Escape Haven is located in Canggu. Photo / Escape Haven
On a mission to learn how to let go, Kiwi author Megan Nicol Reed heads to a yoga retreat for menopausal women in Bali
Unlike most stories, which begin at… um, the beginning, winding their way up and over the narrative arc, to end happily (or not) at… er, the ending, a travel story typically starts at its final destination. A more protracted tale might take in the journey, the flight, say: the cold coffee and warm white wine, the man in front who insisted on reclining his seat as far back as he could possibly go, and the toddler behind who screamed and screamed and screamed, but by and large, the focus is the destination. For context, though, for clarity’s sake, this travel story shall start several months prior to departure, before, even, there was a tale to tell.
It was November last year, I had just turned 50, and the deadline to deliver the manuscript for my second novel loomed on the horizon like a bushfire, coming whether I liked it or not. With spring, both personally and literally, on its way out, and summer on the way in, I was an anxious ball of hormones and heat, existing on three or four hours of sleep a night. ‘Twas my season of disquiet, and all I could think about was getting through it. And then, like a gift from above, a week or two from D-Day, I received an email asking whether I might be interested in attending a yoga retreat in Bali, for menopausal women. Would I what?! I leapt from my desk with joy. Having always wanted, but never been, to either Bali or on a retreat, it seemed too good to be true.
Then came December, and though that bleeding deadline was met, other challenges compounded and cascaded: a teenage daughter’s first heartbreak, a son home from Otago bringing both a pile of dirty washing and of debt, endless house guests, parents reluctantly selling their home of 42 years, a Christmas ruined by Covid, and, as exhausted as I was, still I couldn’t sleep.
Read more: Wellness retreats and travel: Why do New Zealand travellers love it?
January offered no respite. January was chaperoning six 16-year-olds to the wilds of Whangamatā for New Year’s. January brought very tepid feedback about the aforementioned manuscript and the announcement of a combined surprise family wedding/70th birthday with two weeks to organise it. January was doing everything for everyone on very little sleep. But through the fatigue, the angst and the stress, dangled this extraordinary carrot: Escape Haven. The name filled my thoughts and entered my dreams, teasing me with its implied promise of a reprieve from the toils of daily life.
At 1.30am, on the last day of January, I arrived at I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport: nerves shot to pieces, hopes sky high. After queuing forever and ever at this counter and that counter, I lugged my stupidly heavy luggage out into the arrivals hall and there, exactly as the retreat’s very precise instructions had promised, in the middle of the throngs of porters and taxi drivers shouting and touting for business, was a man in traditional dress bearing a warm smile and a sign with my name on it. I could have cried. And when he guided me to an immaculate air-conditioned van, handing me a cool, fragrant cloth, a glass bottle of water, drops of condensation hanging from it, and a small woven basket, lined with pandan leaves and filled with fresh fruit, homemade crackers and bliss balls, I did cry.
They would not be my only tears over the course of the next seven days. There were tears of pain (cupping), of shock (ice bath), of pleasure (overnight peanut butter oats, okay I didn’t actually cry but they were seriously delicious). And I was not alone. I witnessed grown women weep during yoga classes, opening ceremonies, blessing ceremonies and cacao ceremonies. I was the only one there on the menopause package, others were there for surfing, Pilates and ayurveda. But while we ranged in age from our mid-20s to mid-60s, and hailed from all around the world, there was a unifying sense that for whatever reason, however big or small the trauma that had brought us there, ultimately, we all sought the same thing: respite, a reset.
One of the few upsides to menopause has been a newfound ability to let go. Let go of a lifetime of worrying about what others think, of holding myself back. So, while normally neither much of a team player or particularly woo-woo, I embraced the group dynamic and leaned into the new age stuff (Self-Love Yin Yoga, anyone? Yes, please!) and I’m sure my experience was all the richer for it.
While my schedule at Escape Haven was fairly full, it’s hard to complain when your biggest concern is whether there’s enough time to scoff your lunch between the gua-sha facial and the hot stone massage.
To be fair, the staff (oh, the staff… in all the world do kinder people exist?) did keep reiterating that I was under no pressure to do anything I didn’t want to. However, as much as I could have quite happily just practised a little yoga and enjoyed the odd massage here and there, whiling away the rest of my time reading beside the pool (straight out of Vogue Exteriors) or lying about in my room (straight out of Vogue Interiors), in truth it’s pretty hard to write 2000 words about a week spent largely on your arse. Mind you, given the fact I slept through approximately 85% of my treatments, it’s pretty hard to write about those, too.
I loved the sunrise bike ride to a rice paddy and I loved the pool platter breakfast (you wallow in the shallows while grazing on a floating tray of healthy delights). I loved the optional body work session so much I opted to pay for another and I loved the little handwritten notes and gifts left on my pillow each night (“Whatever you resist persists”). But of everything there was to love about the retreat, I think what my list-delighting, routine-seeking, control-needing, decision-fretting brain appreciated most of all was my personalised schedule. So much thought had gone in to what would be most beneficial, for not just any menopausal woman, but this particular menopausal woman.
Prior to my arrival, I was required to fill out a form with all my needs, wants, strengths and weaknesses. And then, once there, I had a consultation to discuss these, to unpack my many issues, and tweak the programme that had been devised for me accordingly. On their recommendation, I did breathwork and strength training and a session in a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber, but it was a moving feast, with the staff readily making adjustments. Of course, we can book you into one of those healing/red light/detox treatments your neighbour was raving about at dinner, and, no, it’s no trouble at all to make you one of those frozen dragon fruit juices she’s having while you wait for confirmation. Our schedules became our bibles, and as one of my fellow retreatees posted on the group chat: without it, she had no idea where she was meant to be or what she was meant to be doing when she got home.
Your every need met, anticipated even, apparently lots of women don’t bother venturing beyond Escape Haven and I can understand why, however it’s also quite hard to write a travel story if you don’t actually leave your accommodation. Unlike Eat, Pray, Love, Escape Haven is not located on some peaceful hillside in Ubud, but at the end of an alleyway lined with washing, off a main road along which a million scooters zoom day and night, in the heart of all the glorious chaos that is Canggu. I loved the contrast. Loved knowing that on the other side of the beautiful old wooden doors behind which we were so exquisitely succoured, lay this crazy world of cool cafes alongside crumbling temples, beach bars next to nail bars, surfboards propped up outside spendy boutiques and, everywhere, absolutely everywhere, beautiful young people living their very best life.
Despite my best intentions, I did what I always do when I travel, which is to say I shopped up a storm. While how the locals dress may initially seem foreign, weird even, within a day or two, typically I find it will start to feel not only normal, but desirable, necessary. Example: once on a trip to Finland I became convinced that the key thing missing from my wardrobe in Auckland – humid and sticky Auckland – was a large fur hat. In Canggu, I fool myself that like our gorgeous yoga teachers I, too, waft about in tiny knitted tops and floaty pants, that whenever I feel a chill, I reach not for a woolly cardigan but a fringed shawl. That I, too, zip around on scooters in little stretchy shorts, the centre seam ruched so as to accentuate my firm, round buttocks.
I’ve been back home a month now, and I’ve yet to wear anything I bought, not a single pair of flowing pants, nor little stretchy shorts. But there are several lessons I have taken with me from my whirlwind of rest and restoration. That while I am really bad at relaxing, I really do love yoga. That ceremonial grade cacao is delicious, especially when served with a little honey and chilli, and that while bliss balls are all well and good, sometimes you just want a Moro Gold.
On my second day at Escape Haven, I was taken to get an Inbody Scan. Basically, you stand on a machine and it analyses your composition. The scan itself was painless enough, but while I had rather smugly anticipated the results would be, if not glowing, then at least middling, it turns out that, despite regularly working out for my entire adult life, my muscle mass is below normal. How can this be, I bleated to the Escape Haven staff. Protein, they said. You lack protein.
So, having been shown the error of my nutritionally lazy vegetarian ways, my pantry is now awash with protein powder, my fridge with soy byproducts, and every time I get the blender out to make myself a protein shake, every time I find inspiration for dinner in the zillion different ways the retreat’s exceptionally skilled chefs served up tofu, I give thanks, recalling one of those little notes on my pillow: “Always have an attitude of gratitude”.
Megan Nicol Reed is a journalist and author. Her first novel, One of Those Mothers was published in March 2023, with a second on its way.
The writer was hosted by Escape Haven. escapehaven.com
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