Thai massage therapist's restorative take you beyond relaxation

The Anantara Spa at Emirates Palace isn't just beautiful. A trip can earn you 90 minutes with a true body guru, Daeng Yodwut.

Daeng Yodwut, a Thai massage therapist at the Anantara Spa at Emirates Palace, is the most talented practitioner that Ann Marie McQueen has come across. Courtesy Anantara Spa

People return again and again to access the restorative powers of Daeng Yodwut, and after 90 utterly restorative minutes in a room with him, I can understand why.

The 36-year-old Thai massage therapist works out of the luxurious Antantara Spa at Emirates Palace. As he does the de rigueur washing of my feet in rose-petal heavy warm water, he explains that Thai massage is an apt treatment in the UAE.

"People in this country are not very flexible," he says. "Still, they come back."

After three failed previous attempts at Thai massage, one a decidedly lukewarm experience in a very high-end hotel spa in Oman, I had decided I might just have to travel to Thailand to get a proper Thai massage. The treatment works on the concept of improving energy flow along channels in the body, which Thais call Sen. (The concept is similar to the idea of meridians and Qi in Chinese medicine or Prana in Ayurveda.)

When done well, the combination of massage and assisted stretching can treat a number of ailments, but I've always just turned to Thai massage for stiff muscles and to calm down when life gets a bit too much.

I've certainly never come close to getting the kind of expert treatment that I received in a bare-bones outfit located atop a Thai restaurant I used to frequent back in Ottawa, Canada's capital. But then I meet Daeng. His 90-minute treatment, conducted on a wide table in one of eight rooms on the second floor of the spa, is more like a form of practised bodywork than the twisting and pulling I was used to back home.

After I changed into a pair of soft, thin pyjamas provided by the spa, Daeng instructed me to lie on my belly. Using a combination of his knuckles, the back of his hands, elbows, thumbs and forearms, he began gently working his way up from my feet, gloriously kneading my muscles and connective tissue. By the time he got to my hamstrings, my normally racing mind was empty, my body totally relaxed. One of the best feelings of the massage came when he stood on the table and stretched my legs up behind me, until only my belly was touching the table. Try that by yourself at home!

He worked deep on the muscles in my back, expertly pulling and stretching the tight tissue between my shoulder blades and shoulders. Once I had flipped over, there was a lot more stretching and a bit less massaging - more yoga-type assisted twists.

Telling me my neck was very tight (whose isn't?), he showed me some gentle stretches that I am going to try at home. At the end of the treatment I felt so very amazing - centred, relaxed, calm, joyful even - that I felt like making appointments for everyone I know.

I've read that an important component in the healing capability of a Thai massage depends on the compassionate intent of the practitioner. In wellness as in everything else, there are the truly talented, the highly competent, then varying degrees of everything else. Daeng is among the gifted.

The Thai massage at Anantara Spa is Dh700. And while that is about Dh200 more than I would expect to spend for a Thai massage, the treatment is so above and beyond anything I have ever experienced, it's worth every single extra dirham.

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