The Datai Langkawi

Designed by architect Kerry Hill with Didier Lefort and opened in 1993, The Datai Langkawi was built into rainforest estimated at 10 million years old, on the north-western tip of Langkawi island. Didier Lefort returned twenty-five years later to lead a full refurbishment, redesigning every room, suite and villa to face the forest canopy or the Andaman Sea. The resort holds 121 rooms, suites and villas across three collections. Canopy rooms sit in the main building near the pool and dining room; Rainforest villas stand on stilts above a running stream, reached by a network of paths. The Beach Collection sits directly on Datai Bay's white sand, each of its 13 one-bedroom villas and single two-bedroom villa walled into its own garden with a private pool and butler service. A footpath leads from the grounds straight to the bay, ranked among National Geographic's top beaches worldwide. You can hear the forest before you see it, thick with dusky langurs, tokay geckos and Sunda colugos. The Datai Pledge, the resort's conservation programme launched in 2018, now runs reforestation and coral regeneration work in the bay itself. Three decades on, the buildings still read as low and timber-toned against the tree line. Check-in is a short drive from Langkawi's airport, forty minutes by car.