Boti Village, West Timor
Boti Village, West Timor
Located in West Timor island, about 50 kilometers from Soe, Boti is the most famous traditional village, known for its unique “independence.”
Under a succession of self-styled rajas, the hilltop community has kept the outside world at bay, rejecting first Dutch colonialists and Protestant missionaries, and later the Indonesian state with its offers of education, language, and infrastructure.
But the previous raja, the father of the present incumbent, demonstrated that he was not simply a hostile isolationist.
While government services and prescribed religions might have been rejected, there was one outside influence that Boti had allowed in, on its own terms: tourists.
