This is the blueprint of what the next generation of spas will be.
Journalist and author of Great Spa Escapes, Jo Foley, has seen the future of spas, and likes it.
Until the end or last year my unfailing response to the question. 'What's your favourite spa?' was Ananda in the Himalayas. a health resort in one of the most beautilullocations on earth, the foothills of that great mountain range. But then in January I fell hopelessly and helplessly in love with the future.
Carved out of a mountainside in the south east corner of Koh Samui sits Kamalaya Wellness Sanctuary. It's a place of profound calm and tranquillity which offers every type of therapy and treatmenl from traditional Chinese medicine to meditation. massages and manicures, alongside a host of yoga. pranayama and qi gong classes. It is the first in the next generation of spas - offering pure pampering alongside state-of-the-art diagnostic procedures with its full-time medical as well as spa staff, while the mind and spirit are catered for through many Asian disciplines. Added to which. Throughout the year there is a programme of visiting international gurus and teachers from Buddhist meditation masters to cult yoga king. Danny Paradise.
But it is Kamalaya itself that grabs you by the heartstrings. Tumbling down the mountainside to a pristine and private beach the elements of the landscape - rocks, trees and streams. are incorporated into th architecture. For example. vast boulders form part 0 a bathroom while a tree provides the perfect canop\ on a sun terrace. like the little cave temple in the grounds it seems to have been there for ever. Addeo to which it offers great food from a marvellously eccentric French (Buddhist) chef and possibly the best pillows on the planet. It's the blueprint of what the next generation of spas will be - visit, chill and fall in love.
