Spa Stories

Read about places our team has been to.

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Something fishy going on

By Veronica Matheson

Tiny fish nibble my toes, others nibble around my heels, and still others are tickling the underside of my feet. I should be kicking them away in horror. Instead I resist the temptation as I know this fish banquet will give me beautifully smooth tootsies.

These fish, just a few millimetres long, love a diet of hard, rough skin so there is no need for them to go hungry when hovering in my direction. It really is a case of being fed to the fishes.

This Piscean feast is being celebrated in a Kenko foot spa on the retail level underneath the Singapore Flyer, the big revolving wheel similar to the London Eye, which gives tourists a wonderful overview of this evolving city.

In a glassed-in room more than a dozen of us sit self-consciously dangling our feet into what looks like a small swimming pool speckled with black dots. The dots are the tiny fish that can't wait to start munching.

These "doctor fish" as they are popularly known in Asia are a species called Garra Rufa that can be found in hot springs across Turkey, and are now widely found in Asia. They are toothless and remove rough skin with a sucking motion rather like a vacuum cleaner.

My first experience of this unusual "spa" treatment was in Kuala Lumpur's Pavilion Shopping Centre in Bukit Bintang where I was a tad squeamish about getting up close and personal with fish. But then I realised the huge benefits. My tootsies never felt smoother and I headed away from the fish spa to have a manicure and nail polish to put those fresh feet firmly in focus.

To my delight months later I found another Kenko fish spa in Bangkok's busy MBK store, then another on the island of Koh Samui, and once more I was walking on air.

Fish spa facts

Kenko is the Japanese word for healthy. These reflexology spas, which use fish to exfoliate feet that are the worse for wear, have sprung up across Asia, and most recently in Bangalore, India. Spa users need to wash and brush their feet perfectly clean before dipping into the fish pool. The squeamish can have traditional foot reflexology instead of the fish nibbling exercise as both relieve muscular tension.

Check out locations at www.kenko.com.sg

For more fishy adventures, head to Chaing Mai in Thailand and visit Fish Actually Fishspa www.fishactually.com.

In Koh Samui, visit Dr Fish, www.drfishthailand.com