Amanjiwo, Borobodur

Amanjiwo

Borobodur is one of those places you hear about, dream about, but never manage to get there! For the past few years Ive been on a mission to visit all my dream places one by one. With the help and support of my retreats, my travel writing,  and all the gracious hospitality offered to me from the hotels, here I was in the middle of the capital city of Yogyakarta in the Indonesian Island of Java.

Temples of Borobodur

Amanjiwo was holding a retreat by Dharma teacher Khandro Trinlay Choden. A beautiful lady with an angelic voice chanting peace mantras that filled the whole resort with positive vibrations. People had come from Hong Kong, Singapore, US, France and me from India to celebrate the teachings of the Four Thoughts on love, compassion and impermanance.

Khandro Trinla Chodon, my soul sister

Puja time

The hotel overlooks the temples of Borobodur. Right from the point you enter the hotel, straight through, you are able to view the temples. Its not very clear in the picture but if you could zoom in, the temples are there all right.

The Amanspa here, is situated on one of the corner villas of the property. I wanted to try their signature Pijat Massage. Sounded very interesting and the masseurs qualifications sounded even more interesting!

In rural Java it seems the masseur is revered as a holy man,healer and mediator with the spirit world. He is trained in the healing rituals and villagers place a lot of faith in them. They are called Orang Pintar, or spiritual people. Pijat is supposed to be therapeutic rather than relaxing. My experience?

Well I have experienced a lot of therapeutic massage especially in India, with Dr Moshen Ali (brother of Dr Mussharaf Ali of the Castel Monasterio fame) who happens to be my neighbour in India! It is deep and masochistically painful, but ultimately leaving you very cleared and light. My therapist here got some points right but perhaps he was not confident to go deep enough in case of hurting me. The language barrier didnt help either because  I was not able to communicate with him clearly. Besides I am known to withstand very very deep massage but he didnt know that!!

My masseur

However I wanted to thank Anjali for giving me this great experience in Borobodur, one of the most spiritual places in the Far East!