Anambas Islands
in Indonesia

Roughly 250 kilometres northeast of Singapore, the Anambas archipelago sits in the South China Sea in a state of near-total obscurity that is entirely unwarranted. The islands are granite-bouldered and jungle-covered, the water between them a shade of blue that seems implausible this close to the equator, and the coral reefs beneath it are among the healthiest in the region, largely because almost nobody comes. There are no international flights, no resort hotels, and no particular infrastructure for tourism, which means the visitors who make the effort arrive by ferry from Batam or by liveaboard dive boat and tend to find exactly what they were looking for. The fishing villages are unhurried and hospitable. The diving is exceptional. The silence, for somewhere this close to one of the busiest cities in Asia, is extraordinary.