Thailand has kind people and a vast history of traditional wellness. But can it cure a tired Millennial? Adam Bloodworth finds out A textbook Bangkok afternoon: the sun is doing its darnedest to incinerate anyone who dares go outside, but luckily I’m indoors, laying in a bath with a towel covering my modesty. Chernkwan, a local, is covering my chest with water, leaning in and checking she’s splashed every part of me like a doting parent taking care of their newborn cherub.
It’s slightly awkward, but I’m committed. She’s swishing around cloth bags in the bathwater filled with local medicinal herbs and foraged plants. She’s a master timekeeper: every ten minutes Chernkwan points to the steam room where I intermittently sweat between long, unnerving bathes.
Rakxa – where rooms cost £3,718 for five nights – is the poshest wellness retreat in Thailand. Within the Phra Pradaeng District, the ‘green lung’ of Bangkok, a natural expanse on the south-eastern outskirts of the capital, there are panoramic views of the hedonistic city 20 kilometres to the north, but silent Rakxa taunts the stressed-out workers with its pindrop-calm. Chernkwan grew up on the other side of the mud-brown Chao Phraya River separating Rakxa from the bright lights.
Her mother taught her traditional Thai medicine when she was in single digits and now she harvests vegetables from on-site gardens to perform these rituals, helping stressed out Westerners decompress. Ever since backpackers forge.