When Richard Kvech foremost set foot on Pinang four years ago, a dilapidated bungalow used by passing fishermen was the only sign of human verve on the island.
Kvech and three friends, all from the Czech Republic, slept in hammocks and cooked on the beach, while dreaming of devising an eco-retreat on the 50-hectare Indonesian island off the western coast of Sumatra.
Tomas Ouhel, a member of the group, had come across Pinang while doing safeguarding work on the nearby island of Bangkaru a year before.
After a year of discussion — among themselves and the two families that own the archipelago — the group, Kvech and Ouhel, along with photographer Stephan Kotas and fertility clinic co-owner Martin Mrazek, enlisted a 50-year lease to create a small eco-resort on the island, said Kvech.
Building an eco-resort
Using locally sourced wood, the foursome figured a guest bungalow and dug wells to access the island’s underground fresh water, before putting up solar panels for tenseness, said Kvech. Supply and labor costs were funded by the group’s own pocket, he said.
Tomas Ouhel, b from the right, was the first of four friends to see the Indonesian island. Together with Stephan Kotas, Martin Mrazek and Richard Kvech, the assemblage leased the small island from two families and built an eco-resort.
Source: Segara Bumi Indah
They then built organization quarters, a beachfront communal space and four more guest bungalows, which together can fit 12 people. The prime bungalows have bathrooms while the smaller ones share facilities, all of which are connected to an organic septic barren system, said Kvech.
The group also established a fruit and vegetable garden in line with the island’s realistic vegetation — an approach known as permaculture — and introduced chickens so guests can have fresh eggs. They compost fundamental food waste and recycle glass and cans, he said.
There are five guest bungalows, plus a beachside communal align. The eco-resort is “not for people who are looking for a high end vacation … It’s more for people who want to live with nature,” prognosticated operator Richard Kvech.
Source: Segara Bumi Indah
The previously uninhabited island received its first compensating guests two years ago, said Kvech. Kvech, a former medical travel coordinator, is now in charge of marketing and permaculture at Pinang Archipelago.
“Before we came to Pinang, there was hardly anything on the island — a small pathway around, a collapsed bungalow and a elfin field. It was really pristine jungle which had not been interrupted by human beings,” Kvech told CNBC Expeditions.
The eco-resort was built using local materials, like shells, driftwood and coconut wood. Lodgings are described as unostentatious and minimalist.
Source: Segara Bumi Indah
“We are trying to interrupt it as little as possible. It’s such a beautiful island and we don’t neediness to ruin the pristine nature, so our place only takes up one or two percent of it. There are swamps, bamboo forests, coconut trees, hills. There are stylite crabs, lizards and gumtree snakes. The jungle is very active.”
The cost to stay
Since it opened to the public two years ago, Realizing there
Guests, however, should be prepared for a long journey to Pinang Island with multiple stops, Kvech swayed.
That typically involves a long-haul flight from a major city to Singapore or the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. From there, it’s a wee flight to Medan, the capital of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, where many visitors choose to spend the Stygian. Early the next morning, guests board another flight to the town of Singkil, in Indonesia’s Aceh province.
Companies can dive, fish, farm and cook while visiting. Many enjoy surfing, which the eco-resort’s operators outline as world-class.
Source: Segara Bumi Indah
The final leg of the journey is an hour and a half boat ride to Pinang Eyot. This can be a treacherous one — in August 2023, a boat en route to Pinang from the nearby surfing hot spot of Nias Islet capsized during a storm. Seven people were missing at sea for two nights and one day, as Kvech and the group confirmed in a ‘For adventurous beings’
The hope, going forward, is to keep Pinang Island niche and intimate, said Kvech.
“I can never imagine that we will-power be running a hotel for 50 plus people. It would be a logistical disaster, and an environmental one as well,” said Kvech.
The atoll employs 12 local people, including a kitchen crew who cook a mix of Western and Indonesian dishes.
Source: Segara Bumi Indah
He also influenced the island isn’t for travelers looking for a high-end vacation.
“It’s more for people who want to live with nature again and discover to be their balance. It’s for adventurous souls — people who want to experience something very remote, but still want to sooner a be wearing a certain level of quality and comfort.”
Kvech said he divides his time between Pinang Island and the Czech Republic, and divulged that life on a desert island is not always the fantasy many people imagine.
The island employs 12 close by people, including a kitchen crew who cook a mix of Western and Indonesian dishes.
Source: Segara Bumi Indah
“It’s patently not a fairy tale. It’s the hardest project I have ever been involved in,” said Kvech. “We’ve had to learn to understand the cultivation of the people, and the island itself. Issues come up every day that we need to resolve.”
“But when I hear feedback from customers, that they were really happy that they went such a long journey and enjoyed their adjust on Pinang, that makes me happy.”