Spa-ing in Asia

Spas are woven even more firmly into the Asian culture. No surprise since so many of the spa treatments we enjoy today originated there. This is a photo of Boracay's Caticlan airport. These massage stations are a common sight at airports for "quick fixes."

More on the Farm at San Benito and Energetic Healing

Did I sound too high-minded in my last post? What I really meant to say was that it felt great to visit this place of healing where I could talk freely about alternative practices and energy healing without having to clean up my language for fear of sounding too woo-woo. I’ve gotten bad responses in the past. I remember going to an ear, nose and throat doctor about my sinuses and telling him that I’d had acupuncture for the condition. He was silently disapproving except for how his eyes narrowed. I think he disliked the fact that I was actually participating in trying to get myself well. He didn’t like being questioned, even when it was for a $5000 CAT Scan he proposed. I never went back but was none too happy when I got his bill and realized that the probe that he casually put up my nose cost $500.

By the time I sat down with one of the Farm doctors, Dr. Marian Alonzo, it was dusk. I was several hours late because of bad weather that put my whole day behind schedule, which ended up being a blessing because the doctor was finished with work and free to talk. I remember being aware that I should begin our conversation slowly despite the late hour. I thought she might be cautious or even defensive speaking with a journalist and I didn’t want to get too deep too fast. But it was she dove right in.

Dr. Alonzo was mesmerizing. She is young, petite, pretty and appeared . . . breakable. She wore flip-flops (practically the uniform of tropical countries) and a crisp white coat and her perfectly silky hair was perfectly pulled back. She shared stories about being green when she first started working at the Farm, and of her first patients and how she was afraid. When was the last time you heard a Western doctor admit that? She actually hid from one of them, she told me. It was a woman who came in quite ill but very feisty, angry and demanding. Dr. Alonzo called her a—and if you could see her you would know how out of character this is—“the bitchiest patient I ever had.” The woman came with a tumor in her colon. Dr. Alonzo and she ended up being great co-partners in restoring the woman to health. They had a ritual after the woman left: at 7 AM each morning, no matter where they were, they would both envision the woman’s colon being healthy. She said they’d often have wild images while doing this. I recall her saying something about an octopus. . . Seven months later, the woman’s colonoscopy showed no sign of a tumor.

Caroline Myss, the teacher and medical intuitive talks a lot about this type of energetic healing. If you’re interested, she has lots of great CDs on the topic. She also travels the world, teaching. And then there’s Dr. Mehmet Oz, of course, who's done wonders in bringing healing practices that were previously considered quackery to the mainstream.

After medical school Dr. Alonzo studied naturopathy at Chi Med Asia in Manila. The Philippines is very advanced in their acceptance and use of alternative therapies.

Mandala Spa and Resort is So Much More Than This

I learned about the two-to-a-room practice while at the Mandala Spa on Boracay. Our little group—three of journalists who had attended the Spa Asia Wellness Summit in Manila—arrived at dusk. On our rickety jipney we turned off the rackety main road to follow the simple sign (see logo, top left) that would lead us to a little piece of paradise—one of many. The grounds were enchanting. The design was so simple that I felt absolutely absorbed into its purity. A lovely woman named Preeti,, all dressed in white, held her right hand to her heart and welcomed us. Soon hot ginger tea arrived. I drank in the beauty and serenity along with my tea. I think I sighed a lot. As I wended my way through the wooded grounds—left to the Watsu pool, right to the yoga studio and upstairs to Prana, the vegetarian restaurant, where all the produce is grown onsite, and which overlooks White Beach—I wanted to pull out my credit card and book a room right there, right then, for the remainder of my stay. The place felt like The Land That Time Let Be.

Soon, Chinggay came to take me to the massage room. There were two beds. I didn’t know one of them would soon be filled with K, an American woman living in Bangkok that I’d only met that morning and who was part of our entourage. MC, who I’ve mentioned in my last post, was also in our group. She and I had rooms across the hall from one another at the Sofitel, where the Wellness Summit had taken place, and we had become friendly. MC told me that morning that she knew K, that K had lived with her and another friend a few years earlier in Bangkok. She also told me that K had skipped out on the rent. Just what an overly sensitive, people-pleasing Libra like me needs: to be caught between two women who are not speaking to each other.

In fact, I’d been handling it pretty well. Somehow I managed to float a few inches above the tension. Dare I say I even felt pleased with myself for being the human cushion that they both leaned against occasionally so that it wasn’t even obvious to our guide Rene that the two of them never actually spoke to one another.

What I didn’t know was that shortly after I’d been whisked away to my own room, K and MC were being led—together—to another. Luck of the draw. But K couldn’t handle it; in fact, she refused to enter a room with MC. I can only imagine how the lovely and gentle staff felt by this sudden burst of . . .rancor. What did they do? They separated them and put K in my room. By this time I was about 5 – 10 minutes into my session. Here I was, face down with my head in the face pillow and I hear someone entering and sotto voce talking.

What is that? It surely took me out of my own peace. Fortunately, I was done 5 – 10 minutes before K so we weren’t forced to dress or undress together. But I was scratching my head the whole time, metaphorically, of course. The massage lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes and on and off, I wondered who the heck was in my room. Remember this was my first twosome experience so I was doubly confused. I don’t know that all the other treatment rooms were taken, and I don’t know that they weren’t. Again, tradition has it that sharing is nothing unusual and so the doubling up was pro forma.

I can’t help but wonder how the outburst affected K’s therapist. After all, negative energy flows both ways. She may have had great difficulty working on K. I know I felt it, though it wasn’t until afterwards when MC fairly pounced on me to relate K’s scandalous behavior that the gaps were filled in for me. Let me just say that for the Libra that I am, always looking to smooth things over and make everyone else in the room comfortable, I stood up for myself when MC approached me. I put my palm up, shook my head and gently said, Please.

MC got it and apologized and floated away. K left early the next morning.

Happy Birthday to Me, Korean Style

My own birthday was on October 10. I spent it at the base of Mt. Pinatubo, a not-much-thought-about volcano until it erupted in the Philippines in 1991, after hundreds of years of slumber. I’d heard about hot springs occurring naturally after the eruption near the crater, and that a spa—called Spa Town—had opened, somewhat making the best of Pinatubo’s ghastly emission, which made the area a ghost town and displaced a local tribe called the Aita. (Though I’m not sure you can displace nomadic people. Actually what happened is that they ended up taking root in the area and, with some help, they’ve been taught to make touristy objets d’art from the ash that almost destroyed them. Progress? You decide.)

I should preface my day at Spa Town by saying that in the 10 or so days I spent in the Philippines I visited more spots that I can only describe as paradise and experienced more insanely divine Asian spa treatments than any mere human like myself should be allowed. (Not really; I deserved it, but so does everyone else. I wish I could have taken you all with me.) So if my birthday wasn’t spent in total bliss, hey, it’s an interesting story to tell and like I always pray, May I live an interesting life, I got my wish.

Spa Town is a decidedly different kind of spa experience. First, it’s Korean and though I can’t make judgments, the only other Korean spa experience I’ve had is in my hometown of Chicago and is called Paradise, which has become a sort of post-modern cult-y spa-esque experience for a small group of hipsters and lots of Korean-Americans. I’d post their website, if they had one. But I don't think they're in on the joke. In fact, I think they wish those hip, young Americans would just go away. Like Spa Town, the style and vibe in Paradise is not relaxation-, or luxury-, or pampering-focused. In fact, it’s sort of the antithesis. It’s a little gruff and, I found out, it can be a lot scary.

At Spa Town the facilities are totally outdoors and look beautiful, peaceful and serene. There is piped-in music that’s not quite ethereal spa music we’re accustomed to hearing. It is more like classical with a contemporary Asian flavor. I liked it. An enormous covered pavilion sat in the center of the grounds. Ladies in beautiful gold tunics were giving Thai massages while other workers industriously polished the pavillion's wood floor and the like, and generally emanated gentility. Off to one end, there was bricked-in area, this one filled with grey sulfur that had been raked smooth. On its edges were two ovens with attendants feeding the mouths kindling to heat the sulfur (check out the photo on the left). Another one exactly like it but filled with salt sat next to it. Circling further, there was a great mud bath, some showers and then a locker area.

I’m going to somewhat spare you the comical/grim trip to the hot springs, which are higher up alongside the volcano and require a 45-minute drive on what looked like the moon but was actually just a rocky, craggy and sometimes-covered-in-water expanse. I'll just give you the thumbnail sketch of that portion of my birthday. Yes, the drive up was surreal, sometimes spooky. But what was spookier is that Spa Town is located just next to Crow Valley. For the unacquainted, the U.S. essentially colonized the Philippines at the turn of the century for about 40 years, until the 1940s. They used Crow Valley to test bombs and munitions, and it continues to serve that purpose for the Filipino Air Force. We were stopped twice while trying to get to the hot springs by soldiers wearing military uniforms and carrying big guns, which was admittedly freaky except when you looked at their feet and saw that they were wearing flip flops when it became sort of sad.) Apparently, even though we were given the OK to proceed by the major on duty, target practice was in full swing and so we had to keep stopping to avoid, um, death.

It was idyllic Spa Town that really put me on the edge, however, and tested my will. Once it was decided my spa treatment was to begin, three staffers, one of them carrying a shovel, took me by the arms and walked me to the sulfur pen. It’s highly unusual for the Philippines, but none of these people spoke much English—and I was beginning to need some reassurance. All I heard was great discussion in Tagalog on how big a pit to dig—for me. It was dug quickly and they motioned for me to step in. What I remember most is the inner battle I was having with myself: Should I bail now, just say No Way, and regret forever that I will never know what could have happened, could never write about it like I am here? Or should I foolishly, cavalierly and because I don’t like to offend, get in that pit, get buried and risk a full-out panic attack?

I got in. They started shoveling. I didn’t like it. It felt creepy, grainly, itchy. And very hot. Shake your body! Shake your body! They kept saying. It wasn’t until my left leg felt like it was on fire that I understood what they meant. By shaking, your body settles into the sulfur, the better to feel the hot spots. As I lifted my legs as much as I could, the guy with the shovel put more sulfur under them. Better. But not much. Someone took a cloth and put it over my eyes. I don’t like that I can’t see. Not. One. Little. Bit. For the ash! For the ash, they say, when I struggle to get it off. I am now buried up to my neck, though they’ve taken the cloth off my eyes.

Half hour is my sentence, I’m told. I’m already sweating hotly and two of the attendants are gone. One young boy remains, but I don’t know that yet. I think I’m alone and so I gather my senses and begin to breathe as deeply and as evenly as I can. I think of the Sanskrit mantra Elizabeth Gilbert recites in “Eat, Pray, Love:” Ham-Sa. I Am That. And for now, “that,” for me, is terrified and sweating profusely.

Suddenly, I feel a hand holding a soft cloth to my face, and, with the same expert touch a mother has with her child, the boy begins wiping the sweat off my cheeks, around my eyes, on my chin and finishing on the forehead. He’ll do that every few minutes, or whenever he sees me twitch. That boy saw me through my half hour burial and I love him for it—though I think he was lying to me the final ten minutes when I began to ask for a countdown; I KNOW how ten minutes feels, and my friends, this was longer than 10 minutes. I struggled again and again. Just get up. Just get up. But I stuck it out until the boy gave me the okay.

I am super lady! For a moment, anyway.

After showering the sulfur off I am led to Dante’s next level of hell and am packed in mud and told to bake in the sun. This time a female attendant sits with me. She asks me questions about the US and why I am there. She is a nice distraction.

By the time I had my Thai massage, boy, did I need it. The therapist was great and the spa feeling I love so much returned. Best of all, I lived to tell the story here. Whoo-hoo. Happy birthday to me!

Mabuhay!

Mabuhay means hurrah (or live, thrive) in filipino/tagalog. This is according to one of those online translators so don't get mad if it's not an exact translation.

It describes the excitement I'm experiencing about heading off to the Philippines early (too early) Sunday morning. I'm going to be attending the Wellness Summit, which is sponsored by Spa Asia, a group I've talked about before on this blog. It's three days of some of the biggest names in healers, spa experts, like Neil Jacobs, who I've also talked about on this blog, and other industry professionals who will be discussing the state of the industry and how we could be doing better—as well I'm sure about what we're already doing right—in the Land of Spa. I'm very excited to be invited to attend as a journalist and then to report about it in the International Spa Association's trade publication, Pulse.

I'll try to write from there but, alas, Mercury is again going retrograde. (It begins October 9 but I can already feel the strong slow-down energy taking hold, especially when I called to confirm my flight reservation and was told that the computer inexplicably dropped my reservation; it's fine now.) If I don't manage it, check back after October 12, my return date, when I hope to be brimming with new ideas that I learned along the way!

Until then,

Mabuti!