Offshore assets: Langkawi returns as eco-tourism hotspot

Once upon a 1990s time, Langkawi was the jet-setting Asiaphile’s island of choice. Now after a long, long lull, it’s back.

Langkawi is growing in popularity with eco-tourists.

There’s nothing like a 10 million-year-old rainforest for putting age in context. Here on the Malaysian island of Langkawi, the primeval flora makes the 26 years that The Datai – one of Southeast Asia’s original luxury resorts, loved and laurelled across multiple time zones – has been in existence look like barely a blink. Such is the setting in which it sits, its tall, stately three-storey wings of rooms bending through primary native trees, its enormous pool a prize aquamarine nestled in a plane of pure emerald. Across the acres of jungle, troops of monkeys and rare butterflies flit through dappled shade. Hornbills perch on the terrace railings of impeccably designed suites, while far above, red-backed sea eagles trace lazy figure-of-eights in the roofless blue sky. At the bottom of the hill – below the bar with its lotus pool, and the stunning Thai restaurant cantilevered over thick greenery, and the terraced stone staircases descending in elegant ziggurats – is a 1.5km-long crescent of sand beach. Shaded by sea hibiscus, it’s patrolled by lanky cattle egrets high-stepping through the translucent wavelets lapping the shore in search of food. Nature, without question, is one of the stars of the show.

The Datai’s main pavilion.

But in travel-destination years, 26 is a very long time indeed for place to stay relevant. There was a moment at the end of the last millennium when The Datai – designed by the late great Kerry Hill and opened in 1993 – was one of Asia’s genuine epicentres of glamour. It had something special, some ineffable but potent alchemy, mixing a sense of place with worldly sophistication, indulgence with understatement, and timelessness with being utterly of the moment (a moment that privileged four-hand massages and temple visits as well as wagyu and prime Château Lynch-Bages vintages). In Italy, you went to Capri and Como; in Brazil, to Paraty; in Malaysia, you didn’t go to Langkawi, you went to The Datai. But competition, eventually, proliferated. As the world opened up its exotic corners and coves, capes and private-island resorts from Phang Nga Bay to the Philippines made their way one into the spotlight. Slowly the island – and The Datai – began to cede primacy and to lose a bit of their lustre.

Then something interesting happened. A few years ago, a clutch of major hospitality companies claimed prime beachside plots and set about building five-star accommodations, multiple drinking and dining venues, and sprawling spas. This corresponded with a growing cultural shift among travellers – even the most committed sybarites were looking for some degree of sustainability, conservation or community support built into their holiday. And Langkawi – with its mangrove forests, 10-million-year-old jungle, hiking trails and below-the-radar wildlife rehabilitation projects – was on the radar again.

The St Regis bar.

But the UNESCO-oversight bona fides aren’t the whole story. In the past three years, Langkawi’s clutch of fine hotels – ranging from the Four Seasons (with its immaculate blinding-white beach and extravagant, Bill Bensley-designed spa) to Bon Ton resort (where guests sleep in antique stilted cottages) – has expanded.

Two in particular have garnered international buzz: a new St Regis, which in 2016 planted its flag at the southeasterly tip of the island, in a deep cove protected on one side by a densely jungled outcropping; and Ritz Carlton, which made its debut about 18 months later on the island’s west coast, its suites, spa and several restaurants scaling a gentle hill above a small but beautifully formed beach.

The St Regis main pool.

St Regis and Ritz-Carlton are both names with clout in China and the Middle East, which both happen to be where a fair number of Langkawi’s more well-heeled guests hail from. These new hotels’ concessions to some extravagance – of décor, amenities, cuisine – is probably calibrated to that audience. Thus there are some jarring moments, such as finding a bathroom stocked with amenities from Asprey’s Purple Water line (as is the case at the Ritz-Carlton) – a baffling choice in a country so clearly primed to furnish beautiful locally made products. But the bathroom itself is impressive, at once indulgent and sleek, reflecting the design across the resort – thoughtful, airy and surprisingly free of excess.

The St Regis lobby entrance.

The Ritz-Carlton Langkawi’s projected three-year development plan morphed into seven, in large part because the design and layout were altered more than once so as to preserve as many mature-growth trees as possible. This shows in the ingenuity with which the villas and suites enjoy views as well as the sense of immersion in nature. There is a funky spa consisting of overwater “pods” – treatment suites with rounded roofs and private terraces – and a truly stunning infinity pool that extends over the sea, with, in high season, a sunset arguably unmatched on the island. The takeaway is of sleek, streamlined indulgence: lots of stone and wood, hits of jewel-toned colour, a contemporary sensibility.

The St Regis embraces a different vibe altogether, starting with the rather spectacular entrance, roofed in zellige-inspired woodwork, from which huge lush ferns hang. The Moorish inflection is seen throughout the resort, from the archways to the inlay in the gleaming floors, and the monumental glass-and-iron chandeliers in the public spaces. Whether or not that’s your thing, you would be hard pressed to find much fault with service – starting with the gratifying gentle mist raining down between those ferns in the entrance, extending to the charming (and near-prescient) butlers allocated to every suite, and culminating in the above-and-beyond thoughtfulness of the staff. (They left a congratulatory card, signed by more than a dozen hotel employees, for my partner upon his completion of the island’s annual Ironman race during our stay.) The feathers in its cap are the clutch of light-filled over-water villas, with their coffered ceilings and walls of windows; and Kayu Puti, the two-storey overwater restaurant. An extraordinary Bill Bensley-designed confection replete with peacock chairs and dozens of lanterns, it boasts a gleaming open kitchen and very grown-up cuisine featuring the likes of scallops with a pomelo-coconut cream sauce and a risotto dense with unexpected flavours of ginger flower and tamarind.

The Ritz-Carlton’s beach villa.

At the far northwestern end of the island – distant literally and figuratively from both these hotels, and not far from Langkawi’s famous Skybridge and Seven Wells Waterfall – is The Datai, down a narrow winding road that ends in the thick of deep-green rainforest not more than a mile past its entrance. Over the course of the hotel’s existence, its management has tended quietly and subtly to upgrades and refurbs, adding an enfilade of beach villas – one of the most perfect one-bedroom iterations of that model I’ve ever seen, huge and eminently private – in 2014. But no major work had been done for two decades; so for the tail end of 2017 and all of 2018 the hotel closed and underwent a comprehensive renovation, estimated to have cost around $US60 million ($85.3 million). This extended far beyond a change of rush matting in the rooms and new umbrellas by the pools – almost every piece of furniture on the 40-plus acres was replaced; the spa expanded; the Beach Club restaurant re-structured, and a gorgeous gym with views over the beach through floor-to-ceiling windows sinstalled next door.

The Ritz-Carlton’s ocean front villa.

The Ritz-Carlton’s Hai Yun Chinese seafood restaurant.

The genius of The Datai’s original design – a joint endeavour between Hill and designer Didier Lefort, who was brought back to oversee this second naissance – was in its leveraging of natural textures and surfaces to impart the sense of luxury. The cosmetic improvements have all been impeccably gauged and the final product is stunning.

But what’s going on outside is just as compelling. When I stayed earlier this year, the hotel was inaugurating a coral restoration project off the island’s coast – one of a truly impressive host of new conservation-education initiatives it has developed and executed as part of this total reboot. These are the work of Irshad Mobarak, a banker-turned-naturalist who has been a guide for The Datai for going on 20 years. His new Nature Centre, a wall-less bamboo longhouse just back from the beach, is home to an impressive library, a small cinema lounge, and a teahouse where the hotel’s resident Malay medicine specialist proffers tisanes with various salutary benefits.

The longhouse is one of two major contributions Mobarak made to the renovation. The other was the creation of a remarkable nature trail, along the western end of the hotel’s property, that progresses through three discrete wildlife habitats. It culminates in a spectacular viewing platform halfway up a monumental strangling fig, reached via a thrilling footbridge crossing. (There is also his coral project; Malaysia, he tells me, has about 50 per cent of the hard corals in the world and entire marine ecosystems rely on their health.)

Mobarak regularly leads guests on much more challenging and far-reaching trail and canopy walks – of these there is no shortage, extending miles into the mountainous interior and along the rocky coast – but the beauty of the Datai’s own trail is the density, and intensity, of wildlife that’s accessible with an hour’s easy strolling.

The Ritz-Carlton’s Horizon lounge.

As Mobarak and I meandered through the mangroves that constitute the first habitat, water trickling below log crossings, jewel-toned butterflies wove aimlessly in the heavy, moist air. There are 535 species on Langkawi, Mobarak says – more than anywhere else in the world (Australia has just under 450). It also has a dozen-odd species of hornbill, as well as 75 per cent of the planet’s mangrove species. He stopped and pointed to a tree about three metres away: a python, almost but not quite totally camouflaged, curled around a knobby branch. Half an hour later, as the sun slanted down, we climbed to the viewing platform; from some 40m up, the canopy was, visually, close to impenetrable – a thick tarpaulin of a hundred nuanced shades of green.

Somewhere below the age-old canopy, The Datai was preparing for the evening, fans spinning lazily, trays of chilled mango appearing, folded silk robes being laid at the ends of beds. Fresh orchids, perfectly chilled mersault, any number of elegant gestures. Still, I found it hard to leave that aerie, high up and 10 million years away from it all.