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Nurture Spa @ Tagaytay

Ngangi decided that we needed to de-stress and pamper ourselves and booked us massage appointments at Nurture Spa, highly recommended by Chi who had been there before. This is in Tagaytay, one of my favorite places to visit in the Philippines. This was last month during my vacation there. So after our fantastic late lunch at Buon Giorno, we drove over there, and oh boy, it wasn’t easy to find. We had to go down a sloping road and passed about 10 “Nurture Spa straight ahead” signs before we finally found it.

Finally!

But if going there was a bit tricky, leaving was more difficult. We took a wrong turn and found ourselves going out to a road that didn’t look familiar at all, at which point, I said, “What is this, Narnia?” We retraced our steps and sorted it out eventually.

The place is not just any ordinary massage parlor but a village, a sprawling complex of picturesque huts with thatched roofs surrounded by lots and lots of beautiful greenery and nature. There is even a small pool that I wasn’t able to take a picture of. The people were also very nice and friendly, offering to take our picture even without us having to ask. It was paradise. Ngangi said that the place was also a resort and you could book rooms and stay overnight. The view was so relaxing already that I couldn’t wait to see what our massage would do.

At the reception, they asked us to fill out a form that included this:
Ngangi and I giggled at the picture because we’re so mature like that. I wasn’t feeling any particular pain so I didn’t where I wanted the most attention and I didn’t have any painful or ticklish areas so I had a hard time filling that part up. I was sure, however, that I wanted a soft & relaxing pressure level because I very easily feel pain and hate hard massages. 
After filling out the forms, we were led to our room which we reached by walking through the above-pictured stone paths. We entered a hut and was greeted by this cozy room.

It even had its own bathroom where you could take a shower or soak in a tub before your massage. The pampering started off with a relaxing foot soak in a basin filled with warm water, essential oils, and pretty petals. Then we lay facedown on our massage beds whose face hole peeped over another bowl filled with water and pleasant smelling flowers. 
Our treatment of choice was the nilaib, which is described on their website as thus:

Nilaib (1 1/2 hours) – PHP 1,800.00
Our Filipino version of the stone massage uses steamed hot pouches of traditional Filipino herbs wrapped in banana leaves to leave you rested and rejuvenated. 

For some reason I thought they would just leave the pouches (which contains tiny stones and herbs – Ngangi asked the masseuse) to sit on my back after the massage (coz I’m an ignoramus like that) and was pleasantly surprised when it turns out that they actually knead them all over your body as well. It was sooooo deliciously exhilarating, like I had died and gone to massage heaven. At one point I even drifted off and didn’t realize it till my masseuse asked me to flip over and her voice woke me up.

I wish it could have gone forever, but it had to stop after 90 minutes, after which, we were served some ginger tea on a tray adorned with a pretty white hibiscus. How cute.

This was quite a heavenly experience. Thanks Ngangi!! 😀

For more information and to make reservations, visit their website.

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2 Comments

  1. Thank you for your blog! :)<br />Planning to visit Nurture Spa weeks from now.<br /><br /><br />Did you book a package or just went there for the massage? 🙂

    Reply

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