Thai Massage

It is Brooke’s habit to visit the masseuse every Saturday afternoon. They know her there as Malee, a Thai word for flower, because they can’t pronounce her name. The massage parlor is along the Asia 1 highway, across the street from a Buddhist temple, near my old house. It doesn’t look much like the massage parlors you would be familiar with if you had ever indulged in the West. There are no dim lights or private chambers, no aromatherapy, no soothing music.

The main room is tiled and half open to the parking lot with plenty of windows, light and breeze. There are perhaps ten mattresses on the floor, each with a fan nearby. There are two smaller air conditioned rooms. An air conditioned massage is slightly more expensive than the usual package. Most of the masseuses are women as it is generally inappropriate for men to massage women. There is, however, one male masseuse in the house. Although he is blind, he gives one of the best massages in the house, although, as a woman, it is somewhat a delicate process to request him. Normally when you arrive, whoever happens to be free waves you over to a mat on the floor.

Although I certainly do not indulge every weekend, I have been going to this particular place for about a year now and I know the characters there quite well. There is a small, quiet Burmese woman and a short chubby Thai lady with malicious eyes and a wicked grin. There are a few quiet professional ladies who will do their job with a blank expression on their face and a few gossips who will giggle and laugh the entire time. Generally, I can expect to hear comments about my size at least once, usually in good fun. Once, lying on my stomach on the mattress next to Brooke, I looked up and saw our two masseuses comparing the size of our asses.

The first thing you do when you enter the massage house is take off your shoes, as is the custom when entering almost all Thai houses. Then you change into the light cotton clothes provided. If your feet are dirty, it is expected that you would wash them. Then, you lie down on your back on one of the mattresses and let the ladies do their magic.

Generally, Thai massage is quite relaxing, although it is far more active than traditional Sweedish style for both the masseuse and the massaged. It involves a lot of stretches and strange positions. One of my favorite parts is when I am lying on my stomach and the woman is kneeling on my butt with her hands on my back alternatively putting her weight on either side of my spine. It feels like there is a big cat sitting on me kneading my back.

Of course, sometimes the stretches can be quite uncomfortable, especially for someone like me who is quite inflexible. There have been times when I have wondered whether a trip to a dominatrix might be more pleasurable than a Thai massage. On one occasion, I went for a one hour massage to help my back, which was quite sore. After massaging my back for some time, the woman turned me over and asked me if I needed to use the washroom. Since I didn’t, she immediately began the deep massage of my stomach. At times, this involved her entire weight bearing down on the soft unprotected squishy bits of my belly. Not content to merely apply pressure, she began moving things around.

As it turns out, one of the first phrases I learned in Thai was “that hurts” and I decided the situation warranted its use. The woman smiled and nodded sympathetically. I was relieved ... until she pressed harder. Unable to bear the pain anymore, I could not help but moan out loud. The woman seemed to be expressing a rather serious intention to rearrange my intestines. She only smiled again and said soothingly, “Yes, yes it hurts doesn’t it? Hmmmm….” While the other women in the room laughed. Finally, unable to bear the pain any longer, I begged her, “Stop! Please stop!” But at this she had no reply and the other ladies shouted over, “Baby! What a baby!” (Willing to believe the best about everyone and slightly out of my mind from pain, I at first thought they were suggesting that I was pregnant and had a baby, but if that had been the case, the massage I was receiving would clearly have relieved me of that particular situation. No, these women were calling me names, plain and simple.)

While it continued I imagined how much happier I might have been if I had spent my money on a leather clad vixen. Instead of getting intimately acquainted with the geography of my intestines, I might be getting whipped, for example. I didn’t think a whipping would compare at all to the kind of pain I was feeling in my belly, and besides, I thought, a dominatrix would be likely to stop if she passed her client’s pain threshold. This woman seemed to have no such concept. Indeed, when it was over, and I was left panting painfully on the mat, she proceeded to give me a stern lecture. “Only eat one meal a day,” she said, frowning at me, “this will help your back feel better.” I left the massage house with a sore back and a stomach so sore I had no desire to eat for several days.

It’s easy to see why I would get scared away and go for long stretches of time without visiting the massage house but the truth is, I always find my way back again for another round of fun, pain, laughter and (only sometimes) relaxation. Let’s blame it on life in Mae Sot, shall we? What better way is there to kill two hours on a weekend?