Unique to the Spa at Jimbaran is its Quiet Room: while painted in hot shades like the rest of the spa pavilion, it offers absorbing time-out as nurturing as the treatments themselves. Treatments here are high class and expertly devised in a menu that makes choosing almost as agonizing as the stress they aim to bust. The mere sound of a Coconilla Scrub with Vanilla Beans and Coconut Milk, a steamy 20 minutes in a Peppermint and Lemon Grass Vapour, or a Wrap with Aloe Vera and Banana Leaves, is a heaven-sent reminder that indeed this is the Island of the Gods.
Many treatments have been exclusively devised by Kim and Cary Collier, a couple who spent a number of years studying Indonesia's botanical heritage before launching their own spa consultancy. Their sensitive dedication to their work is reflected in the 'karma' that prevails among the therapists and hangs in the air. They also create the divine products used here. The texture, fragrance and ingredients of the spa's Bali Santi massage blend - coconut oil infused with essential oils of vetiver, basil and patchouli - speak for themselves. Sampling is believing!
While this spa is beautifully designed with indoor-outdoor treatment rooms offering that all-Asian frisson of showering naked next to nature, guests can be pampered in the privacy of their own residence too. These comprise walled courtyards, dining pavilion, bedroom, bathrooms inside and out and the famous private plunge pool and outsized tub. Indeed, some guests have been known not to emerge through their carved, painted, double Majapahit Palace front doors from arrival to check-out... and they have still enjoyed spa treatments most people only dream about.
Hand movements in traditional Balinese massage.
A view up to the lobby from the main body of the hotel designed by Grounds Kent Architects according to a brief that combines the ambience of Balinese culture, namely a Balinese village layout, and the standards of a hotel in the 'World's Best' category.
(Clockwise from top) This infinity edge pool is one of the resort's two public pools. However this was one of Asia's first hotels to introduce private plunge pools in each of the villa suites.
All spa treatments are based on natural products rather than chemical preparations.
In oriental philosophy breath is synonymous with 'inspiration from the gods'. While normal breathing supposedly eliminates one third of toxins from our bodies, inhaling essential oils does more, stimulating our respiratory and nervous systems. This must explain why the scent from these oil burners enhances our sense of well being as soon as we enter this spa.
The Bali Hyatt was one of the first and remains one of the loveliest hotels on Sanur Beach. This swimming pool lies just back from the sand amid 36 acres of exquisite garden, designed by landscape architect Made Wijaya.
Spa at Bali Hyatt
Like so many Javanese words, leha leha says it all succinctly. It says peace, relaxation, day dreaming, an empty mind and lying prostrate gazing at the sky. In other words it says 'tropical spa experience', and more precisely the Spa at Bali Hyatt. This spa, designed and built as a Balinese village, is overhung with bougainvillea branches and lost in the midst of one of the most bountiful hotel gardens in Asia. It is leha leha at its most tangible.
In the raised, open reception of the spa, enjoy the honeyed taste of a health drink while you look at the stone maidens, hear the water that trickles from their pitchers, smell the flowers and touch the velvet pink of lotus blooms in the pond. Then walk through the Balinese doors into the inner sanctum for the ultimate leha leha.
The Spa at Bali Hyatt is special for the longer treatment programmes it offers. Once ensconced in your enormous private spa villa with sunken bath, shower and daybed outside and more within, it would be criminal not to linger for a two- or three-hour session. On top of this, the therapists here
are blissfully slow at keeping time and quick at offering unexpected added extras: a floral foot soak at the start of every treatment, heated oil for scalp therapies, flower bowls fragrant with essential oils and an almost excessive change of fluffy towels. They even leave you with a fruit platter midway through your treatment for 20 minutes more of pure leha leha on your daybed. On leaving, it really is a case of pinching yourself back into the real world of signing the bill!
This spa mixes a complement of Asian-based scrubs, baths, masks
and massages with Western jacuzzis, saunas, steam treatments and Australian essential oils. The belief is that its high-end customers like a tinge of familiarity to underpin the exotic.
The traditional Balinese village layout of the spa.
Designed to mimic a Balinese house plan, these spacious 85-square-metre villas offer a complete escape for up to five hours at a time with a seven-treatment session called The Raharja The day bed is known as a balé bengong which translates as a place for day dreaming.
The Spa at Bali Hyatt has its own exclusive range of massage oils blended with specific essential oils for slimming and easing muscles and for 'intimacy' and 'patience'. The larger bottles of body oils have romantic names such as Moonlight Stargaze and Spirit.
The owners of the Ibah refer to their hotel as a 'luxury homestay', although it is one of the most special on the Balinese spa resort circuit. It achieves. completely, the owners' dream to create a resting place for the senses, mind and heart.
Mandara Spa at the Ibah
Somehow it is obvious - and all the better - when a hotel is family run, as in the case of the Ibah. In fact, it barely qualifies as a hotel with just eleven rooms, more akin to cottages each with its own distinct design.
The Ibah's owners are an Ubud royal family who have held this dramatic site above the confluence of two rivers is for generations. Like the proprietor's grandfather who would walk the one kilometre from the palace in Ubud to holiday and meditate on this spiritual slope, his descendant has sought to preserve it as an oasis of tranquillity for the lucky few who stay here.
"Staying at the Ibah is like being in love," says Tjokorda Raka Kerthyasa, its erudite and passionate owner, "you cannot explain it until you experience it." Somehow the light breeze, darting carp, murmuring water, nodding plants and sun-flecked stone seem to offer a healing power that in no extent of the imagination can be anticipated.
This meditative mood remains unchanged in the spa, a panelled salon in the eaves, designed to cater for just one person or couple at a time, so as not to clutter its healing purpose. There's nothing clinical here. Instead, the dark teak wood and colonial furniture lend the spa salon a sense of decadence, accentuated by the massage boudoir, subtly lit behind tall curtains and lined with mirrors and stone deities that watch over you as you lie naked under their gaze.
Similarly,