Think of the island of Borneo. Indonesia owns most of it, called Kalimantan, but right up north sits the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak. It’s like sharing a giant apartment with your cousin who always steals your Wi-Fi password. Oh, and let’s not forget the land border on the island of Borneo, which is literally just a river and some jungle. You can accidentally wander into Malaysia while looking for durian. I’ve heard stories. But here’s the irony: culturally, the border is invisible, but politically, it’s supercharged. They speak similar Malay languages, eat the same sambal chili paste, and even share the same disdain for Jakarta traffic jams.
And then there’s Papua New Guinea, the wild card of the neighborhood. It shares the island of New Guinea, and this is where things get anthropologically spicy. Papua New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse country on Earth—over 800 languages!—and Indonesia’s western half, Papua, is full with over 200 of those. The border runs straight through some of the last untouched rainforests on the planet. It’s a place where your next-door neighbor might be a tribe that hasn’t met a tourist, but the neighbor after that is a guy selling counterfeit Rolexes via WhatsApp. Seriously, the contrast is brutal and beautiful.
But wait, there’s Timor-Leste, the tiny rebel of the bunch.
This kid is a micro-nation that sits right on the island of Timor, which Indonesia also part-owns. Timor-Leste (East Timor) became independent from Indonesia in 2002 after a rollercoaster of violence and peacekeeping. What’s mind-blowing is that it’s only been a country for like, a minute in historical terms, but it’s totally its own thing. It speaks Portuguese (yes, Portuguese in Southeast Asia), drinks strong coffee, and has the most incredible underwater scenery near Atauro Island. It’s that friend who moved to Bali but then started a beach club, then left to go do something equally cool and rebellious. It’s just there, right next to Indonesia’s West Timor, minding its own business, often forgotten by the world.
Map of Indonesia and neighbouring countries, with location of Roti
Now, Singapore? Oh, the rich snob living in a tiny house next door. It’s right across the Malacca Strait from Sumatra, about a 45-minute ferry ride from Batam. Economically, Singapore is Indonesia’s weirdly brilliant cousin who never eats at the same food stall. You go from the chaos of Jakarta to the sterile perfection of Singapore, and your brain just breaks for a second. But the connection is bizarrely intimate—half of Singapore’s workforce is actually Indonesian domestic helpers or laborers, and Singaporean companies own huge chunks of Indonesia’s palm oil. It’s like a love-hate relationship where one side drinks champagne and the other brews the tea for it.
