Malaysia -

y profoundly fantastic bath is just outside my back door. The massive marble tub is almost like a miniature pool, with a gentle slope on both sides enabling me to lean back and take in the green treetops and blue sky above. The water comes tumbling in from the side, making it feel more like a natural waterfall than modern plumbing. There's a saline sea breeze on the air, birds are cawing; I almost feel I'm floating on my very own island – and I'm almost right. I'm at Pangkor Laut Resort, a private island off the west coast of Malaysia, where just a few hundred guests can indulge in a gorgeous, unique mixture of five star luxuries and untouched nature.

Pangkor Laut Resort was rated number one in the world by Conde Nast Traveller UK readers in 2003. Impressive – but I think it's always best to investigate such claims for yourself. Never mind that opera mega-star Luciano Pavarroti, who has a suite on the island dedicated to his being (filled with photos of said celebrity and imported Italian furniture) supposedly made the statement, "I almost cried when I saw how beautiful God had made this paradise."

Approaching the island from the mainland by boat is indeed striking. Two-million-year-old jungle drapes the hills of Pangkor Laut in a blanket of deepest green, while the sea villas on stilts in the ocean are housing as imagined in paradise. Arrayed in jutting patterns connected by wooden walkways stretching along the coast, their French windows open right onto the open sea.

Over 20 years ago, the sultan of this district allowed an individual to purchase the island from the government, but wisely slipped in a clause decreeing only 20 per cent of the island could be developed. Today, 84 per cent of the island remains virgin jungle – a wilderness home to birds, snakes and macaque monkeys. The remaining 16 per cent comprises the Pangkor Laut Resort which offers just 148 double suites and nine multi-bedroom villas to vacationers looking for the ultimate in getting away from it all while still enjoying gourmet cuisine, air-conditioning and superb massage.

There is little to worry about on a vacation here. Seamless, friendly service is available when wanted and invisible when not. Arriving on the dock I'm escorted into the elegant reception building. Like all the structures on the island, it is built in traditional Malaysian style, which here means dark wood, some subdued carving, airy peaked ceilings and lots of large windows for taking in the breeze and the outstanding views in all directions.

I ascend to my suite by elevator, one of four hillside accommodations in a two-storey villa surrounded by lush greenery. It is unfussy, charming and comfortable, all the furniture is varnished solid wood and I have a private balcony, spacious bedroom, and a large dressing/wash room. Thoughtfully there is no television – no piped-in entertainment is required in such a place.

Neither are there myriad activities, this is a place for languorous honeymooners, business execs in need of the ultimate in R&R (two helipads provide a quick in and out) or luxurious family time in one of the sprawling private chef and butler equipped villas. An afternoon on Pangkor Laut can mean several things – a hike through the jungle to the opposite beach, Emerald Bay, a white sand stretch so alluring it's a prime wedding location; or a loll by one of the three breathtakingly-designed swimming pools, all set just a few meters above the ocean, tiled in brilliant dark blue. There's also tennis and squash, but in this tropical haven who needs structured exercise.

The resort's restaurants are outstanding. A dinner at the fine dining Fisherman's Cove is brilliantly executed in a hopelessly romantic dining room of candles, crystal and white tablecloths, looking right out on the water. A perfectly-dressed mesclun salad with pine nuts is followed by fragrant bouillabaisse with generous chunks of fish and shrimp and an exquisitely-moist grilled sea bass with a gilding of sweet teriyaki sauce and a drizzle of wasabi paste, paired with Chinese mustard greens, shitake mushrooms, and a garnish of Japanese seaweed. Breakfast buffet is also served right by the ocean in an open-air structure with fresh baked sweets and a rainbow of fresh tropical fruit and juices – mango, papaya, guava – eaten as the morning sun comes slanting in, and peacocks strut around dragging their iridescent tails.

Sated and sunned, it's time to visit the award-winning Spa Village for massage and a range of traditional treatments including Malay, Indian and Chinese. It is a complex of spare villas, stone paths, flowers, fountains, fish pools, flower-filled baths and most enticing – wooden-roofed platforms built right on the beach for massage with a sensation like floating right on the sea.

I sign up for the traditional Malaysian princess treatment, appropriately. As I lay on a table in a private villa, my sweet-mannered masseuse Yaya rubs oil on her hand and passes it over my nose three times. It is a truly remarkable smell – pungent and intoxicating. She begins by massages the oil into my head, massaging the way I would wish every other person had ever massaged me – confident and firm with an understanding of muscles, bones, and direction of joints. I am in good hands, literally.

The next day, I return for an Indian massage, or Ayurvedic treatment. My no-nonsense Indian masseuse seems shy in manner but is actually blatantly to the point. In minutes she has stripped me naked, tied into a primitive loincloth and laid me out on a wooden table like a prized goose. She proceeds to douse me in 200ml of medicinal oils. Compared to my experience with the more common Swedish, Thai and Chinese techniques, her style is truly unique. Long, brusque hand strokes go all the way up my arm and down to my shin in huge sweeping movements, and me, slick as an oil spill on a wooden board. When it is time to turn over, her movements are suddenly gentle as she kindly points out "careful, it's slippery". Apparently I could sail right off the table like a bar of wet soap out of the shower stall. Next I am led into the simple shower room next door, and plastered with green lentil paste. I sit there – bare as the day I was born – on a wooden stool, as she rubs me with bean mush – extraordinary, but apparently the only way to remove the gallons of oil she has poured upon me.

With most of the green mush rinsed off, I rush to the dock for the sunset cruise. From the roof deck of our handsome wooden boat, my small group looks out at the neighbouring islands under the orange sun, and feels beautiful and free – or at least oil-free. Later, I walk along the edge of the island, absolutely bewitched by the swaying brilliance of hundreds of lights from the resort's sea villas undulating hypnotically on the surface of the water.

In the end I have to concur with Conde Nast's readers, this is an idyllic place, capable of washing away urban stress and instilling innocent wonder at the natural world. Near midnight, when the sky is velvety, I go to the swimming pool. Floating on my back in silence with the stars glittering, so many and so stark away from city lights, it is a marvellous evening in the sense of the word 'full of marvels'—the warm blue pool lined with the silhouettes of palm trees, its walls' slick black marble smooth on my fingertips, and the next horizon line that of the dark green ocean.