Soukya: the Bangalore health retreat drawing a starry clientele — and interest from the NHS

FT Weekend | 29 Apr 2018

I am lying on a wooden massage bed as two women rub my naked body with hot pouches of cooked rice, milk and medicinal herbs. They massage in tandem my legs, hip joints and up to my neck. A little gloop escapes the poultice bags each time and soon my body is covered with a gluey white residue. This is navarakizhi, a treatment claimed to reduce joint stiffness and relieve depression.

I’m at Soukya, a health retreat outside Bangalore that offers traditional Indian cures for conditions from hay fever to diabetes and strives to “restore the natural balance of your mind, body and spirit”.

• Health, Beauty & Spa,
• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

Buy on the island of dreams

Country & Town House | 23 Apr 2018

Imagine a palm-fringed beachfront retreat. An 8,500 sq/ft tropical villa built in 2005. One boasting a massage temple – with sides open to the jungle foliage – and a colonnaded walkway. An outside sitting room with a chandelier and a 49ft dining room overlooking monkeys swinging in the Khomba tree and the courtyard swimming pool. Add to this six colonial bedrooms with soaring ceilings and inside/outside bathrooms open to the fireflies that sparkle in the inky sky.

• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

The most interesting food ever at AOC

The Luxury Channel | 10 Apr 2018

If you’re keen on gastronomy, there’s a hot contender for your attention in Copenhagen. A restaurant that is not globally renowned, not regularly reviewed and doesn’t have a big waiting list. Welcome to AOC.

• Food,
• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Escape to Anantara Peace Haven Tangalle Resort

The Luxury Channel | 21 Mar 2018

It’s not often that there’s a resort hotel that boasts an unusual welcome ceremony, a Nature Guru who’s a conservationist with a Masters in Environmental Science, and a great Ayurvedic doctor too. I’ll start with the first: a greeting that involves singing, drumming and three Sinhalese ladies in a lobby. That’s the welcome I get at the Anantara Peace Haven Tangalle Resort. I guess it means, “Hey! You’ve just arrived at a corker of a resort,” or something like that. At any rate, that would be true…

• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

Kandy Samadhi Centre – for the luxury of tranquillity, beauty and simplicity

The Luxury Channel | 7 Mar 2018

It’s almost possible to touch the white clouds that move slowly across the hilltop in front of my terrace. There’s a hammock hanging between vintage wooden pillars and monkeys swinging in trees watching me watching them. Lying there is great too for listening to the orchestra of birds and crickets. Sweet music conducted by tree frogs, with backing vocals from a singing river and wild boar rustling in the bush. There’s a view of the Knuckles Mountains and of paddy fields, bamboos, forests of mango, jack trees and guava. It’s like waking up in Heaven a few years too early…

• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

Best in London – the people who really matter

The Luxury Channel | 13 Feb 2018

Caroline Phillips unearths the people who really matter to the people who really matter. The doctors, practitioners, therapists and service providers who celebrities and folk with their finger truly on the pulse have on speed dial. An alphabetical guide to the country’s leaders in everything from psychotherapy to gut health. From who you should visit for semi-permanent make-up to hair removal. Not to mention the super-facialists and who to choose for acupuncture or to accompany you to buy your clothes…

• Health, Beauty & Spa,
• Shopping & Fashion

Fire Mountain

Escapism | 29 Jan 2018

All the best trips involve the possibility of dying. The first time this occurs to me is when three soldiers cock their rifles at us outside our hotel in Ataco, El Salvador. (It transpires that the hotel is opposite an army communications mast.) On another occasion, we’re accompanied on a sightseeing trip to Conchagua volcano by two policemen with guns: a precaution because machete-wielding locals once mugged some tourists.

• Travel: Americas

Paradise for investors

The Sunday Times | 28 Jan 2018

Children play cricket on the beach with a homemade mango-wood bat. Fishing boats of sun-bleached blues and ocean greens rest up on the sand, and enticing smells advertise just-caught crabs and fish coconut curry. Nearby, at the edge of the beach, there’s a gate fashioned from crooked cinnamon branches.

• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

24 hours in Colombo

The Luxury Channel | 27 Jan 2018

They’re serving afternoon tea on cake stands with fans circling overhead and the Indian Ocean as a backdrop. There’s a lawn for croquet. Beyond this — and framed by 19th century columns and palm trees — there are ladies sashaying in gold and purple saris to watch a wedding on the promenade. The sound of traditional instruments fills the warm air and the sun is setting, a crimson ball in the sky. Who would imagine that this is just steps away from a vehicle-clogged city of dust, concrete and bustle?

• Travel: Asia/ Oceania