Massage Mastery & Other Thai Quirks

I dare you to find the 13th floor in any building in Thailand. Really. You’ll struggle. Superstition means the unlucky number even gets left out of hotel room sequences. 210, 211, 212, 214, 215…

In a similar vein, I witnessed a curious display after bargaining with a shirt-vendor in effort to update my wardrobe. We went back and forth on price for three scoop-neck tops. When I finally conceded to her slightly higher volley, she took my  cash and quickly raced around her street stall tapping each rack with the notes.

And finally, a keen eye will spot Thai citizens regularly and covertly slipping a lip-balm-sized tube up their noses. When a Thai acquaintance of mine did it in front of me, she explained it was “sometimes for headache and for feel good.” I’m not sure how much of this is placebo, but wanna give it a try? Get your own nose puffer at 7-11 for just a few baht!

♦      ♦

In the Thai travel industry’s collision of cultures, there are plenty of foreigners with strange behaviors and beliefs, too. Most prominently in my memory are the horrible stories my amazing masseur, May, told me about a few male customers of the Western persuasion. While Thailand does have a thriving sex tourism industry, some visiting Western males assume the entire culture wants to sell their bodies for a few baht. Male customers often harass May, demanding repeatedly at the end of their session that she come to their hotel for 1,000 baht ($30) – about five times the cost of a massage. When she says no, they beg. This is as offensive and scary as if a man approached me at a bar and offered me $200 to sleep with him and then cajoled and coerced me when I emphatically turned him down.

For the record, I never invited May back to my hotel room. I did, however, shower her expert hands with praise for reversing months of damage I had done to my shoulder in Australia. I knew I shouldn’t have completed all eighty of those medicine-ball push-ups back in August. Truth be told, after my foolish over-use, I should have done light duty for a week. Instead I spent months running a drill through metal — mostly at or above shoulder height — exacerbating my injury and delaying healing exponentially.

Not only did May fix my shoulder, but she inspired me to get educated! While her work is a fusion of Thai and Western massage, it’s the Thai part that held my curiosity. I signed up for a one-day crash course with Boyfriend as my model.

To the uninitiated, Thai massage can leave you feeling like an unwitting participant in an aerial circus act.  Or a victim of methodical torture via pressure points.  I’ve heard it most generously described as “passive yoga.”  First-timers generally  walk out of a Thai massage a bit bewildered and traumatized – often owing to the language barrier that renders one unable to say things like “too hard,” “ow that hurts,” and “how are  your feet stabbing into my spine improving  my health, exactly?”.

So why did I want to learn to be the maestro of a  mysterious contortionist act?  No, I’m not a sadist.  Done right and without a language barrier, Thai massage is heavenly. The best part? It makes a great souvenir! The next time I come to visit you, be sure to ask me what I brought you from Thailand!  ♣