“Massage is the simplest form of happiness” the sign proclaims. While I disagree and substitute “massage” with “sleep”, I concur that Bali is the place where one can become dizzyingly blissfully happy in the hands of a good masseuse. Not to mention the flower baths and foot washing and clay masks and jamu tonics sipped wrapped in fluffy bath robes, often in the middle of a lush garden or jungle.

The Balinese claim to have invented the spa concept. During the centuries, ancient Balinese herbal knowledge mixed with Hindu ayurveda and massage and Chinese acupressure. Appreciation of beauty is the color of the Balinese soul, and so a Balinese spa is not a cold stark operational chamber but a place invoking both inner and outer beauty. Both men and women go to their favorite village spa for treatments as naturally as we Westerners take a bath.

The essence of a Balinese massage is to open the clogged channels of blood, oxygen, and prana (or qi). While nothing replaces exercise and mindful living, a Balinese massage once a week while here surely cannot hurt?(Ubud, Bali, Indonesia; August 2016)