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My spa heaven...with a dash of Pad Thai and sticky rice

Magazine August 2010

TV presenter Jayne Middlemiss discovers a blissful retreat in southern Thailand.

Thailand - View from a balcony at Anantara Si Kao Thailand - Dining al fresco at one of the superb restaurants Thailand - Candle lit spa at the Anantara

1 View from a balcony at Anantara Si Kao 2 Dining al fresco 3 Candle lit spa at the Anantara

MY ATTITUDE TO LIFE is really healthy: I don’t smoke or drink. But spas are my weakness. My perfect holiday is all about wellness.

I like yoga and meditation. I enjoy being pampered. I love massages, especially the massages on offer at Anantara Si Kao. Described as a ‘sanctuary on the doorstep of a sanctuary’, it is an hour’s drive from Krabi airport, along the edge of Thailand’s Chao Mai National Park – a sumptuous tapestry of foliage that covers coastal areas and untouched islands in the Sikao district.

This is somewhere bristling with casuarinas, the lovely tropical pines of Thailand’s southern coast. The resort overlooks a stretch of long white sand, the Andaman Sea and pristine islands beyond.

On a spa holiday, I like to start off with a city visit to take in some of the sights. To reach the Anantara, I flew to Bangkok and stayed there for a night before travelling on to Krabi. I stayed at the Sukhothai Hotel, which was fabulous, a serene oasis of greenery in the heart of the city.

The rooms are lovely, with teak and silk furnishings. The food was also stunning. I was shown around the kitchen and allowed to try my hand at cooking, and then I was served an extraordinary Thai banquet, course after course of the most perfect cuisine: gorgeous curries, steamed sea bass done with marvellous oriental herbs and spices.

Course after course of the most perfect cuisine

When I won TV’s Celebrity Master-Chef, I didn’t dare tackle Asian cookery because it is outside my comfort zone – and besides, John Torode is an expert Asian chef. After one night in Bangkok, it was lovely to travel down to Anantara Si Kao, a fairly modestsized property with fewer than 140 rooms, each with its own balcony and seductive view of the ocean or tropical gardens.


You can choose between suites – huge rooms with oversized bathtubs and polished teak furnishings – and pool suites with their own private plunge pools. The resort offers what they call ‘Wellness 360’ in which they encourage guests to take their spa experience to ‘another level’.

They claim they move beyond pampering and relaxation: ‘The treatments focus expressly on wellbeing as we help you to harmonise the many different elements affecting your health – social, environmental, emotional and spiritual.’

The approach is ayurvedic, following the ancient Indian system of disease prevention, healthcare and healing based on balancing the different energies in the body through diet and herbs.

The aim is to revive you inside and out

The spa process begins with an analysis of what sort of person you are and you are prescribed the health treatments deemed most appropriate.

One of the treatments I had involved the pouring of hot oil into the space between my eyebrows – the location of my ‘third eye’.

They keep pouring the oil and massaging it into your head. It sounds pretty weird, and when I saw the contraption I had to lie on to allow all this to happen, I felt more than a little anxious.

But it proved to be one of the most relaxing experiences I’ve ever had. I had this treatment, followed by a visit to the steam room, every day for three days. The great thing about the Anantara is that it offers a holistic wellness programme with the food integrated with the treatments – it was actually about the whole body.


The aim is to revive you inside and out. For the five nights I was there I benefited from the advice of the ayurvedic doctor and a naturopath who gave me information about eating the right food for my body.

I also had advice on how to eat properly. I was told to slow down, that I should not drink water with meals, and that you should eat all your vegetables first to help the digestive process.

There were plenty of other things to do

The food was a particular pleasure because resident chef Kelly Brennan cooks the most fantastic dishes. If you don’t see what you want on the menu, Kelly will make it specially for you. But in keeping with the programme, I had the set meals that the doctor prescribed.

One afternoon I did a Thai cookery class where I learnt to make my favourite meal – Pad Thai with sticky mango rice, a seafood salad and duck red curry – which was tremendous fun.

There were plenty of other things to do and see around the resort and I went snorkelling, which was excellent.

I saw my first reef and all the colourful fish teeming around it – amazing. As a finale to the trip, we went to the Emerald Cave. Here the sun turns the water into a kaleidoscope of colours – green, emerald and turquoise shades at the entrance, gradually fading as the cave winds inwards approximately 250ft leading to an interior beach with clean white sand, enclosed by high cliffs open to the sky.

I can’t wait to go back to Thailand. It would be hard to imagine a more perfect holiday.

This article was featured in the August 2010 DialAFlight magazine. All information was correct at time of going to print.

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