The Sanchaya, Bintan, Indonesia

The beaches of Sanchaya, at low tide.

What a holiday. It’s with absolutely no exaggeration to say that this is the most opulent resort I’d been to. It was with some skepticism when I read reviews on TripAdvisor declaring The Sanchaya to be the most luxurious resort - ever, on a global scale, bar none. I'm naturally a skeptical person. But now that I’d experienced how responsive and proactive the staff are, I see what they mean. I hadn’t think resorts with such services exist, but then again, I’d not been to The Sanchaya before.

Being under an hour’s ferry ride away from Singapore, this resort is The Place To Be to celebrate significant life milestones. As we disembarked from the ferry, we were whisked away to a separate customs office. Our paperwork were expedited, and the private customs office led straight into The Sanchaya’s lounge, where we were served refreshments and snacks as we waited for our ride to the resort.

The resort is just a 10-minute drive from the ferry terminal. While check-in is at 3pm, we arrived too (?) early at 10am (It's my compulsive anxiety.) I was prepared to wander around until our check-in, but to my most pleasant joy, the staff made an astonishing amount of accommodation for us: we got the keys to our villa at 11am.

The first indication that The Sanchaya was a cut above other resorts was the tranquility. There was no crowd, no boisterous parties and no kids running amok. As we walked around, we heard the sound of scattered conversation, of wooden mallets striking croquet balls and of insects chirping in the dusk. It’s entirely peaceful. Each room was also wonderfully soundproofed: even when we were expecting rainfall on an afternoon when we stayed in, we realised it had rained only after we stepped out of the villa and saw that the ground was wet.

The astonishing cleanliness was something I appreciated deeply. I’m always a little wary of hotel room floors, but this was the first time that I felt the floor was clean enough to walk around barefooted. The staff too, routinely leave their shoes at the front step when they enter our room. I walked out barefooted even onto the balcony, which was spotless even despite the water lily pond, which lies just beyond our deck.

The back of our villa faces a water lily pond. The water lily flowers bloom in sunlight and close up at dusk.

The most outstanding part was its bespoke services. Over our stay, never once we were asked for our room number; the attendants recognise our faces and place us to our names and room number by sight. On one memorable occasion when the hotel staff wanted to run our dinner plans by me (I had previously arranged for the dinner over email), they had a near-preternatural ability to know exactly where to find us. We were strolling along the beach picking seashells on our first evening, and one of the resort managers came out to the beach and joined us first for small talk, then progressed to discuss the dinner reservations: because the sky was overcast, he wanted to check if we wanted to postpone our beach dinner to another night.

As we walked along the beach under the overcast sky, another passing attendant spotted us and came over to offer an umbrella.

By the pool, fresh folded towels are preemptively placed on poolside chairs, and tables have small bottles of insect repellant for guests to use. When we went for a swim in the pool and afterwards returned to our belongings, we found that an attendant had set down a picnic basket for us; inside, there was bottles of still and sparkling water, chilled glassware and lime slices, as well as sunscreen and moisturiser.

As dusk fell, we headed down to the beach for the Kong Ming Dinner, a private beachside 9-course dinner for two. The sun had just set, and the sea breeze from the horizon was cool on our skin. I had imagined that the food would be cooked in the resort’s kitchen and then brought out to us. But again, The Sanchaya aims to overdeliver. We got a private chef, who manned the grill downwind from our canopy, and his team who kept the dinner running smoothly.

The meal was a fine-dining experience: we started off with the obligatory warm bread rolls and churned butter, and progressed onto sashimi, smoked duck, an octopus salad and foie gras. As dinner moved from appetiser to mains, we were served lobster, ribeyes, chicken and grouper fillets from the grill. The food were beautifully seasoned and the caramelised grouper fillet in particular was faultless. It was perhaps the best fish that I’ve ever had. There was the undeniable sweet scent of Kaffir lime (I’m undecided if it was the leaves or the zest), and each bite was accentuated with a light crunch of sugar along the edges of the fillet. Each protein was a full-sized portion, and the whole affair was a spectacle that honestly could have comfortably fed at least 4 people. The staff were gracious enough to set up an additional bonfire for us by the beach, and as the dinner wound down, they brought out a paper lantern for us to release over the beach. It was indeed, a perfectly arranged event, and one could not have asked for more.

We spent our days enjoying the facilities. The beach is one of the best; the sand is so soft, I feel my heel sinking a couple of inches in with each step along the shoreline. In the waters, the sand becomes almost like one of those non-Newtonian fluids that become more viscous when you apply more force (anyone else played with cornflour slurry in their childhood?). We took paddle boards out along the coastline of Lagoi Bay in the morning. When it got too hot in the midday, we played croquet in the partially shaded lawn, or retreated to the bar to play traditional game of Mandala. There’s also a beautifully decorated library, with two volumes of cookbooks from The Sanchaya, where I tried in vain to look up the recipe for the caramelised grouper with kaffir lime. No such luck.

I challenged a golfer to a croquet game. Mistakes were made.

In the evenings, we cycled around the scenic lake, or walked the beach during the intertidal phase, where we saw hermit crabs and the likes in the clear water.

Turn-down service happens twice a day. In the mornings, two bottles of freshly squeezed fruit juice are delivered to our room along with local snacks and fruits. In the afternoons, an attendant comes by with fresh pastries. When we checked in, I made a comment about how I like fresh milk with my coffee, and for the next few days, the tea-time pastries came with an additional pitcher of milk in case I wanted to add it to my afternoon coffee from the in-suite espresso machine.

We spent a lot of time lounging around the room enjoying the ‘Maxibar’: the beverages are refilled daily (even the alcohol!). I brought along a bottle of Prosecco (my girlfriend laughed at me, but in the end, she drank the most), and we thoroughly enjoyed the full set of Riedel glassware, bottle opener and vacuum wine stoppers that had been thoughtfully laid out for guests beforehand. For the budding cocktail enthusiasts, you should bring along a selection of spirits. One particular day’s fresh fruit juice - a combination of pineapple, ginger and orange juice - made the perfect cocktail base. We enjoyed it with the travel-sized bottles of whiskies that I brought along, souvenirs from my Boston trip. I also loved the fact that part of the maxibar included two complimentary full-sized bars of chocolate from Janice Wong, which we devoured.

Even as I’m typing this one week later, I am still blown away by how great the staff are: they went to lengths to make sure that we had a great time. There were handwritten notes from the staff regarding our check-in and check-out time (hand-delivered, of course). And even after we had checked out and are lounging by the side of the pool before our transport to the ferry terminal, the staff brought out drinks for us. We were charmed by how gorgeous and photogenic the estate was, and when the staff saw us taking pictures, they would also offer to help us with our photography - even during when we were paddle boarding, or on the drive back to the ferry terminal, where the driver stopped by the scenic lake for us to have one last photography session.