Wayan the Traditional Healer

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This is the story of our experience going to Wayan, traditional healer (the one mentioned in the book
Eat, Pray, Love) in March of 2008.
After being in Bali less than a week I got very, very sick from something I ate. Even after one or two weeks and using everything that I had with me to recover I still felt 'off'. We knew about Wayan and had heard positive things and so I thought it might help me to go to her.

There are various options that she offers from simply massage or a 1 hour assessment, prayer healing and herbal prescription which are the least costly at around $20.00. Ofcourse, $20.00 for a massage in Ubud, Bali is expensive but this would be a massage with "extras" like 2 people working on you at once and I think it is actually 2 hours long.

I went for the "full monty" which is a healing session that runs around 5 hours for $60.00 and includes:
An assessment of your body through various observations and tuning in to you, what appears to be Balinese prayer healing - placing an offering and incense on the alter for you, an herbal drink of fresh tumeric and something else later on. The assessment starts with your name, place and date of birth written by you on a piece of paper. After the assessment you have the body and massage treatments, then finish with a nutritious, therapeutic lunch and instructions for taking your remedies which are all included in the cost.

During the assessment Wayan writes down on your paper what she finds.
After that which will take less than an hour you go upstairs to be worked on by the massage people for several hours - foot soaking with herbs, some massage while sitting and then lying on a table. Two or three people work at once for most of the time. That is completed with an herbal rinse that a person of the same sex will give you in a shower area before dressing for the final part of the session.

William was not going to have this extensive treatment but ended up setting the appointment for it anyway
so we went in together on the same day around 12:30 pm. Almost always Wayan's place has one or more people in there getting something addressed. And it feels a bit chaotic. There are two tables with chairs set up where people sit who are getting some assessment, treatment or part of the above. The place buzzes with activity as staff come in and out of the kitchen area and items are being prepared and
brought to the tables. Wayan in the middle of it all remains amazingly calm, focused and unruffled while also managing to help people or speak to them as they come in. I don't think the afternoon we went in was any different. It was busy and after a short time Wayan was able to start with us. She is, as others have reported quite a character - once you get to know her. We didn't see her daughter there that day, but I did have the opportunity to meet her on another day. Not remembering her name at the moment (but it was something very cute) I'll just say that she was an exceptionally delightful, bright and intelligent, but also friendly and fun girl of about 12. You get that right away in five minutes of interaction with her and I enjoyed the opportunity to meet her also.
(By the way, our best photos of Wayan and ourselves after the session are on the entry titled:
People of Bali).

I'm going to say right off the bat that I didn't particularly agree with eveything Wayan wrote in her assessment about me but there were things that were also quite accurate. I know my body very well as I track what goes on closely and regularly with my own very competent wholistic practitioner back home. But not having him to go to this seemed a decent alternative. What I found over time is that the herbs did make a difference and I did feel I fully recovered from being ill and was much stronger. We were in Bali a total of 5 weeks and on another occasion I was having some trouble with my knees swelling which I felt I knew the origin of but I thought she again might have some herbal tonic that would help. For that occasion I spent only a short time telling/showing Wayan about what was happening and then received some herbal remedy. Once again, the treatment did help and make a difference in a matter of days and beyond.

Back to our 'the works' sessions now. First I was assessed by Wayan after the offering was prepared and placed on the table near me with some incense that was lit at some point. She does things like look in your mouth and eyes with a flashlight, look at your skin and your knee or leg, feel your abdomen and
other things like that which I don't remember now. Writing these things down in a list. Williams'
assessment turned out to be similar to mine and later in comparing notes with some other people they seemed to have very similar things in their assessment notes as well. Items such as: "blood not so good cirkulation", "some time digestion not so good", (I agree these are true for me, but poor blood circulation for William didn't seem true). Other comments she wrote down on my assessment were: "blood pressure some time little low, sometime normal, some time sorrow, some time back trayed (?) and knee (maybe strained), some time busy mind, blood not so clean, and Vit. E and calcium".
I suppose you could say that most people have some problems with things like "blood not so clean" with the polluted air and food that most of us inhale/ingest, and we could all use help with keeping toxicity to a minimum, so treating for this is good but perhaps the assessment was not as personalized at it first appeared.

After all this she prayed to the alter and placed the offering with burning incense there at a typical small house alter hung up on the wall in a balinese house. Below and to the left of the small alter was glass shelving which housed many glass jars of herbs and honey that was used in the herbal drinks or to give for use with the herbal prescriptions. The walls were a light green and somewhat dingy. To the right of the first table in the room was an entry to a kitchen area and the second table beyond the first was adjacent to the staircase going up to a smaller loft area. During business hours the front of Wayans clinic was open with some plants making a sort of screen in that room and just outside. Other than that it was very open and airy to the outside yet still felt private enough. Her place is near the post office and across the street
and up from one of our favorite restaurants in Ubud ~ Bali Buddha where we ate often (organic food, salads, juices and creative mains and soups) or bought organic sauces, produce and healthy treats from
their market.

Wayan's place could also serve passers by a lunch or dinner which was very good and was a sort of Nasi Camphur with a few differences: she offered red rice instead of the usual white and some seaweed along with some other items which she had pictures of in the kitchen with a caption about what they feed the body. There was also a steamed spinach some shredded coconut and a few other items all which were very tasty (well I didn't like the type of seaweed so much, others wouldn't eat it at all) but we felt good
after eating that meal.

I sat at the table and watched while William received his assessment. Then we were ushered upstairs and sat in chairs where our feet were washed and soaked in a solution with some plant leaves and other plant leaves were used on other parts of our body while our heads and necks were massaged a short while.
Then we took off all of our clothes before getting on the tables for the intensive massage session.
It was quite blissful and relaxing. I also had a facial with some egg solution which left my skin feeling very soft and glowing but during that part they did some pulling at my skin which I did not like. The massages were given to us side by side on regular massage tables and we each had two women and a man doing things to us most of the time. I think one of the guys may have worked on both of us. It was a very enjoyable experience for both of us and we tolerated that the girls whispered among themselves rather incessantly at times. Other people told us they didn't like this and well, it was distracting.
Later (like another day) I told Wayan about it and she thanked me for giving her that feedback in her
cheerful, smiling way.

At the end of the massage period first I was taken downstairs and later William to be washed in a solution with plant leaves. It felt very good though was in a not too nice bathroom/shower type area off the long narrow kitchen. I think this was done in part to wash off any oil, then a shower rinse before going back upstairs (wearing a sarong type wrap) to get dressed. Back downstairs we were served our meal and near the end of that Wayan gave us one at a time, our instructions which we wrote while she took the
various herbal items off the tray and explained to us how, when and in what order to take them.

We each had a drink or tiny herbal "pil" item to take in morning, noon and evening for about two weeks and one item to take in the morning for the third week. The items for the second week were different than the first week. In the first two days we had a jar full of herbs steeped in hot water which we drank and then used again the second day. This was a bitter drink but not unpleasant. We each also had some leaves to place on our bellies for several days and some fresh Gotu Kola leaves to chew.

William also had some low back pain he wanted help with and she didn't claim she could help him with that but she sent us to one of her teachers to work on him after the whole session was over.
This ended up being a bit of an ordeal as we had to follow two of her assistants on a motor bike for a 20 minute ride to a residence as it was nearing dusk and threatening to rain. It was an interesting visit to this old man who lived with his family in a very poor condition but they were all very friendly and were apparently related in some way to one of the girls who worked for Wayan (no surprise there actually).
That is always how it seems to turn out. The old man had William lay down and he did some massage on his lower back, no hocus-pocus healing, praying or anything with herbs, just a little rubbing.
While William had that I went and looked at the sow who just had babies and was nursing them (she was huge! and they were still pretty small) and took pictures of the cute little boy with his mom (one of Wayans assistants).

After that we managed to find our way home in the fall of night and avoid being rained on. This last part was not an adventure we were expecting to complete the healing afternoon. While it didn't seem worthwhile from the perspective of making an improvement in Williams back it was an early experience we had in cultural exchange that we could appreciate. And always the people of Bali were friendly beyond description.

We managed in the following two weeks to follow our herbal remedies fairly closely (especially me as I'm pretty good at keeping track of stuff like this) and soon I felt better.

So, I would say, if you are having a problem like I had while in Bali or maybe some thing with your skin that needs some help to heal better, an injury, or anything that may be a chronic condition that has not been improved by other methods then give Wayan the traditional healer a try! She is worth knowing and the herbs seem effective to strengthen the systems of the body. If you don't need anything or don't want to spend the money then at least try the lunch or a healing massage and receive some strengthening herbs and teas.

And for my friend Mary who asked whether Wayan had her house in the rice fields yet, the answer is
Yes!!

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Photos

Wayan
Traditional healer... the very first time we went in

Doesn't this look yummy?
All organic foods: green leafy vegetable, seaweed, roasted coconut, red rice, and a few other items

Herbal remedies to take...
Our prescription for next two weeks

Comments

[greg dudley]

stamch keep gas
dear wayan i have all kines test done the doctors tell me they could not fine anything wrong with me but there is what. every.i eat i have gas alot it keeps me from going places see friends i am poor i am 50 years old i have never been. to.anothere places because i belive in healers' and traditional medicine wayan can you help me or tell me what get for.blaolting and gas thank you

[WilliamandChristina]

Bloating & Gas
Sounds like you need some help Greg, but you're going to have to spend some money to help yourself. Take some good natural things to help eliminate wrong organisms you may have in your gut like: AMP Floracil (google search it) or Primal Defense by Garden or Life in Natural food stores (or google), take probiotics, and stop eating sugar, juices, sodas and fruit for a while till you feel better. Check these websites: www.BodyEcology.com and, www.theReeseWellnessSystem.com for more help. Good luck!