The question is straightforward, to be expected. Yet when Sirapob “Gunn” Chaimeekhiew, a wellness coordinator at RXV Wellness Village, enquires about personal health goals, the potential answers seem so numerous, so entangled, it makes sense to grab at “weight”, the fruit hanging lowest and largest from a decade of careless living.

It’s just a pre-resort Zoom consultation — when I arrive in Thailand in a week or so, RXV staff will confirm my goals, measure my health, and tweak their recommendations as the stay progresses — but isn’t gut health a more important issue? Or muscle mass? Then there’s brain health, good sleep and controlling stress. And what about balance, where how long a person can stand on one leg will determine how well they age, but where disequilibrium can be attributed to the inner ear, a vitamin deficiency or weak ankles from repeated high-heel accidents? “Everything,” I’m thinking. “Anything. Whatever you and I and a Rainbow Diet can fix in five nights at a health retreat in Thailand.”

The Rise of the Wellness Empire

RXV Wellness Village, sitting on the Tha Chin River in the pretty Suan Sampran estate, opened in 2023. It comprises both a pre-existing brutalist hotel among century-old trees and a sweep of elegant spa, clinical and fitness facilities, and it’s part of a medical and wellness tourism industry in Thailand valued at $24.6 billion. (Indeed, much of the hour’s drive to Nakhon Pathom province from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport is dotted with billboards for surgeries and injectables that picture men and women with vividly glossed lips and skin like milk.) At home too there’s a powerful business case for booking travellers seeking better bodies and minds. In August, the Victorian Government released a guide to creating wellness tourism destinations and experiences, and is investing in “wellness infrastructure” that includes a Nordic spa resort in the Grampians and further development of the Hepburn Mineral Springs Reserve.

Globally, the wellness tourism industry is set to be worth more than $2 trillion by 2028, according to business intelligence platform Statista — more than double its 2022 market value.

 

Escaping Reality

So why, when any smartwatch, ring, earbud or sleep pad can guarantee—if not good health—then the data to secure it, is a stretch at a wellness sanctuary even necessary? Why would such a stay be superior to all the hyper-optimisation tech that emerged from the late 2000s onwards?

Of course, it’s partially the tourism bit of wellness tourism. RXV Wellness Village is nothing like home and the frosty southern Australian winter I’d left behind. Housekeeping thoughtfully cranks down the air-conditioning in the Presidential Suite, and it will go a lot lower, because it’s 33 degrees outside. The gardens are old and manicured, and heaving with mangoes and twisted ylang-ylang trees and paths that ramble into village markets or traditional Thai buildings. The river boats are working craft, but to any outsider, they are beautiful.

The Art of Cocooning

Then there’s the delicious cocooning of it all — the shedding of real life for a softer world of fluffy robes, essential oils and the vibrations of Tibetan bowls. Once a day, guests visit Bor Naam, the hydrotherapy hub. The design is simple and serene, and it feels like a true act of self-care if you’re there alone, which is usually the case, or a gentle communal experience when you’re not. (Although plenty of glamorous locals lunch at RXV, there are very few hotel guests during my stay: a handful of writers, a travel agent, the Stenmark twins, a fit mystery woman, and a family of four.)

At Bor Naam, a wall chart outlines six “pathways” for different outcomes—muscle recovery, deep sleep, de-stress—that guide a bather’s progression through the fizzy oxygen bath, mineralised soda bath, cold plunge pool, hot vitality bath, infrared sauna, and steam room. The experience shower is a succession of water temperatures and droplet sizes to the sounds of ocean waves and birdsong. It might sound corny, but it’s delicious—part of the lure of any wellness resort journey that can sometimes seem less retreat and more like flying over the rainbow to where trouble melts and so does subcutaneous fat; where a person can luxuriate in yoga and massage and emerge transformed: a butterfly from the chrysalis, a Venus from her shell, even an old snake sloughing skin.

Facing the Data

So it’s a sharp slap of reality when my five-day personalised program starts with a Body Composition Analysis, where a Styku body scanner captures lean mass, fat mass and a detailed 3D image. That lumpen green figure, ringed to indicate waistline, thigh line and so on—that melting ice-cream of a woman—will haunt me ’til I die, which is sooner than expected because the report also includes that my numbers are better than 30 percent of women my age. There are darker ways to phrase that, but my assessor, a sunny physiotherapist nicknamed Mind, corrects me: 70 percent of my peers are better or the same.

Conversations in the Kitchen

“I think I have body dysmorphia, but the other way,” says another guest later, a young English writer also reeling from the green goblin on her report. “I think I look better than I do.” We are swapping experiences in the riverside RXV Kitchen, a restaurant that serves exquisite, brightly hued dishes. My favourites are the spiced organic pomelo of yum som-o, and the pink and petalled sphere of elderflower mousse. There’s alcohol if you want it, but many don’t; and when asked, the kitchen will customise calorie- and nutrient-controlled meals for no charge.

The young woman tells me of the backlash against self-optimisation among women her age. “Why check a watch to know if you slept well?” she argues, and monitoring a wearable suddenly seems a bit like allowing the kilos on a scale to colour one’s day. Before our visit, there’d been an uptick on TikTok of “manifestation content”, where beautiful women—mostly white, hyper-feminine women—champion visualisation and the abundance that follows. Meanwhile, the manosphere is built on a culture of productivity and self-denial, the rejection of anything that might undermine control.

Activating the Brain

Reality jumps me a second time during Brain Activation Exercise in the Wellness Gaya. The session is a combination of sensory inputs, motor outputs and brain games—a round of one-person cardio Twister with flashing coloured lights and a timer—and a test of physical coordination and reaction times that the personal trainer keeps assuring me is fun.

Between Science and Spirit

I do not cry. Later, in the cavernous suite, pulling open the curtains to views of the river and the curvy outdoor pools, I get a grip and acknowledge my good fortune. This is data—pure and useful—and it offers a blunt understanding of what needs fixing. The world’s “most measured man”, tech founder Bryan Johnson, is often maligned, with his team of doctors continually refining his diet, treatments, routines and pills in an endeavour to reverse ageing. Critics say to live so slavishly to health and longevity—to eat the same two meals every morning and go to bed at 8.30 pm—is no life at all. But Johnson will tell you that nothing beats feeling as well as he does, and that mockery is the “algorithmically predictable” reaction to any figure who questions norms. On returning to the Wellness Gaya for a Functional Weight Training circuit with Fluk, I concentrate on technique and revel in sweat.

The Breath Between

On day three, an MD at the Wellness Clinic administers an IV infusion of amino acids, with an extra “pack” of antioxidants. Still, for me the most powerful before-and-after shift follows both the acupuncture for gut health and a Breath Work class on the pier, where I’m suddenly able to slow down and breathe deeply (and spot dozens of fish jumping in the river after only being able to catch them in the corner of my eye before).

When Energy Speaks

Like any health resort, there are swings between rigour and pampering, an interplay of science with the spiritual. No matter if yoga is on the pier or in a sunlit studio, the instructors are physiotherapists. Following a Sound Healing session, where the therapist Turtik strikes crystal bowls as participants lie in a circle, Gunn suggests my unexpected urge to cough could be because the body’s prone position narrowed airways or provoked mucous to drip. But when I share a dream from the night before, of not being heard over a crowd, the psychology graduate from Thailand’s prestigious Chulalongkorn University sucks in his breath. The throat chakra, according to ancient Indian wisdom, is associated with self-expression and personal truth; a blockage represents something suppressed. He recommends asking about it later during the Crystal Mandala Workshop, an art therapy I’d never have chosen for myself that proves illuminating and popular among guests.

The Ritual of Belief

In an Anti-Ageing Wellness Doctor Consultation, it’s surprising when an MD prescribes, alongside prebiotics and probiotics, Bach flower remedies determined by picture cards I choose from a selection and vials I hold against my chest. Surely it’s nonsense, yet this little ritual becomes a pleasure. Four times a day, I drink a glass of water and consider the attributes those drops are meant to instill. There’s plenty of research into the healing power of the mind; one Harvard Medical School study found that a placebo’s benefits persist even when someone knows they’re getting a placebo. So, I’ll continue to drink the Wild Rose, Pine and Hornbeam Kool-Aid, and feel all the better for it.