would be AMQ – SOQ (7:45 – 8:55 = $50 USD) and SOQ – JOG (10:45 – 18:05 = $150 USD). This puts me into Yogyakarta at a decent time without having a lot of stress as far as how early I have to make a flight (good luck getting to the airport on time) and as far as times in between flights (hoping for good weather). The total cost for flights and hotel looks to be about $330 and it only takes two days. This looks to be the best way for me to rack up these 3 “countries” - Sulawesi, Moluka and Papua (Irian Jaya) – with the least amount of effort in terms of time and money. While it certainly won’t be my most moment in terms of world travel, it will score some brownie points. Travel isn’t just about sitting in sidewalk cafes in idyllic locations or experiencing the Taj Mahal for a day or two. Sometimes it’s about figuring out difficult logistical issues. Sadly, sometimes I think I enjoy the latter just as much, if not more, than the former.
The challenge with taking the above option is that it seems the morning flights to Sorong from Ambon are not currently available during the period I expect to be needing them. If I were doing it tomorrow, no problem. But booking them today seems to be difficult. While there are several airlines that fly from Ambon to Sorong, it’s the timing of the flights that seem to be an issue. Route maps for Garuda, Lion Air and Sriwijaya Air show some of the possible ways to accomplish the task. At the present time of this writing it seems that I am still at a loss to figure out the best possible logistical solution. That, however, is not a problem. There is a solution. I can get from “here to there” with no problem. The issue is to minimize the time and the cost of going to less-than-optimal locations in the world to simply “rack up countries” to impress people. Would I go to these places to see the sights there? Probably not. There are simply too many places in the world that have sights that I want to see that I haven’t seen. Unfortunately, most people in America travel little. So, they are impressed with the number of countries a person has been to instead of trying to understand whether the traveler they are talking to has actually seen much of the world. In a way it’s really sad that I “rack up countries” to simply feed my own ego and impress people that I really do not care much about impressing. I often wish the world cared more about substance than about facades, but it doesn’t. It’s just fortunate that I don’t have to spend a lot of time or money to create the facade that the world seems to approve of. I can spend the vast majority of my time on this trip actually seeing sights that I consider incredibly interesting and spend the majority of my time in much more interesting places.
I think I’m going to assume that it will be better if I simply be patient and let the schedules for the airlines be a bit more secure before I book airfare between these locations. The key is to build enough days into the schedule to accommodate a high probability that any problems that might arise.
For hotel and flights in Indonesia think en.tiket.com/.
