Thai Massage

By the way, you should read these in order. Anyway.

You need two things to be able to give a Thai massage
1. Uncommon strength
2. Devilishly sharp thumbs

The things I do for you guys, honestly. When askedd after a delicious dinner of rice-in-a-pineapple if I wanted to go for a massage, my response (after a bit of hesitation) was, "I'm game." So Pete, Sol, and I linked hands and risked our lives by crossing a Bangkok street and came to the massage place. After removing our shoes (an Asian thing) and leaving them on the steps outside, we went into the building where it smelled like:
"Mint"- Sol
"Vicks"- Me
"Menthol"- Pete
"Oh, I thought it was a type of candy."- Sol
"Not Mentos Sol, Menthol."- Me
"Oh"- Sol

Anyway, after a breif pee break (would you want to be massaged with a full bladder?!) we went down to a curtained off area with three beds. Adventure no. 1: Stripping and donning the massage clothing. This was EXTREMELY amusing for those involved. After removing my stretchy black capris, I unfolded a pair of mint green...well..pants I guess, if you have an ass the size of a circus tent! Sol, Pete, and I could probably all have fit into one of those monsters! Once Pete and I had ours on, we wondered if they were backwards? Or were you supposed to be able to fit twins in there?! In the end we turned them around to we could use the fraying strings as a sort of belt. Sol and I were doubled over laughing. The shirts were no better. Huge. My only quandary was this: bra or no bra? I asked Pete for some odd reason (hey, he's the adult right?) and he told me to ask one of the massage people. Yeah right. I'm going to ask someone with like four words of English who I met about a second ago what I should do with my breats. I made the independent decision to remove the bra.

The massage began with a foot scrubbing. I'm guessing there were two reasons for this.
1. In Buddhism, the feet are the most unholy part of the body. The most incredibly offensive thing you ca do to a Thai person is to point your feet at them.
2. Who wants to rub dirty feet?
Following the foot wash, the real massage began. Flat on my stomach, my face on a cushy pillow, a tiny Thai woman began pressing my feet, calves, and thighs and shoving her devilishly sharp thumbs between my muscles. I tried the whole, relax-get-into-it thing for awhile, but I am not generally a touchy-feely person, so relaxation was not coming easily. I decided to stay alert and come up with descripitve imagery of the whole fandango for you, my dear readers. That maded the whole process more...bearable. Haha. When the lady moved on to my hindquarters, she spent quite a bit of time there. Apparently I am tense there. Well yeah. A stranger is pummeling my rear end! Wouldn't you be tense?

The lower back portion was...not torture, but not exactly fun. I kept wondering, "Does she know there are kidneys in there? I need those! Ouch! Does she KNOW there are kidneys in there?!"

My shoulders were a few minutes of agony. Either my bookbag has done more damage than I thought, or that woman had DEVILISHLY sharp thumbs!

The defining feature of a Thai massage is the stretching. Laying on my stomach, the woman grabbed my wrists and pulled, arching my back more than I thought possible. That's where the uncommon strength comes in. Pete, Sol, and I were in a three bears situation. Pete hardly bent, I was just right, and Sol's shoulders were nearly paralleled to his lower back. Haha.

It was interesting that after each part of my body was done with, I didn't move it for a looong time. At one point, I had an itch on my face. I left it because
1. I didn't want to break the relaxed spell on my arms and
2. I wasn't entirely sure they were under my control anymore.

The massage finished with a rigorous pounding of the shoulders, so I was in a sitting position. This was fortunate since even from there, getting up was a bummer. Finding my way out of those pants again was tricky, but I managed it. Re-bra-ing, re-dressing, and wobbling outside to get my shoes on was no mean feat...but I did it!

What I learned afterward: Thai massages are infamously rough! So my lovelies, if you want to pay extravagant amounts of money to be abused by a small Asian woman for an hour, Go to Thailand!