Apr 19 2009
Spa Resorts
Nothing beats a rejuvenating session in a luxurious Spa Resort. In fact, many resort have been designed around a spa.
Once you have selected you Spa Resort, you can indulge in the vast variety of treatment options offered, many of which also boast health benefits.
Exotic spas are getting more popular. A lake spa resort will be ideal for someone who wants to be totally relaxed and avoid the noise and crowd of a city spa. A seaside spa resort offers not only great opportunities to get a sun tan and enjoy the sea sport, but to also unwind after a hot day out in the sun.
In fact, there are plenty of award winning Spa Resorts in Thailand, Maldives and even India.
The resort island of Bali garnered yet another international accolade this year when it was named the Best Spa Tourism Destination in the World 2009 by Berlin-based fitness magazine Senses.
With a total of 600 spas operating across the country, you are really spoilt for choice!
I had the chance to vacation at The Four Seasons at Jimbaran Bay, which is set in a spendid natural environment.
The Spa at the Four Seasons Bali is currently offering two unique treatments that I had the pleasure of indulging in: Water Massage and CranioSacral therapy.
I started with the Water Massage which is a gentle, nurturing therapy carried out in warm water, combining movement, stretches and cradling.
My spa therapist, Elisa gently moved my body both on and under the water, to assist the expansion and range of motion in my spine. The session helped to clear my mind and enables you to experience a state of weightless meditation through floating.
It also assists in facilitating natural healing in one’s body.
Next, I was guided to the indoor spa for the CranioSacral therapy which is a gentle method of detecting and releasing energy blocks that can occur in one’s body, due to every day stress and exposure to environmental pollution.
According to Elisa, it allows your own natural healing mechanisms to dissipate negative effects of stress on your central nervous system, thereby relieving a wide range of medical problems associated with pain and dysfunction, including arthritis, asthma, chronic fatigue, depression, digestive problems, dizziness, and emotional difficulties, to name a few.
The effects of this treatment are lasting for both the body and mind.
Another award winner is the Ayan Resort and Spa (formerly the Ritz-Carlton) which was awarded international third place in the 9th Annual Travel and Leisure World’s Best Spa Awards
The Resort’s Thalasso Spa also achieved the number three position in the category of Worlds Best Spa for Asia and the Pacific and is a tremendous accolade for the relatively young Spa.
The latest announcement comes just after the Resort was voted The World’s No. 1 Resort ($250 or under) in the Travel and Leisure 2004 Worlds Best Awards August issue and is
celebrated by the ladies and gentlemen of The Ritz-Carlton Bali, Resort & Spa.
“This impressive award indicates that the Resorts Thalasso Spa is one of the most exceptional and unsurpassed spa experiences in Asia and the world and a tribute to the ladies and gentlemen of our Spa who continually provide outstanding and incomparable service to our guests,” said David Wilson, General Manager.
Internationally acclaimed, the award winning Spa has one of the world’s largest Aquatonic Seawater Therapy Pools, state of the art hydrotherapy treatment rooms and spacious private Spa Villas, Meditation Pavilions, Reflexology Zen Centre and Spa Café.
With an incomparable touch of Bali’s traditional health, rejuvenation and beauty treatments, the Resort Spa offers a range of sixty innovative body treatments, timeless European seawater therapies and signature beauty treatments within a luxurious five star resort destination.
The latest recognition adds to the list of Awards the Thalasso Spa has achieved including being voted No. 1 in the World for Treatments (T+L Magazine 2003) and The Best Spa in Asia (CNN Worldwide 2003).
The results of the Worlds Best Spa reader’s survey and methodology are featured in the October 2004 issue of Travel+Leisure magazine and available to view online.
Other great Spa Resorts worth visiting include:
1. ESPA at One&Only Reethi Rah, Maldives
2. Spa Village Tanjong Jara, Tanjong Jara Resort, Malaysia
3. Six Senses Spa, Soneva Gili by Six Senses, Maldives
4. Ananda Spa, the Himalayas, India
5. Rancho Bernardo Inn, San Diego
6. JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa, Phoenix
7. Copperwynd Resort and Club, Fountain Hills, Arizona
8. Chiva-som International, Hua Hin, Thailand
9. Banyan Tree, Yunnan Province, China
This resort is located on the Tibetan plateau…built from recyled Tibetan farmhouses….utterly gorgeous, pastoral and ancient.
Girls with cheeks the colour of ruby wine, ponies covered in ribbons, old men tending to their trays of bees. The trekking round here is wonderful, but do make sure you book a guide.
You won’t find bigger, bolder, more invigorating design in a big-name hotel anywhere in the world: fires in the middle of the rooms, wooden baths with ladles, beds like fallen clouds.
The spa is up the hill with views of wildflowers and there are hilarious Yeti slippers to put on at the door.
Have a hot-stone massage with river rocks warmed in the fire. It’s all very earthy in a place on top of the world, alive to the sound of cuckoos. Go while the sound of the villages’ giggling girls is still carried on the fresh, clean air. Deeply special.
