Here’s some suggestions for guidebooks to help you get the most from your trip to Indonesia. If you click through to the Amazon page, you will see reader reviews and also other suggestions for similar books. They come in both Kindle and Paper versions. Please note that these are my affiliate links and you do not pay any more using my links than if you went direct to Amazon. Thank you for your support!
Double-eyed Fig-parrot (Cyclopsitta diopthalma)
The Double-eyed Fig Parrot (Cyclopsitta diophthalma), also known as the Blue-faced Fig Parrot, Red-faced Fig Parrot, Dwarf Fig Parrot, and the Two-eyed Fig Parrot, primarily inhabits forests on New Guinea and nearby islands, but is also found in isolated communities along the tropical Australian coast, east of the Great Dividing Range. With an average total length of about 14 cm (5½ in.), it is the smallest parrot in Australia. The easiest place to see them will be in West Papua, Indonesia or Papua New Guinea.
Double-eyed Fig-parrot Range
There are several subspecies found throughout this tiny parrot’s range. The Coxen’s subspecies is very rare.
C.d. diophthalma: W Papuan islands, NW New Guinea.
C.d. coccineifrons: SE New Guinea- Astrolabe Bay to Fly River.
C.d. aruensis: S New Guinea (Fly River to Aru Islands).
C.d. virago: Fergusson and Goodenough Islands.
C.d. inseparabilis: Tagula Island.
C.d. marshalli: North tip of Cape York Peninsula, Queenland, Australia.
C.d. macleayana: NE Queenland from Cooktown to Townsville.
C.d. coxeni: formely SE Queensland and NE South Wales, range now limited.
Coxen’s Fig parrot Range
A hungry Double-eyed Fig-parrot live and in action!
The countries of South-East Asia’s bird populations are as colourful and diverse as you could expect from this culturally rich region. let’s concentrate on the countries which are classified as “South-East Asia” by the frequent flyer programs and have great birding and eco-tourism opportunities such as (alphabetically) Burma, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. If you are married to or involved with a non-birding partner, this is a great region to plan a trip to as they will find plenty to do while you are off chasing birds. Unfortunately, being so far from everywhere except Australia, it can be very expensive to get there whether you use miles or cash. Let’s look at a few options.
South-East Asia
AMERICAN AADVANTAGE
For most people, joining American Airline’s AAdvantage will be the best option. They have quite a few credit card options to quickly build your miles stash and a few partners such as E-Rewards and various hotels where you can transfer points in. The region is called “Asia Zone 2” on this chart and includes Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Guam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Saipan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam. Airlines which serve this area include Cathay Pacific and Qantas with Malaysian Airlines, Sri Lankan Airlines and Qatar Airways joining very soon.
These figures are one-way so double if you want a round trip. The nice thing about AAdvantage is the flexibility, you may choose to go one way in economy and one way in business, or do an open jaw where you fly into Bali (DPS) for example and out of Bangkok (BKK). Please note that awards between South-East Asia and South America Zones 1 & 2 are not available so if you want a route like that you will have to join up two awards such as Asia-North America and North America – South America.
USA and Canada: Each way is 35,000 economy; 55,000 business; 72,500 first. You can use Qantas, Cathay Pacific, and Malaysian but there are no stopovers allowed.
UK and Europe: Each way is 35,000 economy; 52,500 business; 70,000 first. You can use British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Etihad or (coming soon) Malaysian Airlines and SriLankan Airlines; or use Finnair, Air Berlin or Iberia to get to Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong or anywhere Qantas flies.
Australia and New Zealand: Each way is 25,000 economy; 35,000 business; 45,000 first. You can use Qantas, Cathay Pacific and Malaysian.
QANTAS
For Aussies who have easy access to Qantas points via their employer or Everyday Rewards, it’s worth checking out QF’s awards to South-East Asia. Use their points calculator as the awards are distance based, not by country. A long distance award such as Brisbane – Bangkok will cost more than a short one like Darwin – Denpasar/Bali. The awards look expensive compared to AA, UA and US but if you got your points for free, might as well enjoy them!
Qantas Awards
AVIOS (BRITISH AIRWAYS AND IBERIA)
By the time you read this, Malaysian will have joined One World, though the booking engine may not be online yet. Look for bargains in one way awards between Kuala Lumpur and nearby cities such as Singapore, Jakarta, Bali, Bangkok, Vientiane and Manila. In the examples below, the awards will range from 4500 Avios to 10,000 Avios.
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AVIOS AWARD CHART
No matter where you live, the two best programs to use in Star Alliance are United and US Airways. Both have their pros and cons. With United, you can book partner awards online, book one-way awards and get lots of miles via several Chase credit cards; but if you can’t get these cards it can be hard to get miles in United Mileage Plus. With US Airways, the major drawbacks are you have to book round-trips and you can’t book online, you have to call them. The advantage with US Airways is that they offer frequent “Buy miles, get 100% bonus free” promos and in the past, they had the wonderful Grand Slam promos where it was possible to do partner transactions and with careful planning you could get about 120,000 miles for $400-600 incremental cost. The US Airways Grand Slam hasn’t been seen since Sept-Nov 2011, unfortunately they didn’t do it in 2012. Depending on where you live, Avianca/Taca Lifemiles could be useful too, but it is hard to use their booking engine for complicated routings so I suggest saving them for USA-Central/South America where they offer better value and ease of booking.
US Airways Chart
US AIRWAYS (round-trip only) Region is South & Central Asia which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Chagos, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.
USA and Canada: Economy 80,000; Business 120,000; First 160,000. You can use United, Air Canada, Air New Zealand (hard to get) or sometimes take the “scenic route” via Asia using Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Asiana or ANA (All Nippon Airlines). US has recently started enforcing MPM (maximum permitted miles) so some Asian routings may not be acceptable.
UK and Europe: Economy 70,000, Business 90,000; First 110,000. Most people try to get routings using Singapore, Thai, Lufthansa, Swiss and Turkish Airlines. Some airlines do not give US Airways business or first class awards such as Singapore, Lufthansa and Swiss.
Australia and New Zealand: Economy 70,000, Business 90,000; First 120,000. You can fly on Singapore, Thai and Air New Zealand.
UNITED AIRLINES (can book one-way or round trip.
The award chart is too big to copy paste here so please follow this link to see the whole chart.
USA and Canada: (each way) Economy 40,000; Business 62,500; First 80,000. You can use United, Air Canada, Air New Zealand (hard to get) or sometimes take the “scenic route” via Asia using Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Asiana or ANA (All Nippon Airlines). You can easily see the routings via their online award booking engine.
UK and Europe: (each way) Economy 55,000, Business 75,000; First 90,000. Most people try to get routings using Singapore, Thai, Lufthansa, Swiss and Turkish Airlines. You can easily see the routings on their online award booking engine but be careful if you are looking at business or first class awards as sometimes they offer mixed class awards and the long-haul section could be in economy with a short sector in business or first.
Australia and New Zealand: Economy 30,000, Business 45,000; First 60,000. You can fly on Singapore, Thai and Air New Zealand.
Here’s an example of London to Bangkok, as you can see they quote both the miles and taxes and the business class award are “mixed class” and if you hover over the fare, you can see which flight is in which class.
United Chart
You can see how much cheaper it is to fly from Brussels due to the very high UK departure taxes.
United Award ex-Brussels
These are just a few examples, please feel free to ask questions in the comments.
If you need ideas on how to acquire frequent flyer miles, please see the Resources tab and Miles and Points tab. which I will update with new offers for free or cheap miles.
I am in the midst of planning an amazing birding adventure around West Papua, Indonesia. Indonesia is one of the top twelve countries in the world for parrot species, so you can imagine how I am looking forward to this trip! Last year, I stumbled across a promo Garuda was running on flights that were booked at least 6 months in advance. Flights to West Papua are normally pretty expensive so I jumped on the cheap fares and booked DPS – UPG – BIK – DJJ – UPG (Bali – Makassar – Biak – Jayapura – Makassar) and grabbed a SUB – DPS (Surabaya – Bali) just because it was around $20 each and there are more options to Surabaya from West Papua than to Denpasar.
That still left some local routes in West Papua which I needed to visit – Manokwari (Arfak Mountains) and Sorong (Raja Ampat) but Garuda doesn’t serve these routes. Only a few airlines do: Sriwijaya, Batavia, Lion Air/Wings, Merpati and ExpressAir. After checking each of the websites last month, I could see that Sriwijaya had the best fares but the problem is that they don’t accept non-Indonesian credit cards. Actually none of the domestic carriers with the possible exception of Garuda, Lion Air and Air Asia do. At least they accept Australian credit cards but maybe not USA based credit cards. Some research on FlyerTalk, a Scuba Diving Forum and Lonely Planet found a few random reports of people getting lucky with domestic tickets and others striking out.
Fast forward to a few days ago, I have the budget in order and want to buy my domestic tickets. I double checked all the airlines again, Sriwijaya is still the cheapest. But wait, what’s this?
Sriwijaya Buy One Get One Executive Class
Let’s check this out! It’s actually a “real” short-haul business class, not the European style where they give you economy with an empty middle seat. The Gerry Airways blog has more details with the following photo.
Sriwijaya Business Class
Upon doing a dummy booking (not going to use my real dates and itinerary for security), I noticed that it cost roughly the same plus or minus $10 max to book 2 x economy tickets vs paying for 1 executive ticket with one given free. Obviously this promo is only useful for 2 people traveling together.
This was a no-brainer, of course we would prefer to fly in executive class for about the same price as economy–but how do we book it? There were no promo codes on the advertisement and it wouldn’t auto-price at the “Buy one get one” price online. So I called Sriwijaya Airlines and booked the flights I wanted at the promo rate intending to pay by Visa over the phone. Surprise! They don’t take credit cards over the phone………….and the ticket time limit was 3 days from booking. I tried to get them to extend it until we would arrive in Bali and could pay in person but they couldn’t do that .
So I emailed one of the travel agents that had been recommended in the links above, Mau Ke Mana and explained the situation. Chris replied back quickly and asked for details. I sent them and a bit later he replied that he would be able to get the tickets for us. The quote he gave was the same as the Sriwijaya quote and an extra amount which included his fee and an allowance for Paypal currency exchange. If I were willing to risk that seats would be available when we arrive in Indonesia, I could wait and try to rebook and pay in person. But since I have birding arrangements made, I didn’t have any flexibility and wanted confirmed flights in advance. I paid by Paypal last Saturday. He had said he would get the tickets done on Monday which was normal business hours, but much to my surprise, late Saturday evening (10pm), an email showed up from Chris with our tickets! I was really impressed with the prompt service and feel good about recommending Mau Ke Mana. And I am not the only one, they have a long list of testimonials from people all over the world!
Mau Ke Mana
Although I have blacked out the identifying information, this is what you can expect a Sriwijaya ticket to look like, very similar to Garuda’s e-tickets.
Chris is also happy to answer any questions you may have, he even recommended a SIM card provider for me and let me know that Sriwijaya’s executive class entitles us to transport to the airport!
So where can you fly on Sriwijaya? All over Indonesia, including the top birding hotspots of Ambon (for Seram), Sorong, Manokwari, Biak, Jayapura.
Sriwijaya Route Map
From Crowned-Pigeons and Birds-of-Paradise, to endemic Pheasants and Pittas, not to mention a wide variety of parrots such as Cockatoos, Lories, Fig Parrots, Eclectus and more – Indonesia has some of the world’s best birdwatching. Spanning two continents and home to over 1,600 species (including almost 400 endemics) there are plenty of reasons to come birding in Indonesia, then come again and again.
I have found the Burung Nusantara website a tremendous resource for planning my own trip to West Papua in the near future. They also have comprehensive guides on how to get to the birding hotspots, what species to look for and how to organize guides. Some places where birders flock to such as the Arfak Mountains and Raja Ampat don’t have email or cell phones so it can be very difficult to get ahold of guides or book things in advance. In the low season, it should be feasible to just show up and ask for a guide, preferably one of the recommended guides on this site as they have good experience and skills. In the busy season, you will probably need to find some way to book in advance, otherwise you may find that the best guides are already booked by major birding tour operators.
Here’s a selection of recommended birding hotspots and where you can read more about them. In future posts, I will take each one in more detail as to how to get there and organize the birding in that area and how you can reach Indonesia from your country using your frequent flyer miles.
Forsten’s Scrubfowl; Rufous-necked Sparrowhawk; Meyer’s Goshawk; ‘Seram’ (Long-tailed) Mountain-Pigeon; Salmon-crested Cockatoo; Red Lory; Blue-eared Lory; Purple-naped Lory; Moluccan King-Parrot; Moluccan Scops-Owl; Moluccan Boobook; Lesser Masked-Owl; Lazuli Kingfisher; ‘Seram’ Swiftlet; Olive Honeyeater; Seram Honeyeater; Seram Myzomela; Wakolo Myzomela; Seram Friarbird; Moluccan Cuckoo-shrike; Pale-gray Cuckoo-shrike; Black-chinned Monarch; ‘Seram’ Golden Bulbul; Cinnamon-chested Flycatcher; Seram Thrush; Streaky-breasted Fantail; Drab Whistler; Seram White-eye; Rufescent White-eye; Gray-hooded White-eye; Seram Oriole; Moluccan Starling; Long-crested Myna.
Magnificent Bird-or-Paradise; Black Sicklebill; Long-tailed Paradigalla; Arfak Astrapia; Arfak Bowerbird; Lesser Bird-of-Paradise; Superb Bird-of-Paradise; New Guinea Eagle; Feline Owlet-Nightjar; Mountain Owlet-Nightjar; Spotted Jewel-Babbler; Chestnut-backed Jewel-Babbler Spotted Catbird; Flame Bowerbird; Magnificent Riflebird; Buff-tailed Sicklebill.
Wilson’s Bird-of-Paradise; Red Bird-of-Pardise; King Bird-of-Paradise; Northern Cassowary; Western Crowned-pigeon; Pheasant Pigeon; Black Lory; Beach Kingfisher; Bruijn’s Brush-turkey.
Northern Cassowary; Pale-billed Sicklebill; Blue-and-Black Kingfisher; Brown Lory; Twelve-wired Bird-of-Paradise; Shovel-billed Kingfisher; Victoria Crowned Pigeon; King Bird-of-Paradise; Blue Jewel Babbler; Brown-necked Crow; Hook-billed Kingfisher; Vulturine Parrot; Papuan Hawk-owl; Lesser Bird-of-Paradise; Brown-collared Brush-turkey; Greater Black Coucal; Papuan Nightjar; Grey Crow; Black-sided Robin; Lowland Peltops; White-eared Catbird; Wompoo Fruit-Dove; Coroneted Fruit-Dove.
Long-tailed Starling, Biak Black Flycatcher; Biak Paradise-kingfisher; Biak Lory; Geelvink Pygmy-parrot; Biak Scops-owl; Biak Monarch; Biak Coucal; Biak Scrubfowl; Biak Gerygone; Biak White-eye; Numfor Paradise-kingfisher.
Small Sparrowhawk; Bare-faced Rail; Sulawesi Woodcock; Metallic Pigeon; Ornate Lorikeet; Yellow-and-green Lorikeet; Ochre-bellied Hawk-Owl; Cinnabar Hawk-Owl; Speckled Hawk-Owl; Diabolical Nightjar; Scaly Kingfisher; Purple-bearded Bee-eater; Cerulean Cuckoo-shrike; Pygmy Cuckoo-shrike; Chestnut-backed Bush-Warbler; Blue-fronted Flycatcher; Sulawesi Blue-Flycatcher; Geomalia; Sulawesi Thrush; Great Shortwing; Olive-flanked Whistler; Maroon-backed Whistler; Malia; White-backed Woodswallow; Sulawesi Myna; Fiery-browed Myna; Mountain Serin
Beach Thick-knee; Orange-breasted Pigeon; Javan Cuckoo-shrike; Black-winged Starling; Banded Pitta; Bali Starling (Myna); Java Sparrow
Once you get into the miles and points games, you begin to get more familiar with the deals that come out periodically and how to best take advantage of them. One of the best is the Priority Club Point Breaks. These come out roughly every second month and allow you to redeem only 5000 points for any of the designated hotels. While most of the hotels are in cities and may appeal more to business travelers, there are often bargains to be had in resorts and more exotic destinations. Priority Club is a great program for non-frequent travelers as they have many promos throughout the year to get points. I will be sharing these opportunities as they come up. If you are in a hurry and have no points at all, you can buy Priority Club points or get their Chase credit card. More details HERE.
Here’s a few from the current list that can benefit eco-travelers and are valid through 31 January 2013.
Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria – You will pass through here if you are headed to Palawan to see the endangered Philippine Red-vented Cockatoo. I did this trip in 2012, you can read my article.
Intercontinental Jakarta Midplaza – Although Aussies will usually access the birder’s paradises of Seram and West Papua via Bali, people coming from Europe and North America are more likely to connect in Jakarta to an Indonesian domestic flight. Seram has the Moluccan Cockatoo and more! West Papua is full of fascinating birds including many species of Birds of Paradise, Palm Cockatoos, Eclectus Parrots, several Lorikeets, Pesquet’s Parrots and more! I will be there next year!
Holiday Inn Suva – You would be passing through here several times if you are using the domestic flights or ferries to get to Taveuni to see Red-throated Lorikeets or Red Shining Parrots; or Viti Levu to see Masked Shining Parrots.
Hotel Indigo San Jose Forum Costa Rica – Useful if you are traveling to Costa Rica to head out to Carara National Park for Scarlet Macaws, Selva Biological Reserve to see Great Green Macaws or Savegre to see Resplendant Quetzals.
Remember, whenever you economize on gateway hotels, you have more money to spend on staying in nice eco-lodges and supporting the local economy!