Escape to This Ruggedly Luxurious Indonesian Resort Where Wellbeing Comes First
At a ruggedly luxurious resort on the Indonesian island of Sumba, wellbeing comes first.
“Through the jungle,” says my guide, Linus, gesturing at a path he’s cleared in the long grass of the marshes. We’re mid-way through the 90-minute trek from Nihi, the pioneering luxury resort on the Indonesian island of Sumba, to its spa, Nihioka.
Linus leads me past rice paddies and grazing water buffalo, around bubbling waterfalls and into the overgrown jungle until, finally, we arrive at an oasis of calm east of the resort. While the 15-minute drive down palm-fringed roads would certainly be easier (and cooler), the walk shows me more of Sumba, in all its lush glory; I smell the hot, fig-scented breeze and hear the rustling leaves. As I get closer to the spa, all sound is swallowed by a natural white-noise machine: the ocean. After a quick dip and alfresco breakfast, almost three hours of treatments begin. Underneath my massage table is a mirror turned on the waves.
“It’s gasp-worthy, isn’t it,” sighs Greg, as I recount the adventure. He and his wife, Barbara, hail from Noosa and this is their eighth visit to the property, a place they describe on more than one occasion as “magical”.
Nihi’s guests, who number a maximum of about 60 and are all tanned and relaxed, are encouraged to mingle. One night, I’m invited to a barbecue by an American family on a round-the-world trip. I share a car to the airport with a honeymooning couple from Jordan. Greg, Barbara and I chat during Happiest Hour at The Boathouse, Nihi’s bar, where we’re offered bottles of Bintang and silken wahoo sashimi caught that afternoon. (I watched the boat return and the chef reverently ferrying his prize to the kitchen as I enjoyed nasi goreng for lunch at Nio Beach Club.)
Reached via a 65-minute flight from Bali, Nihi occupies 175 hectares of prized coastal real estate in Sumba’s southern corner, its 27 villas fashioned from intricately carved timber beams, with coconut-shell wall coverings and private plunge pools. Wellness is at the heart of the resort, by virtue of its stunning location and the activities on offer. There are yoga classes, garden tours with Freya Pinckney, a former pharmacologist who is developing Nihi’s line of beauty products using local ingredients, and as much pickleball as you can handle. The gym overlooks the ocean, where keen surfers tackle the swell at Occy’s Left, the island’s world-famous break.
I arrive at the resort vibrating with the same stress levels I always have, being a city-dwelling 30-something. Though Nihi is set to expand its offerings and launch a range of retreats later this year, I sign up for a relaxed sampler: a little sunset singing-bowl yoga, some hiking, a trip to the spa and a morning with equestrian consultant Evelien Akerboom and her 28 horses.
Hailing from the Netherlands, Akerboom has run the stables for more than two years and is friendly, talkative and absolutely horse-mad. She stresses that what she does is equine connection rather than therapy, given she has no specific training as a psychologist. We amble alongside the horses on their morning trot down the beach to the fields of grass they feast on for breakfast then sit with them in peaceful silence. I breathe in deeply. Hannah, one of the oldest horses, comes up for a sniff. “They can feel your heartbeat,” says Akerboom. “They can sense that we’re not stressed.” She shows me how to hold my hand to Hannah’s nose, inviting my namesake for a pat. “We are part of the herd now,” says Akerboom cheerfully.
My morning at the stables reminds me of a conversation I had with Melany Martinez Thomas, Nihi’s newly appointed head of wellness, who’s been hard at work devising the resort’s formal retreats. She’s torn between the word wellness – with all its trend-based, Goop-y connotations – and wellbeing, the more generous-spirited, open-hearted concept of contentment.
I think about wellbeing the whole time I’m at Nihi. It’s everywhere. It’s in the ecstatic guests ushering baby turtles into the ocean at sunset. It’s in the food, which is all-inclusive and made from ingredients grown in the hillside kitchen garden or caught fresh each day: grilled tuna with a zingy lemongrass sambal; charred duck marangi swimming in a rich peanut sauce; turmeric prawn curry mopped up with woodfired flatbread. It’s in the grin of the little boy who says one day at lunch, “Isn’t it nice to look at the sea?” I read three books curled up on a pool lounger more comfortable than my bed at home and sleep deeply every night. This is wellbeing. And maybe, with all the massages and yoga, it’s wellness, too.
