Free-spirited Samui
October 15, 2024 - Celebrating 20 years and Two Keys in The MICHELIN Guide for outstanding hotels, Six Senses Samui keeps your senses rekindled, glass full, and place saved at the iconic Table 99.
The warmhearted Thai welcome from your GEM. The secluded two-tier villas with infinity pools. The oceanfront spa and yoga sala with natural surround sound from the gently lapping waves just below. The abundance of dining options fueled with fresh goodness from the on-site farm. The joyous experiences from singing bowls to cooking and cocktail making. And the chilled lemongrass-wrapped towels that pop up before you even break a sweat. Six Senses Samui has been honing its craft when it comes to emotional hospitality for the past 20 years. And everything is designed to make you feel brand new.
A hideaway resort with a young heart
The Thai style villas are built from reclaimed wood and peek unobtrusively from the lush hillside. All villas are sited for complete privacy, most have pools with uninterrupted sea views, and with its huge pool and multi-level sun decks, The Beach Reserve puts families and group gatherings right on the beach. Having undergone a complete renovation in 2015, the resort has not sat still when it comes to enhancements. You’ll see the intention as you walk the long passionfruit-clad arbor to Farm on the Hill, a labor of love housing chickens, goats, ducks, impressive composting, and row upon row of fresh herbs, fruit, and veg. Drift at the Beach was added in 2020, a relaxed beach club with the resort’s third restaurant and sunrise-facing pool.
Over the past two years, Six Senses Samui has introduced a variety of signature foodie experiences, including collaborations with Michelin-starred chefs and a unique destination culinary experience, Dining by the Edge. Thai chefs offer cooking classes at Dining on the Hill – the resort’s main dining hub set above the vast infinity-edge pool – but kudos still goes to the island’s legendary Table 99 where you can wine and dine your way through a six-course degustation menu to the twinkling lights hinting at full moon escapades on Koh Pha Ngan.
Garden to Glass workshop
“Does it excite you?” asks Sumeet Kumar, Director of Food & Beverages, as he encourages guests to go with their intuition when sampling and picking fresh ingredients from the herb garden for crafting their own mocktails and cocktails. “If you end up with gasoline, we’ll give you another go,” he soothes. His glass-always-half-full attitude is infectious, and there’s positive psychology in the conviction that tonight is the night for creating a secret recipe fit for any speakeasy. Most ingredients are home produced, down to the lemongrass straw, so it must be good for you.
A handful of farm-grown squashed calamansi, measure of homemade coconut vodka, splash of pandan syrup, half a snaffled passionfruit, and sprig of sweet basil flower to garnish, and it’s time to relax back on the swing and soak up the Samui Sunset, or Samui Breeze, or Samui Shaker...
Rekindle Your Senses
When your primary senses are aligned, you feel balanced, and this is the intention behind the Rekindle Your Senses wellness getaway. A retreat within a retreat, it includes round-trip airport transfers, daily morning wellness class, private meditation or Tibetan singing bowls session, 60-minute massage treatment for two, and a light yet satisfying Eat With Six Senses plant-based set menu. Everything from the watermelon poke with lime-ponzu dressing to the miso eggplant, dew-fresh tomatoes in the gazpacho, and coconut, mango, and mint in the chia pudding is locally sourced and lovingly prepared to pair sunshine colors with happy flavors.
If you find it hard to meditate, Tibetan singing bowls quiet your mind without you having to clear your mind, think, or not think at all. This offers a fast and safe way to reach altered states of consciousness while your parasympathetic nervous system is activated in the background to promote relaxation – without you having to do anything but lie in one of the most gorgeous treatment rooms in the world.
“Through vibrations, sound healing techniques such as a singing bowl session touch our guests physically and emotionally, enabling their breathing to slow and blood pressure and heart rate to lower,” says Spa Manager, Khun Chutiphaphat Tinnakorn. “It’s why we also offer a signature singing bowl ritual before and after each of our spa treatments to restore energy flow.”
From feeling like you’re floating off the bed, to sinking right back in it during the 60-minute massage, time bends and stretches, gone in a flash but never forgotten.
20 years and counting
Join Six Senses Samui to celebrate the 20th Resort Anniversary and enjoy 20 percent savings on accommodation, transfers, selected spa treatments, and experiences when you stay for three nights or longer during the month of November.