22 Sep Welcome To an Island of Wellness and Tranquillity
The Maldives has always been a place synonymous with beauty, heaven on earth and relaxation. However, the new Joali Being resort will help you rediscover your wellness needs in the form of a vacation.
The resort opened its doors to the public in November 2021, offering everything you expect from an extravagant Maldives luxury hotel. The hotel boasts around 68 contemporary aqua-grey villas, half of which are over water, a sight of bliss, featuring their own pools, an eye-capturing freshness, with a turtle-shaped private dining treehouse, tropical ground with a stunning biophilic design and a breath-taking architecture connecting you to nature, while overlooking an endless view of aqua waters.
This resort is also a part of a new breed of hotels, such as Sensei Lanai, A Four Seasons Resort in Hawaii and a forthcoming Amrit Ocean Resort & Residences in Palm Beach, where wellness is the main theme and is incorporated in every part of your stay, beginning with your diet to sleep, making this a transformative destination place.
According to the founder of Joali Being Esin Güral Argat and its nearby sister resort, ‘the main theme behind the growing expectation is for the implementation of wellness to be integrated into all areas of our daily touchpoints, with the notion that wellness should be part of the infrastructure of our lives, not an addition to it’.
As reported by the Global Wellness Institute Wellness tourism has become a booming industry whose annual growth rate has become more than 50% higher than tourism growth overall.
Joali Being, A Home Away From Home Package
Prior to your arrival at the Resort, the first thing you will do is a wellness consultation over the phone. Upon arrival at the adults-only resort, you will undergo a comprehensive integrative health assessment and movement analysis to determine which wellness pillar ranging from the mind, and microbiome which is gut and health, skin, or energy, to focus on during your stay at the resort. Finally, a team of experts will customize a five-, seven- or 12-day immersion program based on the pillar you chose.
The team will also give you customized advice, to assist your microbiome including adding immune-boosting ginger and turmeric to your food, drinking warm water with meals, and planning earlier dinner times. However, if you are like me and struggle to commit to one of those schedules, don’t fret too much, since the hotel has à la carte offerings, but longer stays allow you to fully experience the program.
To assist you on your wellness path, Joali Being has found ways in helping you cut down on your screen time and other excessive things. The boutique only has Wi-Fi in the villas and no TVs in the accommodations (however, they can be provided to you upon request), the restaurants serve a smidgen of alcohol options ranging from several natural wines and a handful of cocktails and the in-room-mini-bars don’t carry liquor but has an impressive tea-making station with a special hourglass tea timer, kettle and tolls for whipping up some matcha as well as a Nespresso machine.
With everything that is offered, you won’t want for anything, because Joali Being makes wellness less about the drag of abstaining or dry-detoxing and more about finding a working way to incorporate better wellness habits into your life. The awe-inspiring surroundings make all this an easy offer to accept.
Joali Being Dining Experience
Let’s look at the meals, the resort won’t have you dining on bland diet foods. While the two restaurants’ menus do list calories, carb, protein, and fat counts as well as the targeted pillars, the dishes are both healthy and enjoyable. Breakfast offers you the berried French toast with pumpkin spice and coconut caramel, or the akuri, Parsi-style spicy scrambled eggs tucked neatly inside a dosa pyramid.
Dinnertime offers a flavoursome option of seared scallops in a pool of creamy nantua sauce with compressed watermelon salsa and roasted baby beets, or a lobster curry with mango and rhubarb sauce. Contrary to popular belief good nutrition does not mean banning dessert. At the resort, textures of dessert dishes creatively lay our strawberry sponge, preserves, parfait, jus and fruits bits on the plate, and the crème muscovado features a hazelnut dacquoise with mango-passionfruit gel and citrus sorbet.
Being pampered is part of the experience as well. Every immersion program includes the Four Pillars Signature Massage, a stress-blasting treatment that uses essential oil blends made at the Maldives hotel’s Aktar herbology centre to target elements which are important to each pillar. The microbiome mix, for instance, includes digestive and probiotic essential oils like ginger, clary sage and fennel.
Joali Being Spa Treatment
Nobody can resist the good feeling of a beautifully decorated spa, with its exaggerated inverted-V design and stone steps across a palm-lined pool, which escorts you to a quiet area under a thatched hut where you can plant your toes in the sand. Enjoy the white and grey marble circular hammam, the glowing pink-brick salt inhalation room, the starry-ceilinged Watsu pool or the unusual Seda, or the instrument-filled villa made for sound therapy which includes musical strings under the treatment bed.
However, the one thing that keeps bringing you back to the spa is the skilled therapists, who leave you feeling light and deeply relaxed after every service. The one massage that stood out was the abhyanga, a scalp-to-soles ayurvedic massage that involves using an excess of warm oil to help increase circulation, stimulate the organs, detoxify, and nourish the body.
Once your treatment is concluded, you get to sit outside of Aktar in the centre of the spa for the signature tea, which is a delicious blend of cardamom, hibiscus, clove, and rosehip partnered with surprisingly delicious gluten-free cookies made with flax and ginger, assisting you with an energy boost. The light and bright herbology centre are the hotel’s most popular spot. You may take a seat at the bar, while a highly knowledgeable and impressionable herbologist creates a customized tea and oil rollerball based on your pillar and tastes.
Joali Being Immersive Wellness Program
The immersive wellness program involves more than just spa treatments and tea. The program also has some physical work involved. It does not matter which pillar you chose, everyday you will join daily group classes which fall under two categories, 1st being the ‘Mindful Movement (it is like afro dance, tai chi, yoga, and Pilates) and second is ‘Mind and Body’ (which is Expansion Through Gratitude’ and ‘Connection and Purpose’).
To make sure that you challenge yourself, you also have the option of choosing assigned private workouts, like a boot camp style, Muay Thai and ‘Cross and Core’. Most people enjoy starting their day with a limb-warming private heart Opening Surya Namaskar (sun salutation) yoga session in an elevated thatched hut overlooking the crystal-clear ocean and working up the sweat you desire in a personalized training session.
Joali Being Exceeding Every Expectation…
Overall, the resort offers activities throughout your visit. The outdoor Discovery Sound Path is an exciting and interactive way to explore sound healing. There is a forest trail leading to 12 instruments, such as an oversized disc painted with blue waves that makes a vortex of sound when spun.
All accommodations also have instruments like xylophones for further sound experimentation. They also include aqua Electra bikes each containing a wooden plate with your name carved on it, which you receive as a parting gift and in just a few miles parked outside, is accessible transport across the island, which encourages you to pedal around and explore the island.
At the end of each day, you get to relax in tranquillity surrounded by water and sunbathing in your exclusive villa’s infinity pool, outdoor rope swing or an overwater hammock. If being outside is not your ideal method of relaxation, you can unwind in a spacious standalone tub overlooking the Indian Ocean and if that’s not enough for you and you still find yourself craving more, you can ring your jadugar (meaning “skilled magician” in the local Dhivehi language, a staff member who happens to be your personal butler) on a pre-programmed cell phone.
At the end of your trip, you will have a departure consultation, and a follow-up after you return home, to assist you in staying committed to your wellness path. If you find yourself slipping up, just close your eyes and recall the island’s breathtakingly mesmerizing beauty and that will be your motivation to keep going.
By Jennifer Notoane
References
Being, J. (2022). Joali Being. Retrieved from Wellbeing Retreat – The Maldives – Joali Being: https://www.joali.com/joalibeing/
Jennifer, K. (2022, August 23). Forbes Travel Guide. Retrieved from This New Maldives Retreat Takes Wellness To Another Level: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestravelguide/2022/08/23/this-new-maldives-retreat-takes-wellness-to-another-level/?sh=1348f6381aad
