A Goa mud bath will simply melt your tension away. Ask any Goan or traveler about their Curative powers of Goan clay. Imagine in the early morning or in the evening you will cross the open field expanse and flowing rivers to some natural pool away from any people. Peace envelops you, you dip into the pool, self-massage with the clay on your skin, and witness a sunset. It’s just you, your friends, and nature that help to heal your soul.
The Perfect Setting for a Natural Spa
By virtue of being tropical in its climate, Goa has fertile soil and soft clay that would fit perfectly for a perfect budding natural spa. The Soul Travelling team will take you to a local field just a distance from Divar or Chorao Island. Here, you walk for a distance until you reach a natural water body often used for irrigating the field or where a river’s distributary ends. At the bottom, you’ll be met with soft fertile soil, rich in minerals, and without pollutants.
How to Take a Mud Bath
You just need to wet your skin, shower after applying the earth on yourself, and let it dry, as one does for the face mask. Once it dries, wash off the same with water. The clay does a dual job of skin cleaning and helping you to slow down and relax.
A Tradition Rooted in Ayurveda
Mud baths have been practised by Goans since time immemorial, and this tradition has been followed since day one. These practices are based on Ayurveda, which holds that everything is made from five natural elements—earth, fire, sky, water, and air. Our bodies, too, are made from these five natural elements, also known as panchtatva. The five natural elements, as mentioned earlier, decide the composition of one’s physical form or doshas—vata, kapha, and kafa. The perfect balance of these elements accounts for the body systems to act in sync with each other.
Soil, believed by our ancestors, possesses greater power than the other elements. The soil, for example, is capable of extinguishing a fire and holding water. Old-time Goans applied salt baths in the body once or twice a year to get relief from body aches.
Taking it in summer could cool off the heat in the joints, relieve blood pressure, control glucose, and reduce joint pains. The locals took these baths during the full moon and no moon because the tides influenced them.
The Unique Khazan Lands
Goan mud baths often take place in Khazan lands, unique structures designed over 3,500 years ago by Goa’s indigenous tribes. These lands conserve saltwater for fishing, irrigating land, and making salt. When you sit in the saline water, it, through the action of osmosis, pulls water from your body, thus helping to clear mucus congestion and adding in essential electrolytes of Sodium, Potassium, and Magnesium. This decreases stress and enhances sleep. Moreover, the clay’s nutrients exfoliate dead skin cells and increase mineral absorption into the skin. Rivers like the Mandovi, rich in red laterite rock and medicinal plants including mangrove, carry the clay from the Sahyadri mountain ranges to the mud bath sites in Goa.
A mud bath in Goa becomes one special manner of reconnecting with the serenity of nature and its miraculous self-healing ways.
