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Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelagic state with 17,508 islands in the South East Asian archipelago. The world’s fourth most populous country, the Republic of Indonesia is also the third largest democracy after USA and India. The country is bordered by Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Malaysia. Indonesia’s shares international land borders with Kalimantan and the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah on the island of Borneo, and Papua and Papua New Guinea. There are no road links with Sabah and the few poorly maintained roads to Sarawak are not recognized as regular ways to Indonesia. There are three land crossings to Indonesia:
at Entikong, between Kalimantan and Sarawak
at Motoain between West Timor (Atambua) and East Timor (Batugade)
and the road from Jayapura (capital of Indonesian Papua) or Sentani (Papua) to Vanimo in(Papua New Guinea). An international bus service runs from Pontianak on the West coast of Kalimantan to Kuching in Malaysia. This is the only formal way of getting to Indonesia by road. The land border between Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea is closed. There are other recognized but informal ways of getting to Indonesia by road. Often it is not required to show the visa at border crossings while entering Indonesia. Check the necessity of obtaining a visa if you travel there by road. The Asian Highway is a cooperative project among countries in Asia and the United Nations to develop highway system in the continent. The progress is still under way. The proposed Route AH1 of this highway is to extend from Tokyo, both Koreas, China to South East, South and Central Asia. It runs 2493 miles through Indonesia. It may later help the tourists in getting to Indonesia by road. With the few roadways available for getting to Indonesia, you may find traveling to the country by land cumbersome. Airways would be the best way to reach the nation, followed by waterways. Still, if you are adventure loving and daring, it might be an interesting, though rough, experience of hitting the road to Indonesia.
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