THE BALINESE YOGA ESCAPE
VIRTUAL RESORT: Bali’s Escape Haven Free Three-Day Mini Escape (escapehaven.com).
COST: Free access to daily emails, 30-minute video lessons featuring workouts, yoga and recipes, plus access to a support group on Facebook to connect with other women on the retreat. The aim is to help you slow down and find balance.
NEXT ONE: June 5 to 7.
THE problem, I fear, is one of unreasonable expectation. If I’m taking part in an online yoga class, I’m just there for the instructions. If, on the other hand, I’ve signed up for a wellness retreat in Bali, the disappointment is almost unavoidable.
Escape Haven runs award-winning all-women exotic retreats specialising in all the sorts of things you would expect, from Ayurveda to detox via everything in between.
It even offers a deluxe yacht package, which is all of the above, only adrift in the beautiful blue waters of the Bali Sea. Sun, beach, impeccable service, delicious food and breathtaking scenery are what make these trips worth every penny.
So when I was asked to trial its virtual offering, I had fairly high hopes. But I can honestly say this was one of the least pleasurable of my lockdown experiences — and that is a very competitive field, I can assure you.
The basic problem is this: it’s all the most annoying aspects of a wellness retreat — the patronising tone, the sweeping statements (e.g., ‘As women we know that our attention span isn’t so great.’ Er, no), the overenthusiasm (‘Isn’t it fantastic?!’ Again, no), the cod-mysticism, the dewy-eyed evangelism — but without the climate, the food and the sea; in short, the fact that you are in Bali. Plus, of course, all those other retreat treats, such as long massages, foot rubs, facials, nice towels and so on.
Instead, it’s same old you sitting at your same old desk in your same old house, with your same old teenagers sleeping in and refusing to do their homework, while the dog stares at you in desultory fashion because it’s fully 11-and-a-half seconds since you last fed him and the washing up sits waiting in the sink.
Only now you’ve given up precious time to watch a woman in a swirly silk kaftan — a woman who, it is clear from the heavenly backdrop, actually is in Bali (damn her!) — tell you how mystical and wonderful your experience is going to be, and how you are going to go on an important and life-changing journey of self-discovery in a way that, quite inexplicably and unreasonably, makes you want to pour yourself a very large glass of wine, break out the Violet Creams and search the kitchen drawers for that ancient packet of fags your friend left behind at Christmas.
Well, that’s what it did to me, anyway. Matters were not helped by the fact that the website was extremely unwieldy and also that, even once I’d negotiated the toolbar to find my sessions, I had to watch each and every one of them to the bitter (and sometimes very boring) end, until I could move on to the next.
I hate to be awful, but that’s the truth of it. I suggest you save up your money for the real thing.