Nikoi and Cenpedak Island: Why these two island holidays will stick with you forever

The audible gasp.

It doesn’t come often, but when it does, you know you’ve landed upon the incredible - in this case, Nikoi Island. No one knows Nikoi, or its nearby sibling, Cenpedak – a pair of lush green dots held in the warm waters of the South China Sea and Indonesia’s north-eastern Riau Archipelago.

To state ‘nobody’ is perhaps a little disingenuous – more intrepid Indo adventurers and certainly collar-stiffened Singaporean ex-pats in pale RL polos have found both islands, the latter planting flags for easy weekend and holiday escapes given the mere two-and-a-half hours needed to swap the city’s unwelcome hug of humidity for a secluded stretch of sand and lick of refreshing breeze.

We landed at lunchtime on a recent Wednesday, our journey plotted across a morning of simple, straight-line movement - cab from Duxton Hill to Singapore’s Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal (parked next to Changi Airport) and onto a public ferry across to Bintan.

A quick run through Indonesian immigration (VIP line and air-conditioned lounge as they dealt with passports and what’s a maintained use of paper and stamps) before a private car transfer across the island (monkeys, trucks laden with gas tanks, scooters laden with entire families, inclusive cradled babies) and into a walled Nikoi-Cenepdak lounge (refreshing ginger drink, hand towel, face cloth, chatter, smiles, Rimowa luggage being wheeled about).

Finally, a 20-minute trip aboard a private boat out to Nikoi - onto the jetty, a warm welcome and a guided walk along an elevated wooden walkway past granite boulders and through lush fauna to a pool area and restaurant looking back and across the translucent waters.

Cue that gasp. Well, to be honest, cue several audible gasps across the adventure out to Nikoi.

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The island was founded by Australian businessman Andrew Dixon – a Singaporean-based banker who craved more. He’d lived in the Lion City since the ‘90s but came to desire space and sea and nature – those elements we so often take for granted as Australians, even those of us camped in the cities and the suburbs.

Dixon went exploring in a tinny. First, the east coast of Bintan. Then, a further afield. He heard of nearby islands that may or may not be for sale, rumours held on the Indonesian breeze.

“On my first visits to the area we’d spend weekends camping on the beaches of these islands and that experience was just such a contrast to city life in Singapore,” Dixon, tells ROAM. “It was so restorative that it became my happy place, my escape.”

It’s arguably, at some stage, everyone’s dream to own an island. It offers the oldest fantasy of escape - a place where the world can’t reach you and the rules reset at the shoreline. It’s a fantasy wrapped in Crusoe instinct - life stripped back to something elemental and unbothered.

Nikoi was originally held for Dixon, family and friends.

“And then it just came to the point where I felt I needed to do this,” he says. And so he did. He created the island idyll. He quit his job. Nikoi became his world and opening to the public in 2007 following five years of hard graft battling logistics, building, Indonesian bureaucracy.

Initially a collection of just six villas and open only on weekends – today it covers 18 beach ‘houses’ that dot the coast and further the Crusoe spirit. Each is open, elevated and made of driftwood.

In place of air-conditioning are mosquito nets and fans – a firm want of Dixon’s to tread lightly and adhere to ‘mindful tourism’ that extends to the firm implementation of sustainable practice across minimal energy use, water and waste recycling and reduced environmental impacts.

Each house boasts king size beds and views – those with the additional bedrooms (they run to three with some also holding kids bunk rooms and some with private pools) linked via elevated walkways.

There’s a lounge and balcony and outdoor shower and open main bathroom with granite flooring. The sea sits an outstretched arm away – a gentle crash its regular call – with daybeds in which to laze and be lost to the sounds of the humming environment and the heat and the occasional puttering of passing fisherman.

Dixon’s original vision stands today as a paradisical reality. He often refers to things on Nikoi as simple. And, yes, there is a simplicity to the daily beat of life on the island – though its equally layered in its own rhythms and what’s offered.

Menus (three courses, three times a day) are a draw – and we steer for the literal sand between our toes of the island’s main beachside diner and its Indonesian culinary agendas. It’s a daily exploration of various localities and regions and which move well beyond expectation and Nasi Goreng.

Breakfast starts fresh and fruity – platters of watermelon and rockmelon and papaya and mango and a creamy coconut yoghurt that, between initial mouthfuls, I mumble about being “life altering.” Flat noodles with eggs follow – and don’t skimp on the sambal.

Lunch is equally alluring – chilli prawns with black squid ink; three kinds of rice and a beef Brongkos (a spicy-savory Javanese play that mimics a heady Rendang).

Dinner is again Indonesian because you’re here and you should (the northern poolside diner, Biru, offers a more ‘Mediterranean’ approach) and because you’ll go home rightly preaching about the food of chef Dika – a smiley Sumatran who’s been with Dixon from outset and whose impassioned desire to showcase local produce (much of it from island farms) and further the thinking about Indonesian flavours and food is be found on every plate, like dinner’s luminous yellow seafood curry (squid, prawns, scallops and a proud dose of turmeric).

Again, the setting is the sea, sand underfoot and impossibly polite and attentive staff (I’ve never seen water glasses refilled with such cheer and frequency).

“We wanted something that was real and had a stronger connection with nature than what was generally being offered in the market,” Dixon says of Nikoi. “We wanted the simplicity of a beach shack but the comfort and quality, particularly with food, of a fine dining restaurant - but not the fuss.”

When not eating it’s time to indulge elsewhere. Here, the fork in the road lands at the well-stocked Sunset Bar with beanbags out front and a chance to dip into aquatic adventure.

It’s more often the latter that wins out more often - a jetty from which to practice backflips and fish with a bamboo rod and finely chopped prawns you don’t need set-up yourself.

To snorkel and dive below is to enter an aquarium of colour and corals; a kaleidoscopic kids book of clown and cuttle fish, darting and shy eels, multiple species of wrasses and more.

A ‘beach club’ set-up means a string of sunlounges on the sand as shaded by large umbrellas with kayaks and paddleboard and Lasers also available.

Nikoi is a very much a family island and here the kids’ club is stacked with games and daily activities, movie nights and tennis or bocce. A four-platform zipline is a ten-minute guided walk into the dense heart of the island, with adult pursuits on offer at the waterside spa.

One evening, a surprise follows a dessert of homemade sorbets.

“Would you like to see the turtles hatching?” We would. And so we did – witnesses to the first sandy pushes of tiny Hawksbill turtles that inform the island’s growing breeding program that also covers Green Sea turtles.

On the way back to our villa, a ‘drunken’ dance of hopscotch was required to avoid the delicate hermit crabs that came alive after rain.

What to do on Cempedak Island

Cempedak sits 23 kilometres south of Nikoi. It’s 17 hectares are more manicured, more designer, more adult.

Again, it’s a lunchtime landing. Again, it’s an immediate menu of fresh local flavour directed by chef Dika.

Named for the fruit – a cousin of the jackfruit for those playing along at home - Cenpedak revolves around the central hubs of an elevated main restaurant, nearby infinity-edge pool and the designer Dodo Bar (which remains open until the final guest leaves – though we’re assured things never get messy).

It works to a designer aesthetic of darkened timbers and buildings that sink into the fertile landscape; a build of bamboo and local grasses with designs by Kiwi architect Miles Humphries.

Each villa works as an influencer’s wet dream. 20 in total and each carrying the same footprint – two storeys, downstairs lounge and bathroom, upstairs king bedroom with balcony, mosquito nets and fans and sizeable, open ensuite.

Again, the design works with the natural flow of the environment - not once did we want for AC.

Held across two distinct settings – beach or elevated with views – each villa also boasts a private plunge pool and deck, outdoor shower and, should you feel the need, yoga mats and TRX systems.

Where Nikoi is families and arguably more open, Cenpedak means honeymooners and couples – which means more seclusion, less interactions. And that’s OK – days here easily lost to little other than reading, swimming, snorkelling, eating, drinking, so too some sweaty tennis on the impressive all-grass court.

Speak to Dixon about what makes him most proud of what’s been achieved and he’ll point to the opportunity to give back. The Island Foundation – which began as a Bintan library of donated books - has grown to multiple teaching centres that have provided education to more than 3000 children and trained more than 1500 local teachers.

Elsewhere, Nikoi and Cenpedak have enabled Bintan locals to train, learn skills and find employment. Little wonder most workers refer to the former banker as ‘papa’.

“Many of the staff have children who are now beneficiaries of our education programs, and it’s so exciting to meet these kids and see them thrive as a result. And we’ve measured the impact we have to reach over 16,000 villagers - that is way beyond our wildest dreams and yes, I do get a bit emotional about that.”

In the end, Nikoi and Cempedak stay with you because they don’t try too hard. The beaches, the timber, the quiet-nothing is presented with fanfare, yet everything lands. You slip into an ease you didn’t know you were missing, and yet the moment it hits you is unmistakable - enough to stop you and draw an audible gasp.

How much is it to stay on Nikoi or Cendepak Island?

Nikoi two-night stay for two adults and two children, inclusive daily board (drinks extra) and return transfers from Bintan Ferry Terminal, from approx. $2495; nikoi.com

Cenpedak two-night stay for two adults, inclusive daily board (drinks extra) and return transfers from Bintan Ferry Terminal, from approx. $1965; cempedak.com