Tanjong Jara Resort

Arriving by the beach road out of Dungun, the resort announces itself with low timber pavilions rather than a tower block. Tanjong Jara Resort was built along the lines of a 17th-century Malay palace, and its 99 rooms are arranged in two-storey blocks and single-storey wings across gardens that run down to a crescent of sand on the South China Sea. Timber, woven rattan and stone recur throughout. Bumbung rooms sit upstairs under the roofline with garden or sea views; Serambi rooms open onto a veranda at ground level; Anjung Seafront rooms face the water directly, close enough that you can hear the surf at night. The Anjung Suite, the largest at 176 square metres, has its own sunken bath and a separate dining hall.

Days run on tides and tours rather than a fixed schedule. A resident naturalist leads a walk up Jara Hill past a herbal garden, sea eagles nesting somewhere above the treeline. Divers head out to Tenggol Island, part of a marine park where the reef stays largely undisturbed. Fishing boats work the coast below the restaurant terraces, and dinner is sometimes served on the rocks by candlelight, sometimes cooked in a pit of sand in the old East Coast style. A turtle hatchery on site releases hatchlings when the season allows. Check-in is straightforward; what follows moves at the pace of the sea.