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Posts tagged ‘nikoi island’

Feb 13

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, southeast asia, offbeat, ecotourism, jetty
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Nikoi Island: Ecotourism, Beauty, Magic.

I’ve often wondered how explorers must have felt chancing upon seemingly magical islands in their travels. Nikoi Island, off Bintan in Indonesia, is perhaps the closest I’ve come to experiencing that kind of travel ecstasy in Southeast Asia.

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, ecotourism, southeast asia

The journey to the island is a perfect prelude to the island experience. After the regular ferry ride to Bintan from Singapore, you are fast-forwarded through a special immigration to a one hour drive through the winding road and greens of Tanjung Pinang, to Nikoi’s personal jetty, to a one-hour speed boat ride on rough and breezy seas. If I understate it, arriving at Nikoi Island feels like you’ve entered a whole other world.

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, southeast asia, offbeat, ecotourism

Think beauty. Think isolation. Think perfection.

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, southeast asia, offbeat, ecotourism

Nature is the recurrent theme on the island. The chalets are purely made of wood, with not an inch of concrete, and some original tree-barks used as pillars & foundation. The openness of the rooms to nature is immediately striking, and in some way, leads to an openness of thoughts too.  You can let your doors remain open at night, with the waves soothing your every dream.

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, southeast asia, offbeat, ecotourism, sunset

For me, the monsoon season meant little sun and lots of wind, and an extremely stormy sea, aka just the way I’d like a beach holiday to be. We sailed and kayaked on high tide, thrilled to feel welcome even by the angst of the waters. That memory fills me with an urge to transform it into poetry.

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, southeast asia, offbeat, ecotourism, sunset

The jetty on the far end of the island is a piece of heaven, perhaps even a chunk. Each evening, it greets you with a fierce wind and fierce waves. As the sun starts to set, you can witness from this jetty, the entire sky turning a magical blue and blending with the color of the sea. It’s magnificent. It makes you want to close your eyes, feel the wind, and never leave.

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, southeast asia, offbeat, ecotourism, jetty

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, southeast asia, offbeat, ecotourism, rocks

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, southeast asia, offbeat, ecotourism, night

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, southeast asia, offbeat, ecotourism

nikoi island, bintan, indonesia, southeast asia, offbeat, ecotourism

I could afford a visit to this sheer beauty, only thanks to a contest I won on Nikoi Island’s Facebook page. Below is a video I created for the contest, purely based on my imagination & the pictures I saw. I can gladly say that Nikoi is all that I imagined and so much more!

Also read:
5 weekend getaways from Singapore to pamper you
5 offbeat travel destinations in Southeast Asia

Nov 3

Once Upon an Island

Sometimes I think we can measure our lives by the places we’ve seen. There’s so much beauty in the world, so many undiscovered gems, and yet so many of us will spend our days in a small little box, unable to escape the vicious work-money cycle. Without getting too philosophical, I want to introduce you to a heaven-on-earth-like beauty in Indonesia, called Nikoi Island.

I created the video below, entirely based on my imagination and these Flickr pictures, for a competition in which I won a free trip to this dreamy island. My gut says Nikoi will be all this and so much more.

I’ll write about my personal experience at Nikoi Island after I visit it in December :) Till then, you can read reviews by other people on Nikoi!

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