The Great Indonesian Massage
The Great Indonesian Massage at the Grand Hyatt in Bali
The Kriya Spa at the Grand Hyatt Bali in Nusa Dua appears to have been designed on the ambitious premise that you may arrive as one person and leave as a loosely assembled collection of very happy limbs.
The Kriya Spa inspired by an ancient Balinese water palace
Kriya is inspired by the architecture of an ancient Balinese water palace. There are enough beautifully placed water to make you regret every landscaping decision you have ever made at home. Even the stepping stones seem calmer than you are.
This is important because relaxation is not something most people are terribly good at. We book a massage and then spend the first ten minutes worrying whether our phone is on silent, whether we have put our clothes in the correct basket and whether the therapist is privately appalled by the state of our hamstrings. Kriya gets to work on this problem before anyone has even touched you. The entire place seems to say, hand it over. You’ve done enough.
And then comes the Indonesian massage.
The Indonesian Massage
There is really nothing quite like it. I say this as someone who has had massages in many countries and has learned that the word massage can cover an astonishing range of activities, from having your back patted encouragingly to being attacked by a physiotherapist who appears to blame you personally for the decline of Western civilisation.
A Balinese massage occupies the glorious territory in between. It is firm without being punitive, deeply relaxing without being decorative. There are long rhythmic strokes, palms, thumbs, forearms and elbows. The therapist works through the body with the quiet concentration of someone who has discovered several problems you had not mentioned because, until that precise moment, you did not know you had them.
Aromatic cinnamon and ylang-ylang oils
At Kriya, the traditional Balinese massage uses flowing, vigorous movements and aromatic cinnamon and ylang-ylang oils. The spa also offers everything from foot massage and hot volcanic stones to a four-hands treatment, which involves two therapists working in synchrony and raises the obvious question of why the human race has been accepting only two hands for so long.
Indonesian massage is magnificent because it does not fiddle about. It seems to understand that stress is not sitting politely in one shoulder waiting to be addressed. It has colonised the neck. It has established a regional office in the lower back. It is operating a small but aggressive franchise behind the left knee. The treatment follows it everywhere.
The result is extraordinary. At some point, the mind simply gives up its administrative duties. The list of emails not answered, laundry not folded and vaguely worrying things requiring passwords all drift away. You stop being a person with responsibilities and become, briefly, a mammal on a table.
The best of Kriya’s spa menu
The rest of Kriya’s menu is equally tempting. The Java Lulur draws on an old Javanese body ritual using turmeric and vetiver. The Balinese Boreh wraps the body in a warming blend that includes coconut, cinnamon and ginger. The Kriya Renewal begins with mango and passionfruit before moving into massage, which is possibly the closest one can come to being a tropical dessert while retaining full legal rights.
There is even a gazebo massage, performed amid the tropical garden beside a serene pool. This is dangerous. Once you have been massaged in a Balinese garden with cinnamon and ylang-ylang oils, returning home to moisturise yourself hurriedly beside a laundry basket feels like an appalling administrative error.
The Grand Hyatt Bali is already rather good at making ordinary life seem like something happening to other people. Kriya Spa finishes the job.
You arrive with shoulders near your ears.
You leave wondering why you ever needed bones.
And somewhere, floating above a reflecting pool in Nusa Dua, your last remaining coherent thought is this: Indonesians really do understand massage. The rest of us have simply been having our backs rubbed.
Visit the Grand Hyatt Bali for more information
