You may have seen places such as the Pangkor Laut Resort on television travel shows, the ones where the scripts are so far removed from reality that you'd need cupboards stuffed with banknotes and clothes weaved from gold in order to visit any of the destinations they suggest. It's the sort of place you go on your honeymoon, or after you've won the lottery, or when you receive Richard Branson's credit card in the mail by accident. It's quite expensive, I think is the point I'm trying to make here. The resort is situated on the privately owned island of Pangkor Laut, about a mile off the west coast of Malaysia, and is so ridiculously extravagant that you almost want to feel guilty that you've been forced to save up for several years to come here while your friends have had to make do with a Club 18-30 holiday to Ibiza. On the other hand, a stay on Pangkor Laut definitely ticks a box on many people's bucket list as it's one of the few places in the world where you can stay in a romantic wooden villa built on stilts over the sea, waking up in the morning surrounded by water and tropical fish. This is not a service they offer in Ibiza, where the closest you are ever likely to get is waking up in the sea after a drunken night of debauchery, surrounded by empty crisp packets and discarded alcopop bottles - and I could've made that last sentence so much more unpleasant, believe me.

Unlike back at the Rayavadee, the beaches of Pangkor Laut are genuinely private - there is absolutely no chance that any tour boats will disturb your peace here, and if one comes too close then I believe they send a submarine out and threaten it with depth charges. The staff here seem to take your holiday very seriously - as well they should, considering the amount of time you'll be spending back home eating nothing but bread and rice after you've paid the bill - and this means that you'll want for nothing while you're here. Case in point: After spending time at the Centara Villas on Phuket and the Rayavadee in Krabi, Eloise and I were getting somewhat used to dressing up for dinner and presenting ourselves at our table as though we were dining with the queen, but I have to admit that the food has not always been to our tastes. This isn't a complaint as such - when you go abroad, you have to expect to be offered local cuisine - but it does present something of a problem when you're stuck on an island a mile from the mainland where there is literally no other option but to eat what they give you. Anywhere else, I strongly suggest that we would've either starved to death or forced ourselves to eat whatever we were served while the chef stood over us looking down his nose with contempt at these ignorant British tourists with their taste for the zee feesh and cheeps. I don't know why the chef would be French, by the way. Anyway, this was simply not the case at the Pangkor Laut resort - if we liked what was on the menu, that was fine. If we didn't, that was also fine - the chef would just nip off and knock something up, so to speak - and I think I can safely say that I've never encountered this level of customer service anywhere else in the world, so I take my hat off to the Pangkor Laut for that. Of course, I don't mean to suggest for one moment that Eloise ad I prefer McDonalds to haute cuisine or anything - it's just that there comes a point where the most basic thing on the menu is Red Quail in a white wine sauce, marinated slowly on a bed of snails and served stuffed with mixed fruits of the forest on a platter of deep fried grasshoppers, and you just have to say enough is enough.

One thing Pangkor Laut is not short on is choice of accommodation, covering every taste if perhaps not budget. Spread throughout the extensive gardens, simple villas overlook the grounds or the beach, and for those with a little more to spend it is possible to splash out for a hillside villa overlooking the whole resort - just in case you want to look down on those with less to spend, quite literally. If you happen to be the head of a large corporation, are desperate to spend every penny in your bank account before your children get their hands on it, or have recently robbed the Bank of England, then there are also the stilted sea villas I mentioned earlier. I should warn you, however, before you start reaching down the back of the sofa for all those millions you don't trust the banks with any more, that staying in a sea villa could very possibly ruin every other holiday you go on in the future - after waking up to the sound of the tide lapping at your door, no other accommodation will ever feel the same. And when I describe the sea villas as stilted, by the way, I suggest only that they are built on stilts. In no way do I wish to imply that they are slightly formal and boring. But what do I do, I hear you ask, if I've literally got money falling out of every orifice and still want to feel as though I'm spending above my means? Well, if this sounds like you, then Pangkor Laut can offer you the Pavarotti Suite, a place so ridiculously expensive that they won't actually tell you how much it is unless you write and ask - and then pay the deposit in gold bullion.

Getting to the resort from Kuala Lumpur was simplicity itself, involving a forty minute taxi ride to the airport followed by a short flight to the small neighbouring island of Pangkor. From here, a private boat picked us up and sped us across to Pangkor Laut, where we arrived on their private jetty to find ourselves being greeted with drinks and complementary stuff we couldn't identify but which was delicious anyway. After checking in and being shown to our garden villa, we quickly dumped all our stuff and set about exploring the resort. This is not, I think it's safe to say, anything like Butlins. A large open plan restaurant and bar overlooks the beach and provides a central meeting place in which to surround yourself with other people with more money than sense. At dinner, our table is always carefully lit with just enough mood lighting to ensure that we have to squint at each other throughout the meal while still finding it unbelievably romantic, while the usual boring reservation card you would find anywhere else is replaced by a large leaf on which somebody has painted my name in gold. You can't even have a plate of chips at Pangkor Laut without the management finding a way of involving precious metals in the equation. Behind the restaurant, a large swimming pool has provided many a happy hour since our arrival - especially since this is one of those places where you can actually get away with clicking your fingers and waiting for a platter of exotic delights to appear on a table next to your deckchair as if from nowhere. There's nothing like being waited on hand and foot, especially when you've just emptied out your bank account for the pleasure and are expecting to have to move into a cardboard box under a bridge when you get home. The resort also sports an extensive library, TV lounge, tennis and squash courts, so there's something for everyone from the laziest layabouts to the most hyperactive olympic athletes. On the other hand, if you've come here looking to be pampered, there's the spa village - an entire complex separated from the rest of the resort and stuck out of sight around the hillside where you might not even discover it unless you decide to walk the entire length of the sea villa boardwalk. I think it's safe to say that booking ourselves into the spa retreat would've been a luxury too far, but almost certainly one which we wouldn't have forgotten in a hurry. The more time you spend at Pangkor Laut, the more you find to throw your money at.

One thing we hadn't expected was to find a large resident peacock population at Pangkor Laut. One of my friends once lived on a farm in England where peacocks roamed around scaring the foxes, and I used to tell people this on a regular basis in the hope that some of them might think I had connections in the aristocracy or something. The presence of peacocks anywhere near your property in England, of course, probably only means that your neighbours have a bit of money to splash about - but there is something altogether different about seeing them wandering around a luxury resort, spreading their tail feathers and peering down at you gracefully as you luxuriate in the outdoor jacuzzi. This is sheer indulgence. Occasionally, as Eloise and I are wandering hand in hand through the grounds, we'll hear an almighty screech from nearby and see a group of these magnificent creatures wander casually past as we pick ourselves up and shake our heads to clear the ringing in our ears. For such beautiful animals, peacocks certainly have one hell of a voice on them.

Wandering through the beautifully tended grounds, jumping out of the way of a man on a sit-down lawn mower who appeared quite suddenly from around the side of a garden villa, we followed a pathway into the surrounding forest and up a heavily wooded hill to where we discovered the hill villas nestling amongst the trees. Each had its own cute little wooden gate, a pathway beyond leading up to the door of what looked suspiciously like a pixie's cottage. It was at about this point that we both looked at each other, and just knew telepathically that we were going to have to upgrade. We were going to have to throw caution to the wind, re-evaluate whether or not we could still afford to go to all the places we had planned for the rest of the trip, and throw money at reception until they allowed us to have a hill villa. Pangkor Laut does this to you - no matter what type of accommodation you check into, unless you're in the Pavarotti Suite, you'll almost certainly become incredibly envious of the next step up and want to upgrade at the earliest opportunity. Luckily, Eloise was feeling quite tired from the journey, so I was able to take her back to our garden villa and leave her to catch up on some sleep while I snuck off to see if I could persuade the resort to upgrade us - and this is where I think I may have some sound advice for anybody wanting to come to a resort like this but not possessing a bank account to match their ambitions. First of all, don't assume that somewhere like Pangkor Laut is going to be filled to capacity every night - it probably isn't, given that there just aren't enough super-rich types willing to splash out on the most expensive options to keep the place full all year around. So the best advice I can give is to choose the best villa you can afford and see if you can upgrade in resort. If you empty out your piggy bank and book a sea or spa villa from the outset, your travel agent or online booking site is likely to charge you the full rate plus their cut - once you arrive in resort, however, and find it half empty, you're going to have a much better chance of getting yourself a bargain. Think about it - if the resort knows that 3 of their sea villas are going to be empty tonight and you offer to give them any amount of money whatsoever to upgrade, they'll still end up with more money than they would have had otherwise. The deal you get is going to depend on who you talk to, current capacity and whether or not you turn up at reception looking like you've just crawled out of a bush, of course, but you get my point. Anywhere you stay at a resort such as Pangkor Laut is going to be amazing - but if you can get a cheap upgrade upon arrival, that's got to be a bonus.

When I returned to Eloise, having talked the manager into letting us upgrade to a hill villa with immediate effect, she was fast asleep on the bed. The patio doors, which I had closed behind me on the way out, were slightly open. At the far end of the room, on a side table, there had previously been a freshly filled bowl of fruit, and this had now been turned upside down. A trail of half eaten fruit and shredded pieces of peel led down from the table, across the floor, over the bed where Eloise was sleeping, and out the patio doors. Apparently, while I had been away, one of the local monkeys had taken it upon himself to grab some free food - it must've opened the patio doors, helped itself to the fruit bowl and then clambered across Eloise to get back out, leaving a trail of devastation behind it. My girlfriend, exhausted from the ridiculous amount of travelling we had been doing over the last few days, had remained oblivious throughout. And here's a top tip for you - if you ever find yourself in the position of having to wake your other half up and inform them that they've just been walked all over by a monkey, you might want to do it wearing earplugs.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.