Tanjong Jara Resort by John Borthwick

"Our neighbours are fishing villages, not Hiltons or Sheratons," says Peter Bucher, manager of Tanjong Jara Resort on the east coast of Malaysia, as he leans back, enjoying the dusk shadows and cricket trills that wash over the resort's open-air restaurant.

Macaque monkeys swing like tiny Tarzans through the tree canopy. Beyond the trees an empty swoop of beach heads north. We drink to it with a Mata Hari cocktail, made from local sago palm brandy.

Tanjong Jara is located on 17 verdant hectares of Terengganu state beachfront on one of Malaysia's least-exploited shores. The resort, the winner of an Aga Khan Award for Architecture, was established in 1979, well before "eco-tourism" became a marketing "motherhood" tag. Its developers worked in unusual (for the time) sympathy, preserving the watercourses, mature trees and shoreline that were, and remain, the site's patrimony. Clear felling for a tower resort-cum-karaoke palace was never part of the dream.

Extensively refurbished in recent years, Tanjong Jara has maintained the original vision that is its motto ‹ "Unmistakably Malay." I wander its seafront lawns where, several afternoons a week, events more resemble those in a Malay kumpung (village). At a little hawker's stall under a coconut tree a woman is cooking and serving ‹ free ‹ sweet pancakes; under another tree is the sizzling temptation of fresh satays; at another, a man pours local tarek coffee. Meanwhile on the grass, staff and guests are playing Malay shell games, taekraw (a rattan ball game) and getting all tangled up in an ever-accelerating bamboo stick dance. To say the least, it's an unusual scene for a five-star resort. Which is exactly what guests love about Tanjong Jara.

"We keep coming back here because it's not high-powered, flashy and intense," says Melvin, an annual visitor from the UK. I wander on towards the spa, where a gentle old gent, Pak Yahya, a fisherman turned masseur, expertly slips a few of the tension knots in my shoulders. His touch is skilled rather than schooled, employing techniques that have been handed down in his family for generations. This is a spa with a difference: in prim Malaysia, men may be massaged only by men, and women by women. No problem, they're all experts. There is a good range of Malay treatments, as well as Indonesian, Thai and Swedish ones, but none of the sort of hyperbolic novelties ("Executive Distress De-stress," etc) sometimes found elsewhere.

Two swimming pools, a water sports centre, vast landscaped gardens and three restaurants ‹ including the gourmet Di Atas Sungei perched above the flowing creek. A long, safe, hawker-free beach. Architecture inspired by a 17th century Malay sultan's palace. Staff who are attentive, not obsequious. Tanjong Jara's list of attributes goes on. And then there's the accommodation ‹ 96 well appointed suites and rooms. While these are all clean and spacious, it's apparent that the tropical climate has been harsh on some of the woodwork.

At the entrance to my single storey Anjung cottage suite (part of a beachfront duplex) is a vase of yellow coconut flowers, symbolising good fortune and fertility for honeymooners. (Absent-mindedly, I seem to have forgotten to pack the bride.) Inside the roomy suite I find plenty of chengal wood and teak ‹ flooring, big desk, chairs, platform bed ‹ plus views from both the main room and terrace towards the South China Sea. The bathroom (the only slightly tired area in the suite) leads to a sunken outdoor bath within a walled garden. Present too are all the electronic umbilicals - cable TV, modem and IDD phone - that keep us tethered to the world we're trying to leave.

This is a lived-in, well-loved resort whose warmth grows out of its own raw materials ‹ stone, rattan, tradition, craftsmanship, care ‹ rather than a concept structure that seems to have sprung from a design catalogue. Along with absent acres of marble, granite and stainless steel, Tanjong Jara lacks another thing. "Please, don't build a 'kids's club'" is, according to Peter Bucher, a frequent request from families who enjoy being thrown together here rather than separated by age-focussed activities.

I join several such families, from Holland and Kuala Lumpur, on a morning cruise 30-km offshore to Tenggol Island, part of Terengganu Marine Park. Here we snorkel and scuba dive amid spectacular gin-and-tonic clear waters. I count one turtle, two giant grouper, innumerable wrasse and jacks, and ten thousand clown fish. The untrammelled corals are a welcome sight after having seen so much shattered coral in other South-East Asian tourist regions.

Back at the resort, the sun goes down over Peninsula Malaysia. Somewhere in the gardens a gamelan player spreads a musical spell, charming the moon to rise like a mirror out of the sea. Time for another Mata Hari cocktail.