Water has historically been the key element in the traditional spa mix. This dates back to Roman times when over-indulgent sybarites travelled the land to take its curative powers by mouth or day-long soaking. Likewise, water is key to the Balinese way of life, ritualized in the form of holy water or trtho.This, according to Hindu legend, is borne from the sea by a beautiful goddess and drunk by the gods for immortality.Water features strongly in most Balinese ceremonies when the people give thanks to the rains for making theirs an undisputed land of plenty, and to the sea as bountiful provider.

This is the largest spa in Bali with 26 therapists performing 80 treatments per day between them, yet it manages to retain an aura of calm thanks to the mesmerizing sound of pouring water and the heavy scent of tropical flowering plants.

With these thoughts in mind, the spa at the Nusa Dua Beach Hotel & Spa was designed around water, literally as a series of pavilions encircling a lap pool. Banish visions of the sterile field of water found at fitness centres in favour of a skinny, turquoise tube overhung with flowering branches and underwired with a subaqueous sound system.Above water level, the sound of falling water that abounds adds to the languid mood.

One of the delights of a tropical spa is the outdoor treatment experience.This large and lavish outdoor pavilion is a secluded spot under a shady grass roof in its own walled compound.

The Nusa Dua Spa is a puzzle of vivid Mediterranean colour: It is built as four pavilions linked by cloisters and shaded by the waxy blooms of the lampergia creeper

Treatments focus strongly on Bali's natural medicine chest. Massages, rubs, baths, head, face and foot manipulation, and several indulgent combination programmes, have been devised by spa consultant Kim Collier. Collier has spent three years combing Indonesia in her effort to preserve the country's bottomless box of beauty traditions by offering them in a spa context. She has, in order to cater to global spa goers, blended some of her traditional findings with western techniques for some of the massages and facials offered here.

The Nusa Dua was Bali's pioneering Tropical Spa. It was opened in 1994, and has since been refurbished into a colourful complex where health and relaxation fuse under the palm trees.