Zen in the City by Balay Hilom Spa

If there’s one thing that I’d always like to avoid as much as possible, it is actually commuting to and around Manila as it is quite stressful and suffocating. The traffic, the noise and the volume of people in every place is just too much for me.  But who would have thought that a piece of this urbanized place would make me experience zen? and yes, I found it in Balay Hilom Spa.

Experience Zen in the City

“Balay Hilom” was derived from a regional word ‘Balay‘ which means house and a Tagalog word ‘Hilom‘ which means heal. Thus, this gives us ‘House of Healing’. Nestled in a corner of Katipunan Avenue, Balay Hilom Spa takes away its guests for a moment from the hustle of the concrete jungles and a crowd of thousand strangers’ faces outside and provide them with a wholesome healing through its traditional massage practices. You need not to travel afar only to experience different hilot practices as it brings together the best and signature traditional massages from various tribes and culture from Luzon to Mindanao.

Its door is seriously a threshold to something completely different and detached from the outside. In a snap, your senses are catered for relaxation by every element in its receiving area – from the lights, sounds and scent. You’ll be soaked in a low-lit yet dominantly dark room filled with a calming scent and soft folk music out of graceful percussion.

Upon our arrival, we were asked to sit down at their receiving area and served with a hot beverage. Few more minutes, their staff came out with a wooden pail of warm water where we soaked our feet which are extremely tired from going around the metro. With a few caress on our feet, our bodies and minds gave in to the initial relaxation that would prepare us to the hilot itself.

After this, we went to our separate massage rooms where we stripped our clothes off to flesh for a better massage experience.The masseuse put pressure in all the right and perfect spot of my body to ease the ‘lamig’ – the very reason why I feel like my body is so heavy and always tired. It was not even a few minutes when I gave in and dozed off. Every press and stroke that I felt when I was still conscious was heavenly! Indeed, it is quite different from the other massage experience I’ve had.

I just knew that the 70-minute signature Hilot Balay Hilom was done when the masseuse calls me softly back to life lol. I didn’t know I’ve been sleeping. After getting dressed, we went back to the receiving area and enjoyed a cup of hot tea.