5* luxury in Borneo

Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa is in a stunning seafront location set in 400 acres of tropical forest just outside Kota Kinabalu. Spend lazy days on the beach, relax on a Jacuzzi bed in the pool and book a treatment at Borneo’s finest spa, a village set on its own island offering body massage, stretching, hydrotherapy and meditation. There are also daily activities at the resort, including tai chi, traditional wine tasting, bird watching and a big water play area with waterslides, water balloon launchers and a huge pool with a tapered shoreline for kids. There is also a good selection of restaurants if you want to upgrade from a room only basis, including Peppino, a romantic Italian voted one of the best restaurants in Malaysia.

Shangri-la Tanjung Aru is a short distance from Sabah’s capital, Kota Kinabalu, from where you can take a short flight to Sandakan to spend a day or two seeing orang-utans in their natural habitat at Sepilok’s Nature Reserve. Also from Kota Kinabalu you can take a short boat ride out to one of the tiny islands in the national park and have the best snorkelling in the South China Sea.

The Tanjung Aru has a shuttle bus to its sister hotel, the Rasa Ria, where you can wander through the orang-utan rehabilitation sanctuary – a wonderful and natural mini-forest where you can also birdwatch, take guided jungle walks, traverse by the canopy walkway or do a nocturnal animal watch in the hope of seeing rare species of Borneo’s nocturnal wildlife, such as the sambar deer, barking deer, mouse deer, civet cat, slow loris, common porcupine and many others.