I’m mostly naked, save for a cotton sarong wrapped around my torso, when a monitor lizard ambles into my line of sight. Above my head, I can hear yellow-beaked hornbills rustling in the tree branches. Just a few moments earlier, I’d seen a romp of otters scuttle across a swamp in the far distance as I was rinsing off in an outdoor shower. They’re the sort of wildlife encounters I’d expect on a walking safari – but, in fact, I’m in an open-air spa pavilion in the middle of a rainforest in Langkawi, preparing for a massage.
Langkawi is an archipelago off the northwest coast of Malaysia, close to the Thai border, with rock formations dating back more than 550 million years. During the Ice Age, equatorial Southeast Asia (then known as “Sundaland”) was spared from freezing over. Because of this, the island’s plant and animal life had many more years to flourish compared to other parts of the world, leading to the mature, biodiverse rainforests of today.
