Ayurvedic spa: Dousing the inner fires on a retreat in Bali
Bruce Emond, The Jakarta Post, Seminyak, Bali
As I gingerly squeezed myself into my snug economy class seat on the plane ride back from Bali, the 50-something foreign man next to me gave me the once over.
"Big guy for a little space," he quipped.
When the seat-belt sign went off, I beat a retreat to the empty seat behind us. He turned back and gave me a wink, no doubt relieved that, in the event of one of the now increasingly frequent abortive takeoffs, there was a smaller chance of me breaking from the constraints of my seat-belt and sliding inexorably sideways.
And I smiled back, which was a small victory for self-control.
At most other times, I probably would have let the comment rile me, itching to cast a look in the direction of the pregnant woman with a bad bout of burping next to him and declare, as a statement of fact, not an inquiry, "Sorry old fart for a pretty young thing".
This day, things were a bit different. I was coming off a blissful three-day Ayurvedic retreat, during which I had been pampered, pounded and prodded, had three pairs of hands drizzle hot oil over me and drifted off to sleep snuggling in a softly cushioned lanai as mellow-voiced pak Budi trod all over me to iron out my lower back pain.
The tiredness of arriving on the last flight from Jakarta at midnight had been quickly forgotten as I stepped for the first time into the garden of my villa at the renovated and refurbished Prana Spas & Villas. I slowly took in the sight of the small lap pool with the yin-yang sign painted on its tiles as the lilting sound of Balinese gamelan came from the CD player.
Although the villas and spa are positioned on Jl. Kunti, across from a deli and leading to the main shopping and restaurant strip of Seminyak, I found the place to be an oasis of peace and quiet.
My retreat actually began weeks earlier, when I had filled in a "preferences" sheet, telling of preferred exercise times, types of physical activity and foods. This is part of Prana's approach of having guests "write" their own program, one which meets their needs but will not be the equivalent of enduring a spartan boot camp.
And so I had arrived early on that Saturday morning, ready to put my mind, body and spirit back into working order.
Most fascinating of all to me was the opportunity to reexperience Ayurveda, the "science of life", which I had become acquainted with during a retreat last year to Sri Lanka, along with India one of the two major centers for the ancient holistic treatment, at a point much closer to home.
At that time, I had learned of Ayurveda's three life forces or humors -- vata (air, corresponding to wind in the body), pitta (fire or bile) and kapha (water or phlegm) -- which are responsible for the functioning of the human body.
When the dosha are out of whack, due to aggravating factors such as diet, stress, lifestyle or emotional imbalance, disease can take over because they influence the dhatu, the seven elemental constituents of the body: plasma, blood, flesh, fat, bones, marrow and semen.
Ayurveda's holistic approach is to put them back in balance through nurturing the mind and body.
In the privacy of my villa, Prana therapist Richard Rosen gave me a a checklist for identifying characteristics for the humors -- examining things like the pulse, hair texture, skin color, shape of the eyes, the condition of the tongue, even the frequency of bowel habits.
He pronounced that it was only a formality that I turned out to be pitta, the same diagnosis made during my retreat in Sri Lanka, and that I was operating on a short fuse.
"I could immediately tell from your gait, your voice, the way you looked at me that you were pitta," said Rosen, an energetic 50-year-old certified martial arts instructor and therapist.
To keep the simmering fire inside me from flaring up and eventually ending in burn-out, Rosen recommended that I cut down on chili and other stimulating spices in my diet, and make a concerted effort to take time out from my work schedule to exercise and resume waylaid hobbies.
Those were measures to be taken in the future, but for the time being I got to enjoy my spa experience.
The sumptuous seclusion of one's own villa with its own pool (plus open upstairs loft area, with complete audiovisual system) is nothing to write home about in Bali, where seemingly every sybaritic pleasure is catered to.
The difference at Prana (the name means life or breathing force in Sanskrit) is that the spa -- a brand-new, magnificent interpretation of a 16th century Indian palace with spiraling turrets and a maze of richly furnished corridors leading to treatment rooms -- is only a few meters away from the 50 villas.
Guests can saunter over for their treatment at the designated time, and return a few hours later, suitably rejuvenated, to the comfort and privacy of their villas.
I started out with a consultation with Karen Biancardi, the spa trainer and consultant, who, like Rosen, comes from the internationally acclaimed Chiva Som resort in Thailand. It was supposed to be a yoga session, but I managed to shirk that as we talked about the spa's offerings.
"You need no less than three days, but it's probably best to have at least a week if you are coming from an urban center like Jakarta," said the Los Angeles native, who has an eclectic background of fitness training, yoga and the current fitness favorite of pilates along with facial and make-up expertise.
"We go with what is comfortable for you ... My philosophy is that when you have made yourself stronger physically, your spirituality grows because you don't have the physical thing blocking it ..."
Later, I underwent my Prana Rebalancing Treatment, where I was ushered into a grandly appointed treatment room and rubbed down with aromatic hot oils by three masseuses, emerging with an intense feeling of calm an hour and a half later.
In the evening, I returned for a reflexology treatment from Budi, flopping down in my bed an hour later and enjoying the best, uninterrupted sleep I have had in ages.
The next afternoon, it was time for the appropriately named Divine Renewal Treatment, the ultimate in pampering consisting of a 210-minute treatment starting out with a dip in hot and cold plunge pools, a scrub with aromatic seal salts, a seaweed bodymask in the steam room, lymphatic massage, a cleansing facial, reflexology and then a cream bath.
It was sheer pleasure at every turn and touch, with the simplest considerations, from the ginger-lemon welcome tea, the soothing choice of music, even the selection of therapists -- Rosen pairs up guests with attendants who have balancing humors -- making it a painless, thoroughly stressless experience.
Rosen plans to have the most complete set of Ayurvedic treatments available in Bali, although it does not include the intensive "panca karma", a cleansing and rejuvenating process including use of emetics.
As I reluctantly prepared to leave my villa the next day, I reflected on the entire trip. Yes, it had been by invitation, with all the special considerations that are entailed, and it would be beyond my budget (packages for two persons range from US$1,500 net for four days/three nights to $4,900 for 12 days/13 nights, inclusive of meals and treatments) except in a manic spending phase.
But its real value did not hit home until a couple of weeks later. As I faced the usual flood of e-mails on a Monday morning, from the litany of spam to complaints about missing articles from the paper, I could feel the fire burning inside of me. At that moment, I would have gladly headed back to Prana for some more soul- nourishing relaxation.
Prana Spa & Villas, Jl. Kunti II 8X, Seminyak, tel. 0361- 730840, www.thevillas.net.