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I was looking for a place to get away. Where we could relax and leave all our worries behind? I chanced upon it by accident via their website. And The Farm at San Benito turned out to be a great find! So much more than what I was expecting!

The Farm at San Benito is a refuge for relaxation, healing, wellness and healthy eating. It’s tucked away in a 49 hectare property in the woods and rolling hills of Lipa, Batangas, with a good view of Mt. Malarayat. The Farm has 9 hectares of developed land (the rest are forestry, wildlife, agricultural lands).

The developed area includes three swimming pools, more than 40 cottages, a library, many relaxation and meditation huts, a 100% vegetarian restaurant, an amphitheater, a meeting hall and reception area, at least two ponds, lots of green green grass and trees, a SPA, a gym and … a farm (almost missed that).

The farm is open for day tours, overnight stays or even extended stays of a week or more. It offers SPA treatments, strictly vegetarian food, some medical services and health and wellness classes such as meditation, yoga, stretching or even psycho-emotional counseling. Ah, perfect for a psychotic like me.

The vegetarian food was a wonderful experience, being an adventurous eater that I am. The chef and crew cooked up very interesting dishes. It was fun how we would look at the food, taste the food, guess what it was and relate it to some of the food we’ve tasted before. Some of the dishes I could distinguish as having Asian, Indian and Mediterranean flavors. I liked how the chefs made use of indigenous ingredients (coconut, gata, kalabasa) in many of their creations. It was also my first time to taste seitan, a protein food similar to tokwa but thicker. Have you tasted a pina colada cake, or a Nori biscuit? Well, I did, at the Farm at San Benito.

At the SPA, I had a taste of Moxa Ventosa – also known as “cupping”. I chose it because it looked …. Um, exotic. And yes, after the treatment, I looked like an exotic ladybug with all the two-inch wide polka dots on my back.

But it was the serene landscape, the quiet evening, the relaxing and warm swimming pools, the strolls amidst the trees and singing cicadas – these are some of the simpler features that completes the relaxation package that is The Farm at San Benito.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 6:23 am and is filed under Batangas, Retreats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.