Bikendrik: The unreal, tiny tropical island like Downton Abbey in the South Pacific – where the stories are more unbelievable than the sunsets and food

Getting here has been such a journey, it feels like I might as well be on another planet – or, given the sheer number of antiques around me that would be enough to fill a museum, another time.

But remoteness is part of the appeal of Bikendrik. Encircled by jacuzzi-warm water as clear as crystal, the little island is covered by leafy palm trees, frequently dropping coconuts from their towering heights onto emerald green grass. 

The perfectly-manicured grass seems a marvel amid the hot tropical sun and poor soil of the coral atoll the private island’s on. Perhaps unsurprisingly, owner Susanne Kayser – Bikendrik’s sole permanent inhabitant, an elderly woman who’s lived here for about 20 years – says the lawns require constant maintenance.

The remoteness can’t be overstated. Getting here first requires flying deep into the South Pacific – with United Airlines from Guam or Hawaii, or Nauru Airlines from Brisbane, both of which have several stops on little islands along the way – to Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, located on a narrow atoll where the tallest things are usually palm trees.

That’s one step. Once in Majuro, it’s a half-hour’s drive to a pier near the town centre. Finally, it’s a 40-minute trip in a small boat – during which little flying fish leap into the air – to Bikendrik.

On the island is a beautiful old wooden, single-storey villa Susanne calls home. It’s home for guests who stay with her, too.

Susanne runs Bikendrik as a luxury boutique lodging. In fact, it’s the only property in the Micronesia region that’s part of the prestigious Five Star Alliance.

Along with Susanne’s villa are three large beach houses guests can stay in. Each has electricity, air conditioning, flushing toilets, and spacious baths stocked with Hermès toiletries and buttery-soft Melsimo robes. The island is also covered by 5G Wi-Fi.

Susanne’s villa is surrounded by a huge, wraparound verandah. The building has strong colonial vibes – and inside is a cosy, antique-filled library. Many of the books date to the 1800s, as do the original paintings.

Guests can stay in the beach houses ($1,250 a night) or the main villa in the aptly-named Colonial Suite (AUD$2,000 a night). The little room has calming blue walls, white wicker furniture, and nineteenth century portraits of Susanne’s ancestors.

The room is dominated by a four-poster bed, which Susanne and her husband brought to the island with them. The bed was made in the Philippines in 1900 of dark ironwood. It’s so heavy, it takes six people to move – yet it’s incredibly soft to sleep in.

The room is so dreamy that my first morning I forget not just where I am, but when I am. Not an electronic screen’s glow is to be seen as sunlight filters in through the semi-sheer lace curtains. Have I found myself back in the Victorian Era, or the world of Downton Abbey?

The feeling is only magnified at breakfast. I’m treated to shakshuka, an egg dish Susanne learned to make while living in Libya; she also speaks Arabic. It’s served with fine china and 900 grade silver cutlery; when Susanne came to Bikendrik with her husband, she brought 52kg of silver. It must be polished every three days because of the heat and humidity.

‘We don’t try to save money on food,’ Susanne tells me.

‘If you feed someone proper, they’ll be a satisfied guest.’

Case in point: it’s chicken cordon bleu for lunch, served with mashed potatoes and mushroom sauce, the mushrooms imported from Italy. Green noni leaf-wrapped eggplant is on the dinner menu – and on the table is a silver table setting depicting a pair of pheasants. Susanne explains they were a gift in the 1860s from Persian ruler Naser al-Din Shah Qajar to one of her ancestors.

Superb as the food is, it’s as if an invisible, occult hand prepares it – for I never actually see Susanne in the kitchen. But she does cook, she says – she trained for a time at the famed Le Cordon Bleu culinary school. Also, only a few times during my stay do I see her assistant, a friendly young woman from the Philippines named Twinkle.

There’s no shortage of things to do between meals. The entire island can be walked around in about five minutes, but activities include snorkelling and scuba diving in the lagoon. There’s also surfing on the island’s far side, where the waves are bigger, their thunderous roar oddly barely audible on the lagoon side.

I go for a refreshing swim. Susanne says pearls can sometimes be found amid the rainbow-coloured coral, schools of fish, and occasional stingray. However, I fail to find any.

‘Oscar must have stolen them,’ says Susanne of my inability to locate any precious jewels.

Oscar, she explains, is a ‘pet octopus’ that lives in the lagoon. Apparently, he’s prone to kleptomania and hoarding anything he thinks is valuable.

A less felonious island resident is Emma, a brown coconut crab who’s nearly the size of a cat. Susanne says she’s exceptionally friendly. She doesn’t seem to mind when I see her resting under a tree. As she sits, countless tiny hermit crabs scuttle past to ‘trade’ the shells they live in.

Every activity is accompanied by a soundtrack of waves lapping the shore, palm trees rustling in the wind, and the calls and fluttering wings of birds, like the rare imperial pigeons that hang around some pink orchids Susanne planted near the villa. There’s also the smell of salt air and fresh fruit. A warm breeze gently brushes skin.

‘It was all jungle at first when we came here,’ says Susanne one morning as we sit on comfortable chairs on the verandah. We’d just enjoyed a breakfast of citrus fruit plucked from trees on the island, home-baked bread and coddled eggs – eaten with a special spoon Susanne’s grandmother received as a wedding gift in the 1920s.

‘But I can be very stubborn. If I have a dream, I do it,’ she adds.

I listen to Susanne’s fantastic tales for hours at a time, sipping refreshing horse’s neck (made with brandy and ginger ale) cocktails while sitting on white wicker chairs with soft, blue and white striped cushions. Bikendrik was a German coconut plantation until about 1918, she says, and a Japanese stronghold in the Second World War.

I have never heard a storyteller as spellbinding as Susanne. She has a remarkable ability to engage the senses and recall feelings, making even the most ordinary bits of history sound astonishing.

But much of Susanne’s history is extraordinary – just like Bikendrik’s existence in such a remote place as the Marshall Islands. 

Her late husband founded the world’s first commercial space launch company – he was basically the original Elon Musk. The couple lived in Africa in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Libya, where they were friends with enigmatic ruler Muammar Gaddafi. 

They came to Bikendrik from Florida in 2006, because the tropical weather seemed nice and Susanne says they could maintain their standard of living for longer as their money would go farther than in America.

Susanne also explains how her grandfather was a valet for the son of the last Emperor of Austria, which answers how she came into possession of so many antiques. 

She shares what it was like visiting my home city of Wellington, New Zealand by ship – and her love of Kiwi author Mary Scott’s novels.

The golden orb of the sun turns the sky lavender, orange, red and pink as it sinks below the waves while Susanne talks. As night falls, countless glowing white jellyfish illuminate the water surrounding Bikendrik. There are so many twinkling stars above it’s as if a giant has spilt a huge jar of glitter across the black sky.

And still I listen to Susanne’s stories – while enjoying Drambuie whisky liqueur from the Isle of Skye.

‘I’m like a spider, just waiting to catch interesting people lured here,’ she jokes.

I do not disagree.