Anyone looking at my browsing history 18 months ago would have found multiple searches for Pilates retreats, affordable retreats, and retreats where coffee isn’t banned.
Every retreat I looked at seemed to be too expensive, too long, or too hard to get to in my timeframe.
The more I looked, the less appealing it sounded to be eating set meals and attending twice daily exercise bootcamps.
I’ve discovered it’s easier to work wellness into a Bali stay. Most resorts have great accommodation/meal packages, including access to well-equipped fitness centres with a program of free and paid activities to enrich the mind and body.
Wellness Unbound is Nusa Dua resort The Mulia’s way of letting guests unwind at their own pace, embracing mindfulness, immersive cultural enrichment, nourishment, healing and movement.
Try a free 7am yoga class in the Eden Garden. Need more sleep and some extra help mastering those poses? I take a 9am private yoga class (from $66 per person per hour), sweat like there’s no tomorrow, then have an omelette, coffee and glass of antioxidant-packed jamu at The Cafe.
If you’re a guest of the suites or villas and want to avoid the temptations of the buffet, The Lounge offers a la carte options. Start with a fruit plate and fresh juice, then move on to an egg white and asparagus omelette.
Add in an afternoon class of dancercise, aerial yoga, or mat Pilates. More of a team player? Sign up for beach soccer, volleyball, tennis or ping pong.
After all that exercise, try a session in the Mulia Spa wellness suite with sauna and Asia Pacific’s first ice room (from $47 per person for 30 minutes). Book the hot and cold hydrotonic pool and it’s all yours for the session (from $29 per person for 30 minutes). There’s no sharing with strangers like many Aussie bathhouses.
I have a cultural enrichment session with Ni Wayan Weli, starting with Balinese dance moves. She looks graceful. I do not. Then I learn how to make a canang, the Balinese offerings basket, and to weave a red, white and black Tridatum the traditional bracelet that represents the three gods of Hinduism. These free activities are available to all guests.
Open since mid 2024, The Meru Sanur all-suite hotel sits in the Sanur Special Economic Zone for health and wellness tourism.
The Meru’s poolside breakfast buffet at Arunika has a clearly labelled wellness section with dishes including Bircher muesli, chia pots and grilled vegetables. There’s a gluten-free station, plenty of fresh fruit and two types of jamu.
Activities include yoga, aero boxing and soccer on Sanur’s longest and whitest stretch of beach.
Guests can go on a transformative journey at the recently opened Taru Pramana Spa and Wellness centre, where a wellness apothecary can create you a personal elixir, infused oil, or botanical balm.
I enjoy a relaxing massage with sound healing and the sleepier I get, the more I am convinced several people are in the room playing the singing bowls next to my head. Staff assure me it really was just the work of one therapist. The spa has changed since my visit, but a similar experience starts from $175 for two hours.
The Meru’s gym is in use by Indonesia’s national soccer team each morning of during my stay, so the equipment comes highly rated.
I’m one of only two in a free aqua aerobics class in the Bali Beach Pool – Sanur’s largest – which the resort shares with the Bali Beach Hotel.
A bike ride or healthy 10 to 15-minute stroll along the beachfront to the new Icon Bali Mall is recommended if your idea of wellness also involves retail therapy.
At The Laguna Resort and Spa in Nusa Dua, guests can learn how the immune-boosting elixir jamu is made as part of the 5.45pm daily Jamu Ritual at De Bale Bar and Lounge.
The activity celebrates Indonesia’s wellness and herbal heritage, with the featured jamu changing quarterly. I sip Loloh Cemcem, traditionally made from cemcem leaves (Spondias pinnata) in Penglipuran, a village in the Bagli regency.
On Thursday nights as dusk descends, a traditional Balinese story comes to life through dance and music performed by local students.
I’m so engrossed, I get a shock to find a performer dressed as a monkey has snuck up on me. It’s another way The Laguna helps preserve Balinese culture by weaving it into each stay.
After the performance, I am invited to a blessing ceremony outside the resort’s Hindu temple, complete with grains of sacred rice on my forehead and the gift of a Tridatu bracelet.
The ceremony is watched by the resort’s resident duck and chicken. Legend has it they escaped has being sacrificed and now roam the grounds as protectors.
Staying in shape at The Laguna is easy at the 24-hour gym with views of a lagoon pool and waterfalls. I finish my stay with a blissful one-hour traditional Balinese massage (from $150) while water flows outside.
+ Sue Yeap was a guest of The Mulia, The Meru Sanur and The Lagua Resort and Spa. They have not influenced this story, or read it before publication.
fact file
themulia.com
themerusanur.com
marriott.com
https://thewest.com.au/travel/a-wholly-trinity-of-wellness-in-bali–c-19426337
