and coconut body scrubs fall in line with the new mood for 'eco-chic', where eco-consciousness and style are no longer mutually exclusive.
While a deepening commitment to a kind of environmental consumerism now grips people in the West, it has been the mainstay of Asian culture until recent economic development. In the realm of health and beauty, answers to radiant skin, shiny hair and even more critical issues such as cures for cancer have been found in the region's vast botanical heritage. On the Indonesian island of Java alone, 6,500 species of plant, 4,500 of which are native to Java, have been recorded. Malaysia lays claim to 3,600 species of tree, and other tracts of rain forest in the region still wait to be discovered.
An entity unto itself! The Spa at Hotel Tugu is truly 'traditional', with barely a hint of 20th-century trappings.
Many of the natural treatments that are now commonly used throughout tropical Asian countries trace their origins to the palaces of Central Java. From the 17th century until today, princesses from the keratons of Solo, Yogyakarta and Surakarta experimented with natural potions and lotions, concocted by themselves. Some secret remedies are still kept under wraps behind palace walls; others, such as the Javanese Lulur, have found their way around the region, even around the world. This famous body scrub of rice, spices and splashes of natural yoghurt is a skin softening elixir set to beat the best designer bubbles and moisturizing body creams money can buy.
"Whosoever offers me with devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, that offering of love, of the pure heart, I accept." From the 'Mahabharata'; the god Krishna explains what God expects of an offering.
This little shrine is the focal point of the low-lit 'Quiet Room' at the exclusive Spa at Jimboron. Four Seasons Resort Boil.
Ibu Mooryati Soedibyo is a princess-turned-business woman who has adapted much of the royal heritage she learnt in the keraton as a child into one of Indonesia's biggest beauty businesses manufacturing traditional cosmetics under the Mustika Ratu name. Soedibyo remembers her disciplined Javanese upbringing, which taught her how to weave her hair with pandanus leaves as a young girl and how to make a ukel (outsized hairpiece) from her own locks. She made her own shampoo, by burning rice stalks and soaking them in water until they turned into a sticky ash paste, and her own face powder by personally grinding bengkuang and turmeric roots with rice. Now in her seventies, her 60-year relationship with a natural pharmacopoeia has done her visibly proud.
It is the fairytale quality of experiences such as those of lbu Mooryati that have lent the Asian beauty boom its allure and mystique. One of its most important aspects which has long been exported to other cultures, is its concentration on the healing and soothing powers of massage. The tactile sense is an unquestioned part of life in many paris of Asia; people carry compassion in their hands, which they transmit as a matter of course. "It is like being nurtured by our mothers," says spa consultant Dorinda Rose Berry. "People need that unconditional love in their lives which are so full of gadgets and computers. We no longer need material things, we just need love."
At the same spa, hang here at the juice and jamu bar before, during or after treatments.
"Thai massage is a healing experience for the giver as well as the receiver and intrinsic life energy will flow between the two." Khun Sutthichai Teimeesak, chief massage therapist at the Oriental Spa, Bangkok
These ching (chimes) are used in Thai folk dance and music festivals. At Banyan Tree Spa Phuket, their delicate sound is often heard wafting through the silence.
The tropical spa experience is based on unconditional love as much as, if not more than, anything else. The notion that weary souls can receive compassionate care and attention without payback goes a long way to explaining why they are so popular. Spa therapists make their clients feel special which, coming from their fast-paced situations at home, is exactly what they crave They also want time out, but they want more than the standard two weeks of poolside lounging. Serenity, soul-soothing and stress-busting is what they're after and the tropical spa knows how to provide it, some argue, better than any other type of spa retreat.
At the tropical spa there is nothing of the continental preference for municipal buildings and matronly Fraus in white coats; none of the fading chintz and timid teenage therapists of the British country house-turned-spa; and no evidence of the seriousness and self-flagellation of the Stateside spa regime. Nor does the tropical spa display any of the glitz and kitsch of those bandwagon spa resorts that are floundering to find their meaning in the world of wellbeing.
As resort companies begin to realize the value of the region's traditions, they are opening an increasing number of tropical spas in the destinations of our dreams. These venues uplift our spirits before we even put one foot into the treatment room. An arduous journey from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta immediately becomes worthwhile on arrival at Javana Spa which is set in the foothills of mountainous rain forest, gushing with waterfalls and ringing with the cries of monkeys and birds. The tropical setting with its healing, spring-fed dipping pools, is part of the restorative experience at Begawan Giri Estate, Bali. And at the Novatel Corolia in Lombok, lie in your own pavilion on an isolated patch of white-sand beach while sea breezes and healing hands stroke your body in time with the sound of the waves on the empty, turquoise sea.
Outdoor massage, such as here at Ciliva-Som. Thailand, is high on the Tropical Spa agenda.
"If you want skin that is irresistible to the touch, the secret is to touch yourself," Pratima Raichur, Ayurvedic physician
'Spice Islands' oils from Esens are rich in aromatic scents and pretty in their coloured glass bottles. They are available at Bali's Nusa Duo Spa.
It is this ability to commune with abundant nature that puts tropical spas in a league of their own. Treatment rooms in all the better spas effortlessly fuse indoor and outdoor space so that it feels quite normal to be doused with water or rubbed with yoghurt while standing naked under the stars. It is somehow liberating to sit naked in a hot Jacuzzi pool which teeters on the lip of a dramatic river gorge while, at the same time, listening to frogs and being tickled by ferns that catch the breeze. And it is a rare bucolic pleasure to lie in an outdoor bath and splatter your body with handfuls of flower heads that float alongside in the water.
The tropical treatment processes themselves unravel yet more exotic sensations. A trickle of cucumber pulp between the toes beats rubbing cream in your heels. The heat of cloves and ginger smeared over your shoulder or the pungent smell of coffee bean wafting up from your cleavage elicits a giggle of decadent delight. Nature's store cupboard, is feeding your body, but hey, this is also fun!
While the tropical spa experience falls in line with the current vogue for 'back-to-basics' living, the irony is that these spas, on the whole, are chambers of ethnic chic. They give designers the opportunity to blend the best raw materials -textured teakwood, carved stone, cool ceramic, terrazzo, bamboo and along-along- in indigenous styles with gratuitous design indulgence.
The holistic approach to life at the tropical spa is where it's at. But most us don't find time to go to the dry cleaners let alone to chant or meditate. We may yearn for a two-hour massage in the increasing number of Day Spas but reality is more like ten minutes
