Sallie and I are at Chiva-Som to conduct the first Spa Specialist Training Course for Virtuoso travel agents. We are joined by six top-notch travel agents for the few days we are here. (We decided to teach our first course at a spa, since there is no better way to learn about spas than being at one – and in this case, one of the best in the world!) Every day was filled with spa experiences as well as a few hours of training guided by the extensive course we developed in the past six months. If I do say so myself, it was a grand success.

Chiva-Som staff planned some unique experiences for us, as I felt there was no sense in coming all the way to Thailand for a Swedish massage. Our little group was scheduled for one of their most distinctive Thai offerings, Meridian Tapping. Editor-in Chief Gary Walther had written about this in the Jan/Feb issue of Luxury SpaFinder Magazine, although admittedly I didn’t “get it” from reading about it. After experiencing it, I realize how hard it is to describe to someone else.

The basics: Decide on an area of discomfort in your life (physical or mental). You are asked to think about this area of personal challenge while a therapist taps your meridian points. This is supposed to repattern your body, resulting in an actual noticeable change.

We were given an example of how Meridian Tapping has been used with some miraculous results: A woman who for many years had a water phobia where the sight of water brought on extreme anxiety. After going from doctor to doctor for years, she ended up being relieved of the phobia after a ten-minute meridian tapping session. OK, that got my attention.

Our group’s collection of “issues” included a sore knee, a bad back, insomnia, fear of public speaking, jet lag, e-mail addiction, and a few other maladies I can no longer remember. Tap, tap, tap! Each of us had a two-minute session, and then we learned to do “self-tapping” for follow-up. Hard to gauge the results at the moment, but I want to be open-minded.

Should my list of 700+ emails that I need to answer suddenly be of no concern to me, I’ll make sure to keep tap dancing.

Traveling in Asia with our COO, Sallie Fraenkel, has been a delight. We share many interests, but adventuresome eating is not one of them. Sallie will try every fish ball and oddly named indigenous delicacy with great enthusiasm, while I stick to basics when traveling (spaghetti and Caesar salads all through Asia is fine with me). But when it comes to spa experiences we are both very adventurous. So when Joy Menzies, the managing director of Chiva-Som, suggests that we each have a session with their new Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctor, Ken Rosen, we are “in”. When it comes to spa treatments I am always game. Bring on the TCM; sure, I’ll try Meridian Tapping, iridology, colonics, stomach massage, acupuncture in my ears – whatever. And there is no better place than Chiva-Som to sample something unique from all over the world.

Ken (pictured at right) has a 90-minute TCM session with me where he diagnoses weaknesses through taking my pulse (it is “wirey” but otherwise strong) and then looks at the color of my tongue, etc. The last part of the session consists of an acupuncture treatment in which he endeavors to strengthen my immune system and to help me relax. Not sure about specific results, but I do feel like it is a great thing to be able to go to a spa and try a large variety of health-enhancing modalities. Chiva-Som must have one of the most extensive spa and holistic therapy menus in the world. I would probably have to be here a month to try them all. Guess it’s a good reason to come back.

The plane from New York directly to Singapore is 18 1/2 hours long, a record for me. Actually, I didn’t know that planes could fly that far without stopping to refuel. Then another two-hour flight from Singapore to Bangkok and another one-hour flight from Bangkok to Hua Hin. I must say I was quite pleased when my colleague Sallie, COO of Spa Finder, Inc., and I arrived at Chiva-Som. It was a return trip for me to this award-winning destination spa in Thailand and a first for Sallie. Chiva-Som means “haven of life,” which was just what we needed after the lengthy trip to get there. I couldn't think of a better place to collapse.

Sticking with my personal policy of having a spa treatment as soon as possible after a plane trip, I booked a Thai massage, which was performed one hour later. This was followed by a visit to my favorite relaxation room in the world. I remembered it well from my last visit. It is a dark room with just a few flickering candles and two very large waterbeds separated by hanging white gauzy silk-like material. The beds are slightly heated and covered with comfy towels and sheets. Someone I couldn’t see was snoozing away on the bed in the back, so I surrendered my body to the bed in the front--and promptly conked out. Woke up an hour or so later when the therapist came in to retrieve the other person in the room. To my surprise, it turned out to be Sallie, who had apparently also found this cocoon the perfect place to sleep off some jet lag. We had a good laugh later.