Not one to move with my eyes closed, I slipped into the warm water with the feeling that, being floated on my back, I was going to scrape my head against the sides of the small pool—this was a new experience, but I had always been a worrier. “Let go, or you won’t float,” I was told, so I took a deep breath, shut my eyes, and sensed myself rise gradually in the water.

Soon I felt deft, gentle hands stretch my arms and legs, massage my back and turn me slowly. My ears were submerged, all I could hear was my own breathing, and whenever my head was raised out of the water, I dreaded hearing the sounds above me. All I saw was white haze, and the world, as I turned, just seemed to widen.

This was Watsu therapy, where a ‘receiver’ is floated in water heated to body temperature. In it, he doesn’t have to do a thing—the ‘giver’ supports and moves him—which brings about a deep state of relaxation. Developed in Harbin Hot Springs, California, it mixes water therapy with the massages of Shiatsu. Karen Villarica-Reina studied the treatment in California, and brought it to Mandala Spa, Boracay, which today is the one spa in the Philippines that offers Watsu. Its developer had called it, “freeing the body in water.” Also a lot like Liquid Ballet, or Water Hypnosis, or Aquatic Time Stoppage, if you ask me.

Before I stepped into the Watsu pool, I received some valuable advice from Mandala’s Freida Dario: “When you’re down there, relax. Don’t think about what you’re going to write… You won’t forget the experience anyway.”

She knows where she’s coming from. Freida is a city girl; working in the island slowed the pace of her life somewhat—every now and then she feels the need to hire a motorcycle driver to take her speeding around town—but Boracay, or rather Mandala, is home now. She was the harried managing editor of a big lifestyle magazine in Manila when she discovered Watsu here. The liberating nature of the treatment has been known to unlock different reactions out of different people—laughter, anger, tears—Freida, though, packed her bags.

“When it was time to move on, I knew that Mandala was where I wanted to go.”
“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” — Sidney J. Harris
Overlooking the celebrated White Beach instead of standing directly on it like other resorts, and located atop a tree-lined path off a busy thoroughfare, Mandala raises its elegant skirts above the stream of commercialism now often associated with Boracay. Nobody stumbles upon it. People deliberately make their way to this place—and, as Freida did, they come with a purpose.

Goals of relaxing, reconnecting with oneself or cleansing one’s system are answered by one or the other of the Spa Holidays. “We created different holidays to fill the needs of different kinds of guests,” said Karen, one of the spa’s two owners.

The Yoga Holiday gives private instruction to guests who want to practice yoga at their own pace; the Rejuvenation Holiday pampers with beauty treatments; the Detox Holiday helps guests lose weight and rid their system of toxins through a cleansing diet, body treatments and manual colon irrigation (colema); and the Cleanse Holiday is a gentler form of cleansing, which includes a diet of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The popular Honeymoon Holiday teaches couples Watsu for Two and Zen Touch—“We teach them how to do a Zen massage, which is really breathing with the partner,” explained Karen. “It’s communicating with each other—not in a verbal way, but through touch.”

The Wellness Holiday is the all-around package, and those who sign up range from burned-out executives to people who just want to start a healthier lifestyle. It has Watsu, yoga and a basic nutrition talk, as well as treatments from Mandala’s extensive spa menu—All Natural Facial, Lymph Drainage Massage and the spa’s latest addition, Stone Magic Therapy, a massage that uses hot and cold stones to constrict and dilate veins. All holidays include the Shodhana Karma, a cleansing treatment with a massage, sauna ritual and exfoliating scrub, which won “Best Rejuvenation Program” at the Spa Asia Crystal Awards last year.

Mandala offers healing treatments in soothing surroundings. It is a hark back to the Boracay that so captivated a young German by the name of Dieter Schrottmann in the 1970s that he packed up his life and built a large Indian tent on the beach, which at the time had no other structure more permanent than a single nipa hut.

Dieter and Karen maintain Mandala with the idea of keeping their patch of Boracay like that immaculate paradise. They minimized building—the area was simply converted from a private vacation spot belonging to the Villarica family—and most of what had to be constructed were built around existing greenery. Designed as a village spa, Mandala has bamboo pathways branching out to 12 native-inspired villas scattered over 2.5 hectares. Electric and telephone wires are all underground, and will not clutter the mind any more than they obstruct the view.

Serenity is sacred here. There are no radios, everyone is required to speak in a low tone, and guests aged 14 and younger are not allowed. Televisions are brought to the villas only upon request, and even then there’s no cable. The cellphone, indispensable today, is by the same virtue discouraged as a nuisance here.

“Our philosophy is that we want people to experience themselves,” Karen explained. “This means going inside instead of relying on what’s outside. We offer a space where people could retreat from the world, and really experience that sense of peace that comes when you’re not bothered by your cellphone or your intercom…”

Treatments for the Soul

A statue of the goddess Saraswati watched from the corner as I exerted what felt like my 100-year-old body during my first yoga class. After 15 minutes, spa consultant and yoga instructor Mo-ching Yip bent down to me and asked if I could go on—“We don’t want you to kill yourself… As a yoga practitioner, I don’t believe in suffering.”

It is with patience and encouragement that Mo-ching conducts her classes, one free for guests every morning and one open to walk-ins every afternoon. She teaches all branches of yoga, but refuses to push her students beyond their limitations. What she teaches beginners is a variation of Classic Sivananda, which emphasizes proper exercise, breathing, relaxation and diet, and positive thinking. She said that the philosophy behind yoga, one of non-violence and non-harming to self and others, is a way of life. Freida, since arriving in Mandala, has become one of her star pupils—“If there was an award for bad posture I would have won it”—and espouses yoga’s deep personal gains, although practicing yoga as just an excellent workout is all right, too.

Mandala wants to inculcate in its guests a healthy lifestyle that can also be enjoyable. Its Prana Restaurant serves only vegetarian cuisine—“In the beginning I was like, ‘salad, carrots—yuck,’” Karen shared. “It wasn’t until I went to California that I realized how varied vegetarianism could be, and that hey, it actually is very interesting.”

Karen admitted that it’s one thing to get people to like vegetarian food, and another to get them to switch to it. “It’s really a lifestyle choice that you have to make. We like to give our guests the idea that there’s an alternative to how they live their lives. We’re not telling them that they have to (switch to it), we’re just telling them that it’s there.”

The holistic approach that advocates a change in lifestyle is Mandala’s selling point. Boracay’s considerable charms are only incidental, secondary attractions here, and while the ambience and the one-of-a-kind treatments are enough to make the spa a destination in itself, what keeps guests coming back is the staff’s approach. More than providing service, they aim to create a memory—an unforgettable experience of peace.

“In many spas, you have a massage, or a scrub, and that’s it. You go in, you go out,” Karen pointed out. “What we offer are treatments with a soul… That’s hard to explain, but we emphasize connection very much. This means that when you’re here, we’re here for you, totally. That makes a lot of difference.”

And so, while there was still time, I let go and left myself in the nurturing, more than capable hands of Mandala Spa.