Yhi Spa, Nusa Dua

touch of genius

magical fingers, magical potion and skin cells eating fish. welcome to yhi spa

the look
I have always wondered why certain hotels always put their spa a little far from their lobby. And they always turn out to be the hotel spas that impress me. Not until walking from Meliá Bali’s lobby to their Yhi Spa did I come to a realisation why it is so (for once I wasn’t in a hurry).

It’s like walking through a beautiful and vibrant park on a good summer day. You see a lot of things: children playing, fish chasing each other, leaves dancing and falling on green grass, adults snogging, a lovely picnic turning slowly into a disaster, etc. But after exiting the gate, all you can remember is one particular smell and one particular feeling, both of which make you happy and relaxed.

I remember a beautiful garden, but most vividly, I remember inhaling a particular smell. The smell of a happy holiday. The smell that immediately brings you back to one particular holiday where you had the best time of your life. It was really a touch of genius. I was already experiencing the spa even before I walked
into the lobby. I was ready to let go of everything and escape to an idyllic beach far away from everything.

And when you’re back to Planet Earth, you suddenly find yourself in a dimly lit lobby smelling like indulgence. The spa complex itself has touches of a Chinese house. The spa lounge is built above an oriental looking fishpond. In one corner is the fish therapy area where you get to dip your feet to an aquarium of a thousand garupa fish, which are more than keen to feed on the dead cells on your legs. On the other side is the steam room, which I have to admit, doesn’t look or feel claustrophobic.

the touch
Every single spa on the island offers a Balinese massage and it takes a magical set of fingers to stand out from the other thousand. Meliá Bali’s Yhi Spa’s Balinese massage routine is slightly different from the rest. It still uses the fingers to give pointed pressure to your deep tissues, but more flowy (compared the usual press-stop-press routine); I felt touches of Swedish massage, and the uses of elbows like in shiatsu.

My therapist applied the right amount of pressure. It was hard and deep enough that I felt like I was in a small village in north Bali getting massaged by a blind old lady. If there ever was a massage technique called contemporary Balinese massage, this might just be it.

the ingredients
Balinese boreh is a century-old recipe known to be able to prevent cold. It’s made of mostly clove, ginger and a lot of other spices and act like a scrub applied on your whole body. The potion has a potent warming effect, which is quite pleasant to sleep to. Afterwards, entireties of your muscles loosen up and you smell like clove.

the exceptional
Yhi Spa at Meliá Bali is also equipped with a spa garden at the back, very close to the beach. It’s admittedly dinky, but quite beautiful. There’s a dedicated area for a reflexology treatment overlooking the beach and the sea. I personally think this is a very good idea to set a reflexology treatment, especially when the weather is good, the sky is charming blue and the sea is in a good mood, enough to send you hypnotic rows of waves. That’s, then, another magical quality of the spa, when you can’t help but daydream and occasionally think, “Ouch…that painful spot must be my over-abused kidneys.”

Treatments starts at US$ 30; Yhi Spa
(Meliá Bali, Nusa Dua, T: 0361 771 510, www.meliabali.com)