Spa treatments are good in that they provide a temporary, relaxing respite from your daily chores and stress. But massage, a good massage, is truly remedial. That I have learned from Donna Spa. I was having a bad week. I was lethargic and to make it worse, I didn't sleep well at all. My therapist Ina, who's from Central Java, seemed to have that figured out.
The 90-minute Excellent Donna Massage that I have chosen as part of the Value Spa Scrub Package is easily the best massage I've had in KL. Using long strokes, Ina worked on the acupressure points to expel wind from my body while stimulating healthy blood circulation. 'Ini mesti sentiasa duduk,' she said while massaging two tensed knots on my lower back to break them up. 'Banyak main computer ya?' she asked, though it sounded more like a statement when she worked on the even more tensed shoulders.
Then she spotted a stubborn knot ('urat simpul,' she explained) at the lower back of my head. As she was massaging that, she explained to me that the wind in my body, which accumulated at my lower back and shoulders, manifested into tensed, hard knots. If not treated, the wind can move up to my head and cause headaches and migraines.
Wind can also lead to a tired and weak body, and affect sleep. Usually I like my massages conversation free but this time, I kept asking her questions and found it fascinating that she could tell so much from just massaging my body and more interestingly, that she could tell that a particular spot would hurt even before I felt it.
As she slowly loosened up my incredibly tense and tired body, I could feel my body getting more relaxed, and I was now craving a long sleep. Ina comes from a generation of mid wives, where they administer this deep-tissue traditional Javanese massage, or at least a variation of it, to strengthen the body and improve the immune system of mothers who have just delivered.
The two-hour Value Spa Scrub Package came with a coffee scrub (using coffee powder imported from India) to smoothen the skin. Feeling really decadent, I topped up for a rose petal milk bath (RM220) to rehydrate my dry skin. The air soon permeated with the delicious aroma of milk coffee, which made me smile.
Yet more than the spacious room and the oversized bathtub, the one thing I appreciate more was that throughout the treatment, I was lying on a comfortably warm heat blanket that covered the lower half of the massage bed. And that, as Ina explained, was very important as it prevented me from getting cold; else wind would get into my body, and end up causing more harm.