Queen of Retreats reviewer Audrey Gillan tells us about Fusion Maia in Vietnam
A beachside health resort on Vietnam’s central coast, Fusion Maia focuses on treatments, offering a minimum of two per day included in the price and much more according to availability. We loved it, and loved ourselves by the end of it – without the worry of additional cost, it was fantastic to try so many treatments, working not only on the mind and body but to have some indulgent pampering thrown in such as pedicures on a whim is fabulous.
Upon arrival, take a consultation with a ‘Fusionista’, a dedicated spa advisor who will help you book your minimum two treatments a day, squeeze in as many extras as possible and also advise on any special programmes that are available. They’ll talk you through your current health, fitness and mental wellbeing, and build a programme for you that can include yoga, tai chi and meditation – with different class names such as ‘butterfly breathing’, ‘laughter breathing’ and ‘feel free yoga’. There is a ‘warrior fitness’ programme that changes daily and ranges from ‘crouching tiger’, promoting inner strength and courage and ‘lean leopard’ to help improve digestion and agility.
They’ll talk you through your current health, fitness and mental wellbeing, and build a programme for you that can include yoga, tai chi and meditation
Spa therapies included in the price range from massage, warm pressure sleep therapy, ‘stretch release flow’, ‘hand to heart opener’ and ‘active bamboo rollout’. Manicures, pedicures, facials and body scrubs are all available as part of your daily quota. There’s a resident doctor who can tailor a programme for specific pain, ailments or medical history and reiki is available with reiki master Ngoan. A tranquil spa library offers books on mindfulness, alternative lifestyle and spirituality: we benefited from the insight of The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown, recommended by one of our therapists.
Rather marvelously each day has a different theme, colour and specially-blended aromatherapy oil and wellness tea. Monday is ‘feel free’ and yellow, Tuesday is orange, ‘eat well’, Wednesday is blue ‘get social’ and so on throughout the week. The theme is continued through each of the activities on offer that day.
You stay in a private villa with a small living area, vast bed and patio doors that lead out onto a small courtyard garden with plunge pool, shower and rest area. The whole space is so incredibly private you can spend your time there naked as a jaybird should you so desire. Three bedroomed, beach-front villas are also available – though these are less private. Little tokens celebrating the theme of the day are left in your room: our favourite was a pebble carved with the world ‘breathe’, a pocketable reminder to be mindful.
The whole space is so incredibly private you can spend your time there naked as a jaybird should you so desire.
One thing – when it rains, the daily yoga classes are held in an upstairs studio at the back of the resort which has no view. The gym, though, in spite of being barely used, has a view of the beach and we feel this is the wrong way round.
If you want breakfast at 5 pm you can have it – there’s an ‘anywhere, anytime’ concept, so you can eat it in your room, on the beach, in the restaurant exactly when you want to.
When it comes to sustenance, Fusion Maia is a health resort that believes life is about balance, so there is no ascetic mantra here forcing denial. If you want breakfast at 5 pm you can have it – there’s an ‘anywhere, anytime’ concept, so you can eat it in your room, on the beach, in the restaurant exactly when you want to. There are three dining areas: Five Dining Room, with a vast breakfast buffet and a menu that embraces pan-Asian flavours for the rest of the day, the Pool Bar, offering salads, sandwiches, fresh juices and the like and the Tonic Bar, with Asian tapas, coffee, tea, and tea-based cocktails.
From £345 (excluding 10% tax and 5% service charge) per room per night based on two in a pool villa with breakfast and at least two treatments a day.
http://maiadanang.fusion-resorts.com
Words by Audrey Gillan and Caroline Sylger Jones
For more wellness travel ideas check out Queen of Retreats. Queen of Retreats was founded by Caroline Sylger Jones, an author and freelance journalist who travels the world checking out spas, retreats and healthy holidays for international newspapers, glossy magazines and websites.
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