02 May 2024

Pangkor Laut

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Other Asia Reviews

Fantasy Island

If only briefly, Mariella Frostrup was queen of all she surueyed at Pangkor Laut, one of the most luxurious resorts in the world. But after ten days of being waited on hand and foot by a private buttler and chef, coming home was to prove a culture shock.

Pangkor Laut, Malaysia - Sunset at Pangkor Laut

1 Sunset at Pangkor Laut 2 Infinity Pool 3 Relaxing

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND, said John Donne, but like most of us I’m sure he wouldn’t have objected to owning one. As a child I enjoyed the corrupting experience of being mistress of all I surveyed, spending my summers ruling the otherwise uninhabited Connemara island where my parents owned a cottage.

Heady days of absolute power flew by as I annexed rock pools, terrorised crabs, bullied my siblings and behaved like the frustrated despot I would grow up to become.

My obsession with island life has continued to flourish. If it’s surrounded by water and big enough to get vertical on, I’m happy. Large or small, windswept or tropical, I draw little distinction. But few come swathed in as much luxury as the Malaysian resort of Pangkor Laut.

Tropical seclusion

Here on Pangkor Laut, at a price, you can buy a temporary sliver of tropical seclusion (for as long as your credit card survives).

An hour’s flight from Kuala Lumpur, it’s the kind of place that makes a mockery of celebrity pleas for privacy. Those who don’t want to be captured topless or with someone else’s wife should swap St Tropez and St Barts for this discreet gem in the Straits of Malacca.

I was following in some illustrious sand prints. Joan Collins managed to honeymoon here in peace. Apparently she instructed staff to shoo away canoeing fishermen for fear they brandished a lens not a rod. Charles Kennedy brought his own champagne, John Major stayed for two days (alone), and Pavarotti presided over the spa opening.

At Kuala Lumpur airport we were met by the Pangkor Laut rep and boarded the resort helicopter for the 45-minute flight.

We passed vast palm oil plantations and golf courses, following a lazy river, golden brown with rainy season silt, to the sea. A short hop over milky green ocean and we reached our island home.

A Pangkor Laut estate is no glorified villa. We’re talking luxury spread here. Each of the nine estate houses from four to eight guests and comprises a series of pavilions, for sleeping, dining, living, lounging and bathing. Inspired by Malaysian teahouses, they are dotted around a landscaped garden, which seamlessly blends into the rainforest.

East meets the 21st century: huge, flat-topped Indonesian-style beds, glass walls that bring the jungle to your room, electric woven blinds, wooden carvings, wicker chairs, TV, VHS, DVD and a bathroom so large that the his ‘n’ hers sinks are 10 feet apart. Then there’s the open-air bathing pavilion, featuring a sunken stone bath with water jets so strong they could blow you home again. This is freshly filled each morning and kept piping hot all day.

Private butler and chef

We were introduced to Adrian and Thinh, our private butler and chef for the duration. Their first words were of apology. On the form that had been emailed to us before we left London, requesting our preferences in alcohol and fruit juices, we had marked a current favourite, an inexpensive Argentine Malbec, as our wine of choice. In a moment of frivolity we’d also specified the vintage as 2000. We thought the form was just bureaucracy. We soon realised that wasn’t the case. Our hosts were contrite because they couldn’t find that vintage so had got us a case of the 1999, which they hoped would do. We shuffled in embarrassment, all too aware that no Argentine Malbec can be easy to find in rural Malaysia. Later we cursed the fact that we hadn’t requested Chateaux Margaux. We were starting to realise that our wish was their command.

The estates at Pangkor Laut are augmented by a resort hotel and newly opened spa. It was hard to resist the lure of a daily massage in the serene spa, sprawled along the shore, with its extravagantly long infinity pool. At six each day we would haul ourselves off the picture perfect beach, clamber into our personal 4x4 and have Adrian chauffeur us the five-minutes to the spa.

When we arrived we had big plans. We intended to kayak daily, visit the main island of Pangkor, a veritable metropolis boasting a fishing village and small airport. We would go deep-sea fishing. We might even learn to windsurf (again). As one day drifted seamlessly into the next, our inaction became a challenge in itself. We found we could kill off whole days without moving beyond the sleeping and dining pavilions. A dip in our large enclosed infinity pool before lunch would exhaust us.

Actually, I do my husband a disservice. He took up a daily jog, more to combat the effects of the Asian feasts conjured up by our Vietnamese chef Thinh twice daily than out of any desire to get fit. His 20-minute run on the circular (and only) island road included a regular encounter with the island’s monkeys. They would bar his path, he would wave his arms, and they would wave theirs in imitation and then scuttle off into the undergrowth, chuckling at their bravado. Some days they would pay us a return visit, announcing their arrival with excited shrieks.

Our only other visitor was a five-foot monitor lizard, which performed a daily commute from the other side of the bay.

Untouched rainforest

One day we managed an hour-long jungle walk through the 70 per cent of the island that remains untouched rainforest.

Pangkor Laut’s resident naturalist, Uncle Yip, accompanied us and pointed out fungi, creepers and orchids as excitedly as if he was seeing them for the first time.

He showed us a vivid-green pit viper hanging out on a tree. Poisonous but lazy, this arm-length snake remained calm as Uncle Yip waved it about on a stick for Jason to photograph.

All good things come to an end, and after seven days our butler and cook, on our insistence, took a day off. What a shock that was. We had lost the ability to fend for ourselves. Making tea seemed impossibly complicated. Fetching dry towels a challenge too far.

I realised that the only thing I had excelled at on this holiday to Pangkor Laut was giving orders, and even that was a rare pleasure. Adrian had an uncanny capacity for reading my mind. He would turn up with tea just as I was considering requesting it. Breakfast would appear as soon as we emerged from our room, lunch the moment we stepped off the beach. He would arrive with ironed clothes before we even knew we wanted to wear them. On one memorable evening, faced with the manager’s cocktail party immediately after our massage, we brought our clothes to change at the spa.

We opened the bag we’d packed to find all but our underwear had disappeared. Only then did the giggling masseuses inform us that Adrian had unpacked our clothes, given them a good ironing and hung them in a nearby closet. My halterneck top had never seen an iron before.

After 10 days in a pampered bubble, the first encounter with the real world was brutal. We reluctantly waved goodbye to our staff and boarded the helicopter for Kuala Lumpur and the flight home. In a city restaurant we were enraged when they took more than a minute to bring the menus and more than five minutes to bring the food.

The airport was full of people not offering to carry our bags. Jason’s clothes had returned to crumpled vagrant style. The flight was long, uncomfortable and, as far as I was concerned, in the wrong direction.

Back at our flat, I was exhausted before I’d even unzipped my case. As usual, island life had proved to be as seductive as it was transitory. On Pangkor Laut I was briefly reborn as Marie Antoinette. Sadly, all too soon I was back slumming it among the Sans Culottes.

0330·100·2220i 0330 calls are included within inclusive minutes package on mobiles, otherwise standard rates apply. X 0330 calls are included within inclusive minutes package on mobiles, otherwise standard rates apply. X