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TRAVEL
272
November14
The Practices
The first of what will be a quarterly event
– the next one is planned for February
2015 – this three-day workshop in late
September was put together by the
in-house Mandara Spa’s warm Aussie
director, Linda Overman. Sessions
were led by a stellar line-up of teacher-
practitioners, all of whom are based in
Phuket.
Londoner
Mandy Kea l y
, the
Feldenkrais
practitioner, came to the
island as a slip of a thing 25 years
ago and never left. She calls herself a
“movement educator”, and the somatic
movement study that she espouses is
something I’d like to know more about.
Pat Thummanond
, who qualified
in California and worked there for a
long time, practises
Core Unwinding
:
her own integration of craniosacral
therapy, visceral manipulation and
lymphatic drainage.
Meditation
teacher
and author
Nikorn Banjerdlert
is on
hand, too; and then there’s trainer and
nutritionist
David Catudal
of
Phuket
Cleanse
.
The Programme
Our mornings start at 7.30am – one day
it’s yoga, taken by Pat; the next day is
Nikorn’s meditation class (simply a nap,
for some of us); the third is a “mindful”
beach walk.
Apart fromMandy’s daily Feldenkrais
lesson, Pat leads us in more-or-less
spiritual
sessions
such as “Awaken
the Healer”– meaning the healer within
you, “Six Cosmic Healing Sounds”, “Five
Tibetan Rites” and a couple of others.
Our group is just the right size to bond,
despite being a mix of Thai and English
speakers. There are even tears.
Lunch
one day is a fabulous bento
box from Kabuki Japanese Cuisine
Theatre, served on the lawn under
shady trees. On the next, an enthralling
presentation of raw-food dishes from
the island’s famous Phuket Cleanse
– creamy protein shakes, enchiladas,
curries and even raw chocolate, all
bursting with nutty textures, goodness
and flavour.
Each afternoon culminates in an
hour’s treatment at the resort’s splendid
Mandara Spa
. Top-notch therapists
aid the wellness process with blissful
aromatherapy, Thai, Balinese or head
massages. Then, sometimes still
anointed with various gloop, we all
meet for dinner and toast our wellbeing
with a couple of glasses of wine and a
lot of laughter.
The Inner Woman
With six restaurants and five bars on
site, we’re eating exceptionally well –
healthily, too, it must be said. A day that
starts with a fresh beetroot-juice shot
just has to be a good day, and that’s
readily available at the
Marriot Café
’s
huge breakfast buffet, served from early
until 12 noon.
Ginja Taste
(pronounced “”ginger”),
located next to the resort’s Thai cooking
school, serves delicious Thai meals,
and
La Cucina
comes up with some
of the best lamb cutlets I’ve enjoyed for
a long time. Other options include the
Andaman Grill
(for steaks and seafood),
but I never made it that far, nor to the
various inviting-looking bars.