Spa Village Resort Tembok: Healing the mind and body in the old Bali

Rachael Oakes-Ash Jan 9 2015 at 4:00 PM

For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.

Manis sees dead people. The Balinese shaman princess spoke to her first departed spirits when she was a child, or so she tells me as we float on mercury waters in search of dolphins in the north of Bali.

The fisherman guiding the carved-out wooden boat, wide enough for one person and long enough for three, has cut the engine so we float in silence. We are the only vessel on the horizon, the waters are still and the last moments of the day are dipping behind the silhouette of active volcanoes mountsBatur and Gunung Agung in the distance.

Then Manis sings. A low lullaby that bounces off the water and evaporates on the wind, carried away by the spirits that she speaks of.

Manis is also a yoga teacher, bending guests of Spa Village Resort Tembok in an effort to release urban stress within Western bodies that descend upon the remote resort in search of relief.

This is old Bali, the one that long-time Bali devotees reminisce about, accessed by a two-to-three-hour journey with a private driver from Denpasar airport through the island centre, past Ubud's terraced paddies and high into the hills of Mt Batur and the holy crater lake. It is here in the boat-only accessed Trunyan Cemetery that many of Bali's deceased lie, perhaps the spirits of which Manis speaks.

An hour's descent from Mt Batur towards the north-east coast ends at the village of Tejakula, which creeps from the foothills to the shores. Fifteen minutes along the coast to the east you'll find Spa Village Resort Tembok.

You won't find street hawkers, beach clubs or doof-doof muzak pumping from speakers here. The beach on which the resort rests is volcanic black sand and is shared with a fishing village to the west and undeveloped coconut fields to the east. Footprints are few and are washed away at high tide as the water reaches the resort edge.

Guests who make the trek to Tembok are greeted with a foot cleanse in the open-pavilion check-in.

Here is the original post:
Spa Village Resort Tembok: Healing the mind and body in the old Bali