langkawi magazine

Reviews SECTION

Seasons To Be Jolly Well Pampered

Just 30km off Malaysia's Andaman coast and barely 25km from north to south, the island of Langkawi is an unlikely spot for an international airport. The largest of an archipelago of 104 mostly deserted specks, five of which are submerged at high tide, it may have the attributes of a holiday-island idyll - fine undeveloped beaches, labyrinthine mangroves and a hilly interior clad in ancient rainforest, with a cable car to speed you 713m to its highest point for a view of the tree canopy.

But nature aside - and let's not knock that - it's a place without obvious attractions. And there isn't a whole lot to wonder at beyond orderly rubber plantations, paddies and fields of buffalo. Its principal museum, Galeria Perdana, is a display of 10,000 gifts presented to Malaysia's longest-serving prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad (you can see why he hadn't the house room for some of them). And the so-called Summer Palace on the pleasure harbour of Perdana Quay is nothing more than a fragile tsunami-damaged film set built by 20th Century Fox for the 1999 movie Anna and the King.Still even that is less incongruous than the neighbouring USSR Restaurant, hung with scarlet banners attesting to the glories of Communism and run by a Kirghiz couple whose menu and staff attitude remain authentically Soviet.

Yet for all this quaintness and apparent lack of development, Langkawi has long been mooted as Malaysia's premier tourist honeypot. And its time may be now. During his administration, Mr Mahathir bestowed duty-free status on it in an effort to make it a shopping destination (don't hold your breath). Then, in 1995, came the Tour de Langkawi, Asia's answer to the Tour de France, an annual international 1,300km cycle race (it culminates in Kuala Lumpur) to raise its profile. And now Malaysia Airlines flies here direct, not just from KL and Penang, but London as well: a route whose existence surely has something to do with the airline's ownership of the new Four Seasons Resort Langkawi, a pull-out-all-the-stops "destination" hotel, and a place that puts the island's other half-dozen "deluxe hotels" (two of them Sheratons) in the shade.

Built to mimic a kampong (or village), albeit rather a modern one of wood and glass-walled houses made more traditional by steep-pitched ironwood-shingled roofs, its setting on the edge of a 1.5km sweep of pale (if grittier than ideal) sand is idyllic; and its scale immense. Rarely have I wished for a smaller room, sorry, beach villa, one of 20, each an extravagant 220 sq metres, a third of which constituted the bathroom. Which seemed, well, profligate for two people. And that was excluding the private massage room (with twin tables), separate study area, gigantic bedroom-cum-living space, outdoor shower, sundeck, plunge pool and al-fresco dining area, which was furnished not just with a table and chairs, but a double-bed-sized sofa and a sideboard containing, among other accessories I hadn't thought to want, a toaster.

Still bar the positioning of a 42-inch flat-screen TV, which blocked the view of neighbouring islands from the bed, and the fact that I kept misplacing the remote that operated the lighting - no mere switches to spoil the wall finish in a top-notch place like this - it was difficult to fault. I loved the 55m infinity-edged lap pool, scented it seemed with frangipani rather than chlorine. And when I tired of that, there was a freeform pool that was almost as vast. And the sea, of course.

I liked the fact that the American general manager, Royal Rowe, had thought to place a special edition of Somerset Maugham's The Casuarina Tree in every room because, as he writes in the introduction, "like many long-term expatriates living in Asia, my initial impressions of this vast part of the world were shaped by these stories". New to Maugham, I found them compelling.

But most of all I liked the staff - a number of whom have unlikely backgrounds for hotel personnel, having been, variously, a midwife, a flying instructor, an oil-rig recruit, even a presenter of Good Morning Malaysia - for their enthusiasm, their attentiveness and the unlikely conversations I found myself having: about the efficacy of gamat, a local salve extracted from sea cucumbers and "rich in polypeptides" on mosquito bites (it works!); about the monitor lizard with which I shared my sundeck; and how the night market in Kuah was really the best for street food - the things to look out for were kuih buah melaka, a confection of almost fluorescent-green custard flavoured with pandan leaf and coated with shredded coconut, and green-banana fritters.

The arrival of Four Seasons may set new standards of luxury on the island, but its existing hotels are raising their game to compete. A little further along the same coast, stands the considerably cheaper but still highly regarded Tanjung Rhu (whose lead-in rate of about $230 is just over half the $410 that secures you a 68 sq metre Melaleuca Pavilion at Four Seasons). All last summer it was "undergoing enhancement of its facilities", which may improve the look of its unlovely main building (one of its former staff told me it had been built as a hospital). But its beach, which looks towards a clutch of steep yet verdant limestone islets and is fringed with the feathery casuarinas from which the hotel takes its name, is glorious. And that a number of Four Seasons staff had trained there is testimony to its standards of service.

For the moment, then, Four Seasons' chief rival as the island's most luxurious retreat remains the Datai. Rather than compete directly, however, the two complement each other. Where Four Seasons is right on the beach, the Datai is set high on a hillside in the thick of the jungle (not that it hasn't a beach, of course; it's just a bit of a trek down 170 steps - with buggies for the indolent or incapacitated). In terms of service and aesthetics - its pared-down interiors are an essay in sleek dark wood, pale stone, ikats and batiks - there's not much between them. It may be more compact; the standard rooms a little less private; its pools a little smaller and more public. But what sets it apart - especially if you can secure one of its 40 freestanding villas, up in the treetops on stilts - is its proximity to nature. Don't be surprised if you encounter a macaque on your veranda (the larger langurs tend to be less brazen), much less the geckos and skinks. And resign yourself to being woken by a voluble chorus of hornbills, drongos, orioles and other exotically plumed birds.

The Datai has a much larger more family-oriented sister hotel, the Andaman, which aspires to, and largely achieves, a similar look but, as is reflected in rates around a third less than the Datai's, lacks something of its sibling's style. Where the Datai has a pianist in the evening, the Andaman makes do with electric keyboard (and synthetic drums). Where the blue of the Datai's pool is an inviting cobalt, the Andaman's is a brasher turquoise. And where the Datai assumes that flawless service is a given, the Andaman encourages it with a board in its lobby of honoured employees of the moment.

Not that price need be an indication of beauty. For perhaps the most stunning hotel on this island is the miraculously inexpensive Bon Ton Resort, seven original traditional wooden houses, some 120 years old - set on stilts with steep-pitched roofs and intricately carved screens - collected over time by an Australian retailer-turned-restaurateur, Narelle McMurtrie, who found them all over the country, brought them to the island and had them reconstructed on the edge of a wetland reserve. You're not on the beach (though there's a narrow, elegant pool). There isn't a spa. There aren't even mosquito screens on the unglazed windows. And you're not just close to the airport but right next door to an animal sanctuary (under the same management) whose feline charges treat the hotel as their own and are afforded more or less the same charm and generosity (if not quite the same delicious cooking) as the guests.

It isn't, by far, a hotel for everyone. But for those who get it, who don't need a gym or 24-hour room service and don't mind sharing their quarters with cats, it's pretty close to perfection.

Langkawi 2006-01-28