Amahelia Luxury Resort

Built from bamboo and alang-alang thatch, the ten villas at Amahelia stand under coconut palms on Gili Asahan, a small island off the Sekotong Peninsula southwest of Lombok. Two villas have a coconut trunk running straight through the roof. Terraces face garden or sea, dressed in antique Javanese furniture and touches of Chinese and colonial style. Villa Raja, the only one-bedroom villa, has its own pool and a wide living space that opens onto it. Villa Ratu sleeps up to eight across two bedrooms, suited to families travelling together. Bathrooms throughout are open-air, screened by garden walls rather than tile.

The beach in front of the resort is private, a stretch of sand shared by no one else. At Naga Restaurant, named for the dragon of regional myth, the chef skips a fixed menu and cooks instead from what the Pelangan or Mataram market yields that morning: Vietnamese salads, Sri Lankan curries, Szechuan heat, Indonesian classics. Dinner can be arranged on the sand instead of indoors. Beyond the villas, guests can snorkel the reef, kayak to neighbouring islands, or watch the light change from a sunset point built for the purpose.

Gili Asahan sits among twelve islands known locally as the Secret Gilis, quieter than their better-known northern counterparts. Check-in and transfers run by boat.