RIAU ISLANDS, Indonesia — An urgent message lit up phones around the island: it was baby sea turtle o’clock. Bawah, a resort island in a remote stretch of Indonesia, has a sea turtle protection program. Three resident marine biologists travel around the archipelago, collecting sea turtle eggs before monitor lizards have a chance to eat them. The eggs are re-nested on one of the resort’s beaches in a protective covered hut, then monitored closely for signs of hatching. Sea turtles can live for centuries, but first they must survive infancy. Bawah’s scientists have built the nest with only one possible exit, and from there the newly hatched babies try to make their way toward the sea. They exit via a sort of bowling lane in the sand, with little walls designed to keep the creatures on track. When dusk begins to settle and biologists see that some of the babies have hatched, staffers begin sending alerts to the resort’s guests, urging them to make it to the beach in time to witness the experience. Soon, dinner tables are abandoned and bath water left to go cold as guests rush over from across the island. Watching — and, of course, filming — this miracle is one of the reasons guests from around the world have ponied up tens of thousands of dollars. Indonesia has about 17,000 islands, scattered across the sea like jewels on a necklace. And this one resort owns six of them, creating its own little private paradise in a pocket of the South China Sea. A journey to the Bawah Reserve, growing increasingly famous for its holistic, wellness-focused experiences, usually begins when guests arrive in nearby Singapore from points around the world, then check into hotels. Promptly at 7 a.m., they step into a black town car and are ushered to one of Singapore’s ferry ports, where they go through passport control and glide across the Singapore Strait to the Indonesian island of Batam. From there, it’s another luxury car pickup and a transfer to Batam’s Hang Nadim Airport, where they breeze past the hordes of commercial flyers and onto a private seaplane parked out on the tarmac. Only 10 passengers can fit onto the seaplane. There are two of these aircraft, one blue and one green, and they are responsible for carrying people and supplies to and from Bawah. The amount of cargo, both human and non, is strictly limited. Guests can each bring 15 kilograms of luggage on board, and they have to submit to a quick check of the combined weight of themselves and their bags before getting on the plane. For travellers who are visiting Bawah at the end of a long journey around Southeast Asia, there’s an option to leave luggage in storage at the Batam ferry station. To help with the enforced minimalism, the resort also provides many amenities — toiletry basics like sunscreen, shampoo and cotton buds, plus bathrobes, sun hats, beach towels and even caftans. Seventy-five minutes after departing from Batam, the plane lands on the water next to a narrow strip of pier, greeted by uniformed staffers who wave in unison, proffering cold towels. The Riau Islands are in the northernmost region of Indonesia, closer to Singapore and Malaysia than to Jakarta. While Batam is arguably the best known of this cluster due to its ease of access from Singapore, there are dozens of islands throughout this archipelago that are uninhabited. Spotted doves, fruit bats, and blacktip reef sharks abound. Arriving at this lush, serene island is a pretty easy way to forget that it took four hours to get here. Private butlers escort guests to their suites. Hand-carved wooden boards bear guests’ names on the exteriors of their cabins. There is Wi-Fi around the island for visitors who simply can’t bear to let go of social media, but the hotel also provides basic phones that are only programmed to communicate with concierges. This luxury doesn’t come cheap. Bawah’s most basic rooms begin at $1,980, and the challenge of getting there and back means there’s a three-night minimum stay. At that price, the basics — three meals and one spa treatment per day — are included. But guests can keep piling on the luxury by organizing private beach dinners (at a cost of $1,000), ordering alcoholic drinks, or upgrading spa treatments from 45 to 90 minutes. The simplest accommodation is a tented garden suite, while the priciest is a four-bedroom suite with its own infinity pool that costs $12,300 during the high season. For an even more luxe once-in-a-lifetime kind of experience, Bawah has one other island with accommodations on it, which can be hired out in its entirety complete with staff. Paul Robinson, the resort’s chief of operations, tells CNN that Bawah is designed for people who are “bored with the Maldives.” According to Robinson, Maldives resorts are great at providing luxe overwater bungalows and the opportunity to delight in doing absolutely nothing, but for a certain kind of wealthy-yet-active guest, Bawah believes in upping the amount of activities on offer. That catalogue includes coffee tastings and perfume-making classes in addition to the expected water-based experiences like snorkeling, wild swimming and scuba diving. The resort’s spa, Aura, is in a building that feels like an adult treehouse, all wood and air. Asian – specifically Indonesian, when possible – ingredients are everywhere: coffee and honey in body scrubs; ginger, kaffir lime and galangal in massages; green tea and coconut oil in facials. Aura is set back from the island’s main pathway. Visitors walk through a wooden tunnel and come out the other end into the spa, which is made of light-coloured wood. The building itself is part of the experience: though the entry space has plenty of room for resting with a cup of tea, you’ll be instructed to swap your shoes for handmade sandals and led through a warren of rooms before arriving at the treatment area. Many of the rooms are upstairs, giving the feel of being in a backyard treehouse — albeit a very elegant one. Guests are entitled to one spa treatment per day as part of their room rate. There is a spa menu, but to get the best experience, message with spa staff ahead of time to give a sense of where you are in your health and wellness journeys, then let them make recommendations. While spa treatments need to be booked the day before, there are a few spaces guests can access independently: a dry sauna, a wet sauna, and a cold plunge pool. Beyond Aura, there are daily yoga classes held in a small overwater bungalow. The yoga bungalow is also home to a small gym with exercise machines and weights. However, some guests prefer to work out in the comfortable privacy of their own rooms, so staffers will ferry over equipment via one of the island’s ubiquitous golf carts. Preparing for the journey Everything on Bawah is carefully curated to look un-curated. This isn’t a place for solid gold faucets or bedspreads covered in logos. Instead, there are bathtubs carved of native Indonesian wood and beds swathed in gentle silk clouds hanging below a ceiling fan. A week before checking in, guests are asked to submit a list of preferences on everything from sleeping patterns to food allergies. That customization appears everywhere, seamlessly. Staff have these preferences memorized, offering a white wine (“I know you don’t like to drink red”) or fresh fruit salad (“no grapefruit, because you’re allergic”). At night a custom chocolate bark or sweet treat made of favourite flavours appears as a turndown gift. Local, seafood-heavy meals are paired with a daily house-made kombucha or juice. Barista-made flat whites and cappuccinos are always on offer, but rooms also have machines that can grind fresh beans for guests who’d rather make their own brew. Two nights per week, the hotel’s on-site beachfront restaurant is transformed into a sort of Indonesian open-air market, giving guests a taste of the culture they’ve bypassed on the way here. A small boutique sells items like swimsuits made of recycled ocean plastic and scoops of gelato – each day’s flavours are announced on a chalkboard. The island’s library has a healthy mix of informative tomes about Indonesian culture and native plant life alongside the usual thrillers and airport reads. It’s all a bit White Lotus — but without the underlying fear that something bad is about to happen. “Barefoot luxury” has become a travel-industry cliché, and Robinson is one of the people who hates the term. However, he admits that it can describe the typical Bawah guest, a person who can afford the best of the best but believes the ultimate luxury is getting away from it all. In some ways, the resort is a larger version of the safe nest made for the sea turtle eggs — it’s peaceful, coddled, and regularly checked in on. Now, all that’s left to do is head to the sea — and thrive. By Lilit Marcus, CNN
