Holistic healing
Watsu, Pondicherry
Leave your stress behind and enter the first Deepak Chopra Healing Centre for a rejuvenating holiday. It was last year that the Dune Eco Village and Resort partnered with the author and alternative-medicine advocate to add to its ayurvedic offerings and provide a healing experience to its patrons. The centre offers Chopra’s famous Perfect Health programme, both for short (a week) and longer durations. The space has a rather rustic appeal with thatched roofs, open-to-the-sky showers, traditional wooden steam chambers and plenty of tropical flowers in bloom. Therapies are carried
out by trained Ayurvedic practitioners under the guidance of Dr Indira Priyadarshini on traditional massage tables in naturally ventilated rooms. The highlight is the Watsu, an aquatic bodywork form that uses zen shiatsu and acupressure in warm water to provide a relaxing and healing experience. Conducted by one of the only two licensed practitioners in the country in an exclusive heated, salt chlorinated pool at the centre, Watsu can be a transforming experience for most people. You are guided by the therapist who cradles, rocks and stretches through gentle, flowing movements in the water while you float on the surface. Your body moves towards a state of deep relaxation while your breathing is in rhythm with your therapist.
GETTING THERE The closest airport is Chennai at a distance of 140 km. AT Deepak Chopra Healing Centre, Dune Eco Village and Spa, East Coast Road, Pudhukuppam, Puducherry TEL 91595 50341 PRICE Rs 1,500 onwards