(per person sharing an
Alba In Deluxe Room)
* 10% Early Bird offer if deposit is received 45 days before start date
*5% Share with a friend promotion, if both book on the same day in the same booking
*5% Vietnam Resident rate (proof of residency required)
This retreat is for people who are good at keeping going.
You manage work, relationships, and responsibilities without dropping things. You show up, deliver, hold the plates in the air. By any external measure, you are doing fine. And you are tired in a way that a weekend, a holiday, or another good intention has not been able to touch.
"Five days now is the most efficient thing you can do for the next five years."
What you walk away with is something more durable than relaxation: a lighter body, a quieter mind, and a nervous system that has finally been given the conditions to actually rest.
"You might not know the word. But you know the feeling."
Yên (安) is the Vietnamese word for tranquil, serene, at peace. The character in the ancient hàn nôn script is a picture: a roof over a person, shelter not as comfort but as structure. It is the peace that comes when the conditions of your life finally allow you to stop bracing.
Most of us have rest. We have weekends, evenings, the occasional holiday. But rest is not Yên. It is the body and mind returning to a state that is their natural home.
Five days at this retreat are designed around creating the conditions for Yên to return. Not through force or discipline. Through a carefully sequenced combination of fasting, thermal water, guided support, and the kind of stillness that a river valley thirty kilometres from the world can hold.
“Everything still looks normal. Something inside you doesn’t.”
You function well. That is part of the problem, because there is no obvious moment to stop: no crisis to respond to, no collapse that forces a pause. Just the ongoing, competent management of a life that is full in every direction, while something quieter and more essential gets progressively thinner.
You go to bed tired and wake up tired. Sleep happens, but restoration does not. Weekends arrive and depart without leaving much behind. You take a holiday and find yourself scrolling messages on Zalo or WhatsApp, because the habit of being reachable is stronger than the change of scenery.
Inside the competence, something has gone quiet. You feel disconnected from yourself in a way that is hard to name and harder to explain to anyone else. You move through your days on a kind of autopilot, doing what is required, being what is expected, until putting yourself last became invisible. This became your normal, and you are not sure exactly when that happened.
You know what you need. You have known for a while. But the moment never quite arrives, there is always something more urgent, more responsible, more justifiable.
The problem is not motivation. It is never having made the conditions.
The guests who come to YÊN are rarely in crisis. They are the ones who have watched someone else reach one, a colleague, a close friend, a peer who always said they would slow down, and decided not to follow the same path. They are here because they understand that five days of genuine rest and reset now is not a luxury. It is the most efficient thing they can do for the next five years.
“A valley shaped by hot springs. Thirty kilometres from the world.”
Award-winning Alba Wellness Valley sits in Phong Điền district, thirty kilometres from Hue, in a river valley formed by the Thanh Tan mineral springs. Natural thermal water feeds the resort’s entire water system, including the Onsen facility at the centre of the retreat’s daily rhythm. The hills are green and the birdsong is constant. There is no city noise.
Alba Wellness Valley has been recognised by Travel + Leisure as one of Vietnam’s Best Upcountry Hotels for three consecutive years and by Luxury Lifestyle Magazine as the No. 2 Best Wellness Resort in the World.
The environment is not an amenity. For the kind of physiological reset that Buchinger fasting creates, where the body is asked to enter a state of deep rest and repair, the setting matters. Green hills, thermal water, birdsong, and the absence of city noise are not luxuries here. They are part of the method.
“Fasting is not going without. It is being fed differently.”
Two freshly pressed vegetable juices and two clear vegetable broths each day. One broth is served warm; on hotter days, the lunchtime serving can be enjoyed cold, a chilled, clear vegetable consommé that is as refreshing as it is nourishing. This is fully aligned with the Buchinger method, which has served cold soups at its clinics for decades.
This is not deprivation. Buchinger fasting maintains caloric intake through juices and broths, which is why guests feel clearer rather than depleted, and why it produces results that other fasting approaches rarely achieve.
The retreat begins with a welcome dinner on the evening of arrival, when you are still nourished and the fast has not yet started.
On departure day, you leave with a juice and a broth for the journey home, your nourishment for the afternoon and evening ahead. The fast continues until you are home.
The first solid food is an apple, eaten slowly, on the day after the retreat. Many guests choose to extend their fast beyond that point. Dieter will support you remotely if you do.
“You lower yourself into the water.”
The Onsen building sits beside the Spa. You step inside and the temperature changes immediately, warm, humid, quiet. The eight stations move you through a sequence that takes about thirty minutes and feels considerably longer, from the first rinse through the silk bath, jet bath, steam room, dry sauna, and cold plunge. It ends at the mineral hot spring bath and finally the open-air station, where the sky opens above you and there is nothing required of you at all.
The Onsen session happens each day before your massage, Days 1 to 4. By the time you lie down for fifty minutes of bodywork, your muscles have already begun to release, because each station prepares you for the next. By the end, the body has done something it rarely does in ordinary life. It has simply let go.
Beyond the Onsen building, the resort’s natural mineral springs flow through the grounds in open channels, warm water at different temperatures, winding through the landscape. Guests move between them in bathing gear, at whatever pace the day allows. The springs are not a treatment, simply part of the setting, always available. That quality, restorative and requiring nothing, is part of what makes this environment so suited to fasting.
Over five days, this daily immersion in thermal water has a measurable effect: cortisol drops, and muscle tension softens over days rather than hours. The nervous system, repeatedly guided back to a resting state, begins to find that state more easily on its own. This is not an amenity. It is part of the path back.
"Everything supports one direction: returning to Yên."
“Body support, morning and evening”
“You know what your body is doing and why”
During a Buchinger fast, the body enters a state of autophagy, cellular self-cleaning that cannot be reliably triggered any other way. This is not a wellness trend. It is a biological process with decades of research behind it. Understanding what is happening inside you changes how the week feels.
image 1
“Space to process what accumulates”
“Gentle, never pressured”
“The work continues when you leave”
Five days of carefully sequenced support. Nothing is random. You are guided and supported by a certified Buchinger fasting coach throughout.
"Not a schedule. A journey."
Each day has a different quality. Here is what to expect, not in terms of the timetable, but in terms of what shifts.
You check in, meet the others, and sit with Dieter for your first wellness check-up. The orientation gives you the shape of the week. The first Onsen happens in the late afternoon, and the welcome dinner follows in the evening, the last solid meal before the fast begins.
You arrive carrying everything: the unfinished thoughts, the work you left behind, the habit of being somewhere between two things at once. The first day does not ask you to let go of all of it. It simply begins to slow the pace, and the valley’s particular quality of evening light is the first thing you notice.
The week has begun, and you are already somewhere different.
The fast begins. Morning rituals settle into their rhythm, the first sharing circle opens the day to something more than logistics, and Dieter’s first health education class gives you a clear map of what is happening inside your body. The Onsen and massage follow in the afternoon.
Most guests expect hunger to dominate Day 2. What surprises them is the clarity that appears alongside it, not dramatic or euphoric, just a little quieter inside than the day before. The body has begun doing something it almost never gets to do. It is using its own intelligence rather than being managed from the outside.
Something in you begins to trust the process.
The body moves deeper into rest. Digestion is quiet. Energy has settled into a different register, not low, just different from ordinary. A second health education class, the Onsen, and a guided meditation structure the day without filling it too completely.
Day 3 is where something shifts. The background noise of ordinary mental life, the internal commentary, the habitual worrying, begins to thin, and thoughts arrive with more space around them. Some guests describe this as strange at first, and then recognise it as something they have been looking for. This is the day most guests write about afterwards, and why many of them come back.
The internal weather begins to clear.
The clearest day. A guided walk through the valley combined with afternoon indoor yoga or gentle movement, a cycling tour through the surrounding countryside, and the Onsen and massage. A sharing circle in the evening, where the conversation reaches a depth that surprises people who have not done this before.
You feel genuinely lighter, not just in body. Thoughts arrive with more space around them, and you begin to notice what matters and what you have been giving your attention to that does not. There is a particular quality to the conversations that happen on Day 4. People say things they did not plan to say, and they mean them.
You begin to remember who you are when no one needs anything from you.
The fast continues through your final morning. There is a closing wellness check-up, personalised refeeding guidance from Dieter, and a last sharing circle before you leave. By 1pm, you depart, carrying a juice and a broth for the journey. The fast does not end at the gate.
It ends at home, the following day, with an apple. Many guests arrive home and choose to continue a little longer. Dieter will be there if they do.
Leaving is not an ending. You have been somewhere real, and something real has shifted inside you. You take something structural back with you: a clearer body, a quieter mind, a nervous system that has had a genuine rest, and a plan for the days ahead that protects what you have built. The first apple of refeeding, if you have never tasted one after five days of fasting, is a small revelation.
You leave carrying less. You leave knowing more.
"What guests consistently report in the days and weeks after."
PHYSICAL
MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL
A note of honesty: Results vary. Dieter will tell you what is realistic for your specific situation during your pre-arrival consultation.
Many guests return each year. Not because the first retreat did not work, but because it did, and they understand what supports that.
Real words from guests who have already made the journey.
"The people who hold the space."
"A small group. One shared journey towards Yên."
Every pricing option includes the complete five-day programme. Nothing is tiered by access.
Promotions are available and can be combined.
These can be combined – the maximum saving is approximately 19%. You will find the prices for the all incluive retreat package inside the registration area.
Relaunch inaugaral offer - 19 to 23 August 2026
The August retreat is the first YÊN Retreat after a 3-year break. To mark the launch of this enhanced and refied retreat at Alba Wellness Valley Hue, we are extending all three savings simultaneously to every founding guest, regardless of eligibility. This price will not be offered again.
INAUGURAL PRICES (all discounts applied – founding guests only)
The inaugural relaunch offer applies only to the August 2026 retreat. All subsequent retreats revert to standard rack pricing and normal eligibility rules.
All retreats check in on Wednesday and depart on Sunday. Prices include accommodation, full programme, and all daily nourishment. Flights and transfers are not included.
"Everything held clearly, from arrival to refeeding."
"This retreat is for guests ready to step fully out."
THIS MAY BE FOR YOU IF:
THIS MAY NOT BE THE RIGHT FIT IF:
If you have a chronic condition or take regular medication, please contact us before booking. Dieter will speak with you personally to assess whether this programme is appropriate for your situation.
"The group is small by design."
The group is capped at 14 guests, small enough that Dieter knows every person by name, and the sharing circles have the intimacy that makes them work. Check-ups are individual. The rhythm of the week depends on the group remaining intimate.
If you do not come in August, there is September, and there is December. But it is worth asking yourself honestly: if not now, what changes? The patterns that brought you to this page tend not to resolve themselves; they simply wait. The conditions for change do not arrive on their own; they are created.
Many guests who come to YÊN have been before. They book again, not because they have not succeeded, but because they have, and they know exactly what supports that.
Whenever you are ready, the next step is simple.
19–23 August 2026 · Limited availability
9–13 September 2026
16–20 December 2026
"Direct answers before you reserve."
Q1. I don’t know if I can fast for five days. What if I can’t do it?
Buchinger fasting is physiological, not willpower-based. The protocol works with your body’s own capacity rather than against its instincts, combining vegetable juices, mineral broth, the daily Onsen, movement, and guided support to make the process manageable. Most guests expect hunger to dominate the first two days, but from Day 3 the body adjusts and clarity outweighs discomfort. Dieter has guided this for a decade, and the pre-arrival consultation prepares you for exactly what to expect.
Q2. Is this medically safe?
Buchinger fasting has over a century of clinical research behind it and is one of the most studied therapeutic fasting protocols in the world. A wellness check-up on arrival and departure tracks your key markers and gives you measurable reference points. Before the retreat, a personal consultation with Dieter screens for any reasons the programme might not be right for you, and he will tell you honestly if there are contraindications.
Q3. I’ve never fasted before. Is this retreat for beginners?
Most guests at Yên have never fasted before, and the programme is designed with that in mind. The health education classes explain exactly what is happening in your body at each stage of the fast, in plain language that does not require any prior knowledge. The support structures, the daily check-ins, the sharing circles, and the physical programme are all calibrated to guide a newcomer through the experience safely and comfortably. No prior experience is needed, only genuine willingness.
Q4. What if I feel unwell during the retreat?
Dieter conducts daily wellness check-ins throughout the retreat, and if something does not feel right, it is addressed immediately and directly. Guests rarely experience anything beyond mild initial hunger or light-headedness on Days 1 and 2, which are normal physiological responses that pass. The daily rhythm, the Onsen sequence, the nourishment protocol, and the guided support are all specifically designed to make the process as comfortable as possible. You are not managing this alone at any point.
Q5. Can I use my phone and laptop?
The programme does not enforce a digital detox. There is no rule and no confiscation. What guests consistently find, however, is that the combination of the setting, the fasting state, and the daily rhythm makes screen use feel unpleasant and unnecessary. The recommendation is to inform your contacts that you will be largely offline for five days, and to arrive with that intention.
Q6. What happens when I return home? Will I just undo the benefits?
The refeeding guidance on Day 5 is specifically designed to protect and extend what you have built during the week. You leave with a personalised refeeding plan for the five days following the retreat, along with take-home juice and broth for Day 1. What guests typically report is that changes to their appetite, sleep, digestion, and stress response extend well beyond the retreat itself. The retreat is a reset; the refeeding plan is what turns it into a new baseline.
Q7. I have a health condition or I take regular medication. Can I still join?
Please contact Dieter directly before reserving your place. He will speak with you personally and give you an honest assessment. Some conditions or medications mean the programme needs to be modified, others mean it is not the right fit at this time. Either way, you will have a clear answer before committing.
Q8. What is the cancellation policy?
Full details are provided at the time of booking. In summary, cancellations made 22 days or more before the retreat start date receive a refund of all amounts paid, less a VND 1,000,000 administration fee. Cancellations made 15 to 21 days before the retreat receive a 50% refund of the deposit, while cancellations made 7 to 14 days before the retreat receive a 50% credit towards a future Vietnam Detox retreat within 6 months. Cancellations made 7 days or less before the retreat are non-refundable and non-transferable, so travel insurance is strongly recommended.1
Vietnam Detox is the leading provider of the Buchinger Fasting method in Vietnam since 2016. Our certified fasting coach, Dieter Buchner, and his experienced team of retreat managers have helped hundreds of guests enjoy the healing benefits of fasting in a mindful, professional and comfortable setting.
Bespoke retreats to suit your needs and schedule based on the principles of the Buchinger Fasting method from Germany.
This retreat focuses on the spiritual dimension of fasting and wellness classes are themed around mindfulness, what you want to attract into your life and your personal values.
Buông - the Vietnamese word for letting go, is what this retreat, hosted by a contemporary art museum, is all about. Discover your creativity during your fast while you let go of everyday life.
Xin Chào, tôi là Dieter Buchner, Huấn luyện viên tiết thực phương pháp Buchinger và Người lãnh đạo khóa tiết thực đã được chứng nhận của bạn.
Tại đây, bạn có thể tùy chọn số lượng người tham gia, gói dịch vụ, xe đưa đón v.v… Và hoàn thành đăng ký tham gia.
Khuyến Mãi:
Xin Chào, my name is Dieter Buchner, your certified Buchinger Fasting Coach and Retreat Leader.
On this page, you can select from several options, like the type of accommodation, number of people, private transport, etc., to customize your retreat experience.
Promotion:
