Kai Thai Rothbury Lodge

It’s my beautiful mother's birthday soon and I decided to take her for a surprise overnight spa treatment at Kai Thai Rothbury Lodge, situated about an hour outside of Johannesburg. I didn’t tell her where we were going (which was a major trial for me) and my dad kept on asking whether she knew what time we were going to “jump”.  She was convinced I was taking her bungee jumping (since I took her sky-diving a few years back) and kept on emphasizing that she wasn’t mentally or physically up for something like that and that she might not survive an adrenaline-packed adventure this time around. Least to say she was super relieved when we pulled up to the Lodge. 

The overnight package comes to R1700 per person and includes breakfast, lunch and dinner, rooms with their own private gardens complete with a Jacuzzi and an outdoor shower as well as three individual thai spa treatments. The Lodge also has a steam room and is located on beautifully manicured premises.

Another treat, for me at least, was that the lodge has five resident, awesome (rescue) dogs (Gucci, Socks, Shoes, Richard and Little Richard) which helped to quell the really strange feeling of not having our own dogs with us. Having discussed our mutual love of dogs with Michelle, the manager of the Lodge, she said that we are welcome to bring our hairy fairies and prince (or at least the best behaved of the lot), the next time we come to the Lodge.

Michelle was amazing in accommodating my (and by implication, my mother’s) eating habits and she had the kitchen prepare the most phenomenal vegan thai dinner and lunches I’ve ever eaten. The breakfast was also replete with delicious vegetarian sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes etc. I brought my own soy milk for the coffees but that was pretty much the only worry I had and we really appreciated the individualised care that the Lodge took with us.

The treatments are phenomenal, performed by trained experts and include traditional thai massages (which hurt the fuck out of you but leave you feeling like a newborn baby thereafter, particularly because you’re pretty much weeping like a newborn for the duration of the massage), reflexology, mud wraps and exfoliation as well as more run of the mill treatments such as facials, pedicures and Swedish or therapeutic oil massages. It would be lovely to go back there in summer (as Murphy’s law would have it, I’d chosen the coldest week of the year to go to the Lodge) as they do the massages outside on a beautifully decorated deck in the garden.

The overnight package is definitely a bargain for the price you’re paying. It’s a relaxed, beautiful setting, staffed by people who genuinely care about giving you the best experience possible and, since it is only an hour outside of Johannesburg, a single night’s stay actually feels a lot longer than it is, since there is barely any travel involved. I’ll definitely be back, when my budget allows it.