Gayana Eco Resort

Take a twenty-minute boat ride from Malaysian Borneo’s Kota Kinabalu and you’ll find Gayana Eco Resort fringing a small cape on Gaya Island’s northern coastline. With its thatch-roofed villas and sprawling decks, the Gayana is wholly faithful to the over-water genre, on equal footing with its Fijian and Maldivian counterparts. Throw in room-service-by-raft, a marine research center and a spa that offers 180-dollar caviar facials and the resort’s split personality begins to emerge: soulful-slash-super-luxe, earthy yet indulgent, remote but refined.

Of the forty-four villas on offer, there are four types, each endorsing a different perspective of this rather wild part of the world. Ocean aficionados should go for the Buya bungalows, facing — naturally — the ocean. The most spacious of the selection, these have the widest decks, with front-row access to Gaya’s teeming coral reef and its mild sea breezes — something that won’t go unappreciated this close to the equator.

The Bakau, Pantai and Rimba villas face the mangroves, lagoon and jungle respectively, each with its own merits. The Rimba villas have the most limited water access, but in exchange, guests can enjoy the 24-hour nature channel that is the Borneo wilderness — monkeys, hornbills and jungle soundtrack included.

Villas are all five-star as far as amenities go — LCD televisions, DVDs, oversized showers, bouncy beds and boutique toiletries arranged amid a calming natural palette — no bold color statements here. If it’s neon splashes and surrealist shapes you’re after, you’ll have to head underwater to take part in the resort’s coral replanting scheme, or to Gayana’s research center where a “touch-tank” lets you get within squishing distance of Malaysia’s indigenous sea life.

Outside the resort, the opportunities for adventure abound, and might just be enough to lure you from the spa or from your bungalow’s mini-jetty. This is Borneo after all; the jungle is mere steps from the infinity pool, and it’s your obligation to go home just a little untamed.

How to get there:

Gayana Eco Resort is less than an hour by car and ferry from Kota Kinabalu airport (BKI).