Health Spa Reviews - A Touch of Thailand, Angsana Spa

   

Review by Carien Wandrag

I stepped off the plane in Cape Town and took a short drive to Thailand… or so it seemed. Angsana Spa at the Vineyard Hotel near Claremont, is a piece of exotic paradise straight out of a plush, Thai marketing brochure.

The spa is part of an international group whose Hotels and Spas have won awards from the Maldives to the Great Barrier Reef. Their global origin is reflected in the magnificent attention to detail from the moment you set foot in the spa. You literally feel like you've been transported to another country.

One descends to the spa entrance via an underground parking area and the security guard pointing you in the right direction cheerfully wishes you a wonderful spa-day. What a warm welcome and lovely first impression!

The spa reception area is veritably alive with colour and natural light from the multitudes of skylights, sliding doors and windows - all with views of the tranquil, lush-green garden. One immediately loses all sense of space and time in this vibrant world. Once inside, the only audible noises are from busybody river birds cheerily chirping away and the odd Egyptian Geese making their presence known. If you listen carefully you can hear the murmur of the Liesbeek River at the bottom of the garden. Other than that there is just the gentle rustling of leaves when a breeze decides to take a stroll through this little piece of Eden.

You are asked to kick off your shoes as you enter the spa, they are whisked away and only returned to you on departure. You are settled into comfy chairs, either inside or out, and offered a traditional cup of delicious hibiscus and honey tea. You immediately relax into the serenity of the surroundings while your therapist goes off to mix your special lotions and potions for your selected treatments.

My treatment room was a spacious, aerie double room that opens onto a private patio with recliners, which, of course, leads into the garden. The room seemed to be equipped with every possible amenity. The clever open plan design allows for views of the garden wherever you move in the room, from your private shower to the fantastic jet bath. We kept the doors open for the duration of my treatments, as it was a beautiful sunny day.

I found it extremely difficult to choose between the diverse and interesting variety of treatments. The spa treatment list reads like a menu from your favourite fusion restaurant with ingredients in the various body polishes, massage oils and masks ranging from lemon peel, yoghurt, sesame oil, soya bean, turmeric, avocado, almond, rice, banana, pineapple, honey to lime. The names and descriptions of the various treatments leave you drooling and at a complete loss to select between them, so make use of the readily available, expert advice from the staff.

In addition, the expert therapists are skilled in almost every massage technique from Balinese to Thai to Swedish to European to Hawaiian. AND if you were still under any illusion that you were in South Africa, it is forever abolished by the fact that the therapists are native Thai with every courtesy and mannerism one expects from the country that is synonymous with the word "massage".

I am not going to go into the details of my specific selection of treatments, because as you would imagine, they were all glorious. My intention is to go back again and again until I have worked my way through every treatment on the menu.

The Angsana Spa opens later, and closes later, than most spas. So, for my next round I would love to experience a night-time version, as I have already pictured how the entire setting would be completely transformed into a fairytale land.

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