Alternative vacation getaway
DIANI, Kenya – Here’s a unique setting for an alternative holiday at the seaside – no diving or energy-consuming water sports, but a week of massages, yoga, and ayurvedic treatments combined with an all-vegetarian menu.
Oh, and by the way, alcohol consumption is frowned upon.
It may sound like torture if your idea of a vacation is to party all the time or experience thrilling adventures. But if you are looking for something more serene, a spot along the south coast of Kenya offers respite in the tropics of the Indian Ocean.
In one of my daily walks along the beach in Diani, Kenya – a five-mile stretch of white sand about 300 miles from Nairobi – I found myself ignoring a “Private Property” sign, walking right past a tree house and stepping into a deserted but carefully maintained garden with a wooden platform to one side and earth-colored low-roofed buildings.
“Shaanti Holistic Health Retreat” read an orange sign on a large stone next to the secluded beachfront. I wasn’t sure whether “holistic retreat” meant I would come across a group of singing monks or a religious sect performing rituals, but I wanted to find out.
Orange and red cushions and mattresses covered a cement structure, which was later described to me as the “chill-out room,” as I reached what seemed to be a reception area.
Tasreen Keshavjee, the managing director of Shaanti, approached me and with enthusiasm explained exactly what the retreat was about.
“Shaanti represents a holistic approach to healing,” Keshavjee said. “Since almost all ailments and disease originate from stress and anxiety, the best way to cure them is to attack the root cause. Take away the stress, take away the anxiety and work on the mind and body so that the process is sustainable.”
The retreat, which opened in November 2004, is the first of its kind in the area. Most of the numerous hotels that line this tropical resort provide massages and other health and beauty treatments, but Shaanti offers a specific healing method aimed at improving both the physical and mental state.
The wooden platform on the beachfront is for daily yoga lessons and the tree house is the vegetarian restaurant. The buildings are rooms for overnight accommodation.
Signs are written in English with a Hindi-styled font. Furniture is covered by the orange and red cushions, which are made from the local East African kikoy material, a colorful cloth originally worn by men but recently very fashionable among young local designers. Most of the floors are made from local galana stone, and fishing canoes are used as shelves in the restaurant and in the reception areas.
All these indigenous elements in the decor help the retreat fit in with its natural surroundings. Adding to this sense of harmony with nature are troops of colobus, syke and vervet monkeys that regularly feed, rest and play in the nearby trees.
Meeting Tasreen and seeing the beautiful setting were all it took for me to book a massage – an abhyanga – where warm, medicated oils are applied to the body to improve circulation and promote relaxation. Without knowing what to expect, I walked into one of the small makuti-roofed bandas (huts with straw roofs), where a Kenyan girl shyly told me to take my clothes off. She tied a long, rectangular piece of cloth attached to a string around my waist and had me lie on the massage bed.
Moments prior to the massage, the resident ayurvedic doctor from Kerala, in southern India, met me to see what type of herbal oils were best for me. I had a slight cold, which was taken into account in the choice of oils that were to be mixed and applied on my skin.
Ayurveda is a 3,000-year-old system of healing, taught by “rishis” of India, or Hindu sages. It is designed to create balance and tranquility in body, mind and spirit through massage, diet and meditation. I had the most common type of treatment, but Shaanti also offers steam treatments and other techniques for rejuvenation and stress relief.
As I lay on the massage bed, the oils were heated and poured in a small bowl. Then I was told to sit up, and the masseuse began pouring the warm oil on my shoulders. This type of massage consists of rubbing the oil up and down the arms and legs by going over the back and stomach; it lasts an hour. Unlike other types of massage, you don’t relax during the treatment, but the effects are intended to last.
The hour flew by. I was given a robe made of kikoy to wear for the next hour while the oil soaked into my skin. I headed toward the open-air chill-out room, which looks out to the Indian Ocean, sat on a mattress and ordered the juice of the moment – a freshly squeezed watermelon and mango drink.
I was then advised to take a steam bath with eucalyptus essence to make my cold go away and make the oil soak into my skin faster.
Once done with the bath, I returned for more – an hour-long facial massage, and a taste of the vegetarian menu, which, at the customer’s request, can be Indian food or continental, always accompanied by freshly squeezed juices.
But according to the ayurvedic system, the meal must include six basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent.
The tree house restaurant overlooks the white beach. My meal started with a green salad, followed by assorted tropical fruits. The main course was a particularly tasty and light curry served with cumin rice, lentils and chapati – a puffy bread.
After the meal there was a wide assortment of herbal and Indian teas, which you can drink in the chill-out room or on a chaise lounge under one of the many umbrellas randomly placed in the garden, again looking at the ocean.
Kenya’s coasts are becoming known for diving and for opportunities to see whale sharks, but Shaanti is yet another reason for travelers – especially Western workaholics – to go to Diani.