Penny Buckley finds a sustainable paradise in a remote Indonesian archipelago
Bawah is the first of its kind in Indonesia’s Anambas archipelago. I imagine the owner, stepping off his yacht onto the uninhabited island in 2008, having a similar experience to Sir Richard Branson arriving on Necker Island for the first time and envisioning all that it could become.
Bawah speaks to the adventurer within you and the journey to get there sets the stage. I left my hotel in Singapore at first light and following a 30-minute drive, I was scooped up by a Bawah rep at a local ferry port and we boarded the public boat to Singapore’s industrial island, Batam, where I found myself sharing a row with sleepy workers on their morning commute. On arrival, the immigration officer asked where I was going and when I said Bawah, he replied in a bored, but faintly suspicious, tone that he’d never heard of it. My excitement intensified.