Inside the Malaysian Island Resort Where Luxury Meets Unspoiled Nature
The soundscape of this celebrated Langkawi resort is more than gentle waves crashing on white sand and the clink of Bellinis landing. You just have to listen.
At dusk on the Malaysian island of Langkawi six adults and a four-year-old boy set off into the 10-million-year-old rainforest. It’s hard to say who’s the most excited as we follow biologist Hamrish Singh Nijjar on a wildlife treasure hunt.
A pair of sea eagles and a brahminy kite drift above Datai Bay, the Thai island of Tarutao looming dramatically on the horizon. In the coastal scrub Singh’s torch lights on violet hermit crabs, a frog-eating centipede, blink-and-miss mouse deer and reticulated pythons knotted in branches overhead. The prize here is the “flying five” – giant squirrels, paradise tree snakes, lizards, flying foxes and a flying lemur, or colugo, that thrills us by swooping above our heads, twice, just as the tour ends by the Beach Club. In the coming days I’ll bump into members of our rainforest tribe and we will, without fail, swap tales of our latest wild encounters. Otters! Dolphins! Giant hornbills!
This is my second visit to The Datai Langkawi, the sui generis Malaysian resort nestled between ancient forest and the Andaman Sea on Langkawi’s north-west coast, and it takes me less than 24 hours to recall why it’s so special. This is not a stage to flex your status or connections; pretensions are pointless as guests – including a Swiss hotelier couple from Gstaad, Mornington Peninsula vignerons and a Malaysian royal celebrating her 40th birthday – appreciate the unique opportunity of just being here. For all the luxury and amenities of the 121-key hotel, the unspoiled wilderness of its setting is a great leveller.
I’m staying in a rainforest villa, a 123-square-metre treehouse with a deck open to all the sights and sounds of the equatorial tropics. Inside I have every comfort, from a canopied king bed and coffee machine to a spa-sized bathroom. But the integrative design – by the late Australian architect Kerry Hill – keeps me grounded in the prehistoric habitat.
Living in a timeless forest has a humbling effect whether you’re staying in a villa like mine or a suite in one of the two main canopy buildings, modelled on Sarawak longhouses and still dwarfed by trees despite being six storeys high. The use of indigenous timbers and island-quarried materials such as granite, marble and mudstone blends the resort into its surroundings. It’s this riveting environmental context – and the levels of hedonism available within – that makes The Datai Langkawi unique among Asian resorts and the 750-hectare property a destination in itself.
At breakfast in The Dining Room, as oriental pied hornbills glide above the 24-metre main pool, guests can pair Bellinis with Andaman lobster eggs Benedict or flat whites with pan-seared foie gras and truffled eggs. Dinners are served to a nightly soundtrack of frog, insect and bird songs, whether guests are eating Thai at the stilted poolside Pavilion, spicy Indian and Malay specialties in The Gulai House kampung or surrendering to one of chef Chai Chun Boon’s Dining Room dégustations. His six- and 10-course menus fuse South-East Asian flavours and French techniques in dishes such as Sarawak black pepper beignets with 24-month aged parmesan cheese and a touch of Italian truffle, each course matched with wines from a list of more than 450 old- and new-world labels. Gastronomy is such a strength that the hotel hosts ongoing Chef Series events where chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants bring their culinary brio to the jungle.
To balance indulgence there is a wellbeing program including yoga, pilates, a stunning beachfront gym and a five-room spa. I can’t recommend highly enough having your face massaged in one of the open-air pavilions during a sunshower, when the chorus of rainforest creatures reaches fever pitch.
The resort’s comprehensive sustainability measures extend to recycling and upcycling waste (visit The Lab for a hands-on demonstration), permaculture gardens and endemic-species nurseries. Since 2020, The Datai Pledge has siphoned a proportion of guest funds into environmental and conservation initiatives to preserve Langkawi’s ecosystems and uplift its communities. The Pledge is spearheaded by the hotel’s veteran naturalist, Irshad Mobarak, who has championed Langkawi’s fragile living community; his niece Shakira Mobarak is building on his legacy as naturalist and historian, a new role that underscores the property’s singularity.
She explains how, in 1989 when Kerry Hill and the then Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, first visited this site by helicopter (there was no road), they immediately sensed its special power. “With the mountains at the back and the sea at the front… it’s like a waterfall of energy,” she says. “There’s a sense of magic in our forest.”
Perhaps that explains the 40 per cent return rate among guests. Shakira is a returnee herself, having left and come back three times. I get the feeling this time she’s here to stay. We should all be so lucky.
