Indonesia’s new private island eco-resorts
Crystal-clear waters, virgin jungle, uninhabited islands, and coordinates none of your friends know about – yet.
Western Indonesia’s Riau archipelago is about to be a place to be. Sanjay Surana visits the striking new resorts that prove it.
I don’t claim to be an astronaut but, in a sense, I have floated through space. On a Monday night in September while staying at Bawah, a new private island resort about 170 miles northeast of Singapore, I slid into one of the property’s three lagoons. Lying spreadeagled in water turned inky black by the nightfall, I looked up to a vast, cloudless, star-filled sky. There was not a sound to be heard; with my body weightless, the Milky Way stretching to all corners, I felt truly adrift, untethered – a sensation both wildly unnerving and unforgettably thrilling.
