The best Ayurveda wellness retreat in the world？ Barberyn Resorts Sri Lanka

What is up guys and welcome back to my channel. This video is the start of a three-part series where we will be exploring wellness tourism in Sri Lanka starting off with the pioneers of the niche and they are known as Barbarin and we will be exploring all three of their properties as well as teaching you everything you need to know about Ayurveda along the way Ayurveda is a holistic approach to medicine that focuses on the balance of mind body and soul. With over 5,000 years of knowledge in healing through indigenous medicine Ayurveda is a treatment that is in high demand worldwide today. Barbarin is the pioneer of Ayurvedic tourism in Sri Lanka and they have three properties all around the coast for you to enjoy this experience. In this video we are going to be taking you to all three of their properties and taking you through the experience of going to an Ayurvedic retreat and what that really entails. Now just so you know I want to mention this at the beginning of the video that the minimum stay here is one week and the recommended stay is two weeks. This is because they're very serious about helping you through whatever problems and health issues that you might have so they need to have a consultation, assign you medication and treatment and see how you react to it and then they use the next week to respond to your symptoms after their treatment. So it's a very serious process and also a very relaxing process from what I know so let's get into it and see how it goes To start off your stay the first thing you will be doing is going for a consultation with one of the many Ayurvedic doctors that are present here at Barbarin. During your consultation they'll be doing numerous tests to ensure what your current status is. The beauty of Ayurveda is that they look at the body as a whole system and not just the symptoms. So what happens is that they are looking to balance out your entire being starting with your doshas and what your composition of the three doshas are which are kapha, pitta and vata Each person has a different composition of these three doshas and the goal of Ayurveda is to bring those three into balance. They will also be checking your blood pressure, your weight as well as a few other things to ensure what your current status is. So now I'm going to be heading off for my first treatment I'm very excited so come along Included in your stay at any of the three Barbarin resorts is an Ayurvedic massage according to your doctor's consultation. Each of the oils and herbal medicines used for your massage is specific to you and focused on treating your body based on your doshas. During your two-week stay at the resort you will have ample time to experience all of the ancient Ayurvedic treatments as well as a few alternative treatments to rejuvenate your mind, body and soul So you're probably wondering what am I going to get to eat at an Ayurvedic resort well once you go for your consultation you're given a dietary sheet of what you can and cannot eat according to your doshas and your imbalances. Now this is not as restrictive as you imagine but there are a few things that the doctor does assign for you that you must have at every meal and that list is sent over to the hotel and it is placed on a card and it sits on your table every day while you're here so that the staff know exactly what you need to have. So think of this as like the food version of medicine it's kind of like a medication that you have to take with every meal. So for me personally I have been assigned a gotukola soup every morning, a gotukola salad every evening as well as So that is my diagnosis for exactly what was imbalanced within me and initially we were a bit worried thinking oh my god is that all they're gonna have to eat but you'd be surprised because on top of this there is another buffet that is waiting there for you and unlike other buffets you're gonna get to eat quite a variety of vegetables that you don't really come across on your average trip around Sri Lanka and here's what I love about Sri Lanka is the fact that it's a extremely vegetarian and vegan friendly country so you can find an enormous selection of vegan food just by eating locally. This is my gotukola salad here I'm having a leek soup and Shahana is having rice and curry in his own way and the interesting thing about the buffet is that they actually mark out the vitamins and minerals that each ingredient that's in each dish has as well as what it's good for, what kind of doshas it increases or balances out it's unlike any other eating experience where you just eat based on what you think is going to taste good in your eyes you are now being given this information about what is really good for you and what is the value of the food that you are putting in your body and that changes your perspective on how you eat and what you eat and I think if you'd stay at a place like this for two weeks and you continue to eat consciously like this it's gonna have an impact on how you continue to eat even after you leave this property which means that it's gonna help you develop a habit of eating what's good for you which is a great thing in my opinion we are now with Enrico who has been a guest at Barbarin for over 20 years that's incredible so I would like to just ask you a couple of questions the first one being how did you come to hear about Ayurveda and Barbarin specifically? In fact Ayurveda I heard well I made yoga in yoga classes in Germany but then I met my wife and we got married in 2003 and for the honeymoon we came here at 2004 and so she introduced me in the real Ayurveda yeah treatment and I I love it I really enjoy it and they are so friendly and helped me a lot already. Have you found that the treatment has helped you and like maybe given you some knowledge on how to eat better for yourself because I know they tell you certain things to avoid and of course they do but after a while you start to forget how to behave and come back into your own rhythm and yeah and the food is different in Germany of course we eat more fat and not as healthy vegetables and fruits like here yeah so it's easy for me when I'm here while I'm here with eating to lose weight. What would you say Enrico is the difference that you have noticed or the main difference you have noticed between the Ayurvedic treatment as well as the Western treatment I mean both have their own benefits but what's the difference that you may have noticed the main thing I would say is when I go to an Ayurvedic doctor he is looking at me as a whole system yes not only because my arm is broken or maybe my heart doesn't work as good so they look at the person like me and say look what individual problems may I have and but also for me it's magic. Okay we won't keep you too long I know you have some treatments right after this. Thank you so much for joining us. It was nice to meet you too. You too. Enjoy your day. Yeah thank you very much. Well the good thing is that it's not all serious treatments and Ayurveda and you know be eating very clean there is actually a fun side to this as well you get to experience a little bit of the local culture today we're having a bonfire and there's a dancer from the area she's come to show us some of her Kenyan dancing techniques and there are also some excursions that happen I've seen them up on the board turtle hatchery happening tomorrow bento the boat tour so there's quite a few things that you can experience around the area especially at this property here because of the fact that you have the river behind you as well as a beach in front of you and of course bento day is a great place to explore. Good morning guys so we are at Babylon Sands and this property is very unique for me because it is a wellness resort that is a very small setting it's very intimate there are only 20 rooms here so you're going to be spending time with a small group of people that you'll probably get to know during your stay as well and of course every morning they have yoga we just finished our session it was very calm and relaxing because beach is right there and sometimes I couldn't even hear my instructor as well because the sound of the waves was the most prominent thing there which is not something bad to be honest so today we are going to be visiting one of the many medicinal gardens that Barbarian grows and harvests their medicinal herbs from today we are going to be taking this little boat ride or a barge ride to a medicinal island we have made it to the island and this garden is absolutely amazing I can see a lot of love and attention and care has been poured into it and I'm learning a lot just by walking through it of all the different types of herbal medicines that can be made with these plants and really the higher purpose of a garden like this is more than just to provide for Barbarians medications it's actually doing something even better than that which is that it is preserving all of these plants as well as the knowledge of what these plants really can do for people and what kind of medicines it can create for me that's really amazing and another really great thing that Barbarian is doing is they are cataloging all of these plants into a database making it available for future generations even if something does happen to the people who do know about what these medications do now there will be a way for people to access this knowledge online or in some kind of database in the future which is the next level or the next step that needs to be taken to ensure that this information is passed down to future generations so this plant is known as the gonica plant and in Ayurveda it's very very popular for cadumbinum which means fractures of your bones and it's supposed to help by providing a lot of calcium to the area this whole garden is filled with so many plants that provide so many benefits like this that it would take me the whole day perhaps to kind of get an inkling of an idea of everything that can be done with these plants it's been very insightful our land is truly blessed just imagine that all of these natural herbal medicines would grow wild all around the island and it is now in recent times due to intensive agriculture growth of the population that these plants are being lost to construction and growing cities and things like that so that is why the work being done here at Barbarin at these herbal gardens are so important because not only are you collecting all of them to provide a service to guests but you are preserving these plants and the knowledge as well we are now at the pharmacy here at Barbarin and this place is like the heartbeat of an Ayurvedic resort and what's really special here is that all of these oils and all of these powders and dried herbs that you see everything here has been produced by Barbarin themselves which they found actually increases the quality the potency and the efficacy of all of their medicine so when you come here you know not only are you getting medicine and herbs that have been passed down through generations and known to be good but you're also getting the highest quality version of this medication and for me being a local what's really special about seeing this is that it's a very rare sight you don't get to walk into a place where they have cupboards and shelves full of this Ayurvedic medicine anymore it's harder to find and it's harder to access especially when you live in the city so for me it makes me very happy to see the wealth of information and the wealth of knowledge that is being preserved here by Barbarin as well the Barbarin group has over 30 years in Ayurvedic tourism and have built a number of accommodation options to cater to a variety of guests from around the world so whether you are looking for five-star comfort or a small intimate setting click the link below to find the best deal for you we are now joined by Mr. Rodrigo thank you so much for having us here at Barbarin we've learned a lot and we've had a wonderful experience but I want to ask you you are one of the pioneers of Ayurvedic tourism in Sri Lanka Barbarin was one of the first Ayurvedic retreats in Sri Lanka can you tell us a little bit about how it started and what inspired you I can't tell that it is not me who started it it was my father who started it and this resort has been there from 1968 it was a normal hotel and this is one of the pioneering tourist places in Sri Lanka so in this resort this was the first place to start yeah then we started very small but my father had a friend who made a master plan for this he was Turner Vikramasinghe so we slowly he went on building according to his plans also and this place came up so from that time to now it's been over 30 years that you have been in this industry and Barbarin has been in this industry of wellness tourism what do you think is the future of wellness tourism in Sri Lanka as a tourism product and I feel when I look at the internet and so many other you know things where I can get information there's a big shift among the people in the world they are very much interested in going to have natural medicine and natural foods right so we are doing two main thing our major thing is the natural foods side and the medical side yes that's amazing I'm sure you must be having people who are coming here over the past 20 years maybe over and over again right we have we have clients who have been coming more than 30 years here yeah more than 30 for 35 years and some of them have cured some some some of the disease a lot of people have coming because they have very good results right so most of our clients have not got got very old okay the loyal clients loyal clients and they are almost in their 90s almost coming to the hundreds yeah yeah so they come regularly so that means it's working healthy and happy all right thank you so much mr. Rodrigo for chatting with us really appreciate it and hope to catch up with you again soon thank you thank you for your support and discussing with me about these things I'm happy to talk to you too past few days have been really enlightening for me especially as a local even though I am Sri Lankan born and raised I feel like we have lost touch with our roots and it's really amazing to see properties like Barbarin creating so many success stories and so many amazing healing stories for people and the fact that people fly all the way across the globe to come and experience this medication it makes me realize that perhaps we too should be turning back towards our root and not perhaps we should be turning back to our roots and we should be using our ancient knowledge to further our wellness and it's also been really incredible to see just how much Barbarin has committed to this niche tourism sector over the past 30 odd years and whether it is something you want to be secluded in nature and in amazing architecture like this in a sanctuary like this or whether you want to experience your wellness by the beach or next to a lake there is something that Barbarin can offer to every single one of you who wants to come to Sri Lanka and experience Ayurveda and I can safely say from my experience it is one of the most professional and the most complete Ayurveda treatments that you can have because they really take you from A to Z and really make sure that you are feeling amazing by the time you leave and I love their commitment from the doctors to the staff everyone the chefs everyone is committed to giving you a wholesome wellness experience so it has been fantastic I have learned so much I have experienced so much thank you to Barbarin and if you did like this video make sure you hit that subscribe button and like this video because we are going to be diving much deeper into this Ayurvedic journey because I for one am intrigued and with that that is the end of this video you guys I hope you enjoyed it make sure you stay tuned there's a couple more videos on Ayurveda coming as well I will see you in the next one bye