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TRAVEL
Angsana Ihuru
and
Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru
belong to the Banyan
Tree hotel group, are only two minutes apart, and are just a 20-minute
speedboat ride from Malé airport. Best of all, each has its own
exquisite “house reef”. Lucky VERNE MAREE took lucky husband
Roy to this island paradise.
A
Maldivian coral atoll is the archetypal island, fringed by a brilliantly
white beach that gives way to a shallow lagoon of palest aquamarine,
surrounded by a house reef bristling with corals harbouring a myriad of
colourful species of sea life. Ideally, you should be able to exit your villa
straight onto the beach, don snorkelling gear and reach the house reef with a few
lazy flicks of your fins. That’s what it’s like here.
Though the Maldivian island experience is largely about the reef and the
snorkelling, any Banyan Tree resort is also about the spa. Twenty years ago,
Banyan Tree pioneered the Asian spa at its first development, at Phuket Laguna,
transforming a toxic wasteland into a holistic spa resort of the kind we’ve come to
know and love. Vabbinfaru came next, launched in the same year as the Bintan
resort. It’s enough to say that Roy and I have never had a better spa experience
than the 90-minute signature couple’s massage that was his birthday treat at Banyan
Tree Vabbinfaru this past May.
What’s more, Banyan Tree has a distinct identity that’s not just about indulgence:
it’s also known for eco-initiatives – community greening, marine research, turtle
conservation et al – plus social responsibility programmes that include youth
outreach and development.