Before I describe our treatment, I’d like to mention a very special “bonus” – the Bath House Experience. This amazing prelude to any treatment of your choice is a selection of unique bathing rituals and ceremonies from various Asian cultures designed to make you unwind, slow down and prepare for your upcoming spa session. At The Spa Village it’s an essential part of any therapy on the menu.
The sequence begins with the Imperial Chinese traditional foot relaxation, with your feet being gently soaked in a floral foot-bath then tapped with wooden mallets to invigorate and improve blood circulation. The next step is truly refreshing Malay “Circulating Bath”, designed to recreate the effect of natural waterfalls to introduce you to the way indigenous people of Malaysia used to bathe. Then you are treated to a brisk but memorable inhalation session where you breathe-in a succession of specially prepared herbal steams for calming, uplifting, detoxifying and distressing effect.
It’s followed by a visit to the Japanese Bath House where you cleanse and exfoliate your body with a hard/soft goshi-goshi cloth and a selection of special soaps. Then comes my personal favourite part – 10 minutes of relaxation in a warm natural-stone pool under the leafy greenery of the gardens with a cup of aromatic jasmine green tea. The last step is a Shanghai scrub ritual, where you lay down on a marble bench while a skillful therapist scrubs and exfoliates your whole body. After you’ve been thoroughly bathed, scrubbed, cleansed and exfoliated, you are accompanied to the rest and relaxation area in an airy sea-front pagoda, to be treated to a relaxing herbal tonic drink and to meet the therapist, who will perform your main treatment.
I was offered to try “Royal Secrets of Puteri Lindungan Bulan” or a “Princess Treatment” for short, and Paul had the “Bukit Gantang Warrior Treatment”. The two treatments are unique, because both of the packages take their origin in traditional Malay wedding ceremonies as a part of cleansing of mind, body and spirit, and preparation of bride and groom for their big day. The ladies experience comprises Malay Traditional Massage, followed by Hair Cream Mask and Facial & Body Scrub using coconut oil, clove, citronella and eucalyptus to warm up your body and get your blood flowing while ensuring a feeling of deep relaxation. After being scrubbed and massaged into a complete state of euphoria, you will be treated to the marvelous experience of a fragrant Milk Bath that feels, smells and looks phenomenal! You get to luxuriate in a huge marble Jacuzzi-type bath-tub filled with milky-coloured liquid full of beautiful flower buds and petals of jasmine and lime slices. If nothing else, this is sure to make you feel like a true princess for a day!
Even though all ingredients used cannot be revealed and have to be kept secret, I’ve learned that the pandan leaves, kaffir lime, black seed and sea salt added to the mixture are meant to help you relax and purify your body, mind and soul. The final part of the treatment I found the most unusual, after the milky bath indulgence, you will be offered a Scented Body Steaming Session, to open your pores and help your body absorb all the goodness of the bath treatment and healing properties of herbs, used to prepare the steam, for maximum benefit. And at the end you’re feeling as if you are almost floating on air with your feet barely touching the ground. You are comfortably seated to rest and cool down with a splendidly aromatic herbal tonic drink that has a stronger kick to it than a freshly brewed cup of coffee. And after hours and hours of all that bathing, massaging, scrubbing and rejuvenating, you get to leave the Spa with a wonderful souvenir – a traditional soft ornate sarong. And whether or not it’s your personal choice of style, it’s an original piece for your wardrobe that for months to come will fragrance your entire room with aromas of the spa reminding you of the fantastic treatment you got to experience.
I found my treatment truly sensational and would certainly happily recommend it to anybody. The Men’s “Warrior Treatment” consists of a Warrior Massage, Herbal Hair Root Treatment, Herbal Root Scrub, Herbal Spices Bath and Herbal Oil Steam-bath with the refreshing tonic drink for the finale. If you choose to have your treatments together as a couple to make it a shared experience, they can be performed within the same room with you and your loved one side by side having your individual therapists attending to you. Him being treated as a “Warrior” for a day and you as a “Princess”, and you can share the Milky Bath and the tonic drink together. According to Paul, his “Warrior Treatment” left him relaxed and rejuvenated to the point that he found it difficult to get back to reality of filming and picture-taking for the rest of the day. Any visit to Pangkor Laut should include at the very least one spa treatment, it would be a shame to be here on a private tropical island without sampling one of the key things that makes it so great.
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Photographs taken using a Sony SLT-A77VQ. Sony is an official partner of Luxurious Magazine®
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