British GQ - 04.2020

Welcome

to the

Story by Victoria Pendleton

Thailand’s Kamalaya offers activities that turn routines

into relaxation (even for an Olympic champion)

Best for emotional healing

WELLNESS

O

nly a 40 minute transfer from

Thailand’s Koh Samui airport

is the lush resort of Kamalaya,

with winding paths down to a private

beach. In addition to the health, fitness

and detox programmes that you would

expect from a wellness resort, what I

was excited to learn about there was

the range of programmes tailored to

deal with stress and burnout, and regaining (emotional)

balance after struggling with mental health challenges.

Holistic might be a word that turns people off. Coming

from a background in elite sport, my attitude has always

been: if something wasn’t underpinned by solid scientif-

ic research, then it wasn’t worth doing. These days I have

become a lot more accepting of alternative treatments and

therapies after my own personal journey over recent years.

There was no science behind my own unorthodox

approach to recovery from a fairly recent period of severe

04-20WellnessKamalayaNEW_3546507.indd 130 12/02/2020 10:36

130 GQ.CO.UK APRIL 2020