The Gentle Art of Thai Massage...

This pose symbolizes the Buddha when he reached Nirvana.

We headed into Bangkok for the final hoorah before we became real teachers in charge of our own group of munchkin Thais. It would appear that most of OEGers had the same idea, as the hostel we stayed at was mostly rented out to OEG. I was there to meet up with the lovely Jenny, my previous roommate at orientation. We spent the day at the weekend market but it’s so massive you could probably spend weeks in the market. After that we headed to Wat Pho. Wat Pho is famous for housing the statue of the reclining Buddha. It lives up to its title; it’s a huge golden statue of the Buddha chilling on a pile of pillows looking relaxed. I was debating whether or not to even bring my camera in this temple but in the end I gave in and snapped some photos. So far, the Buddha seems pleased with my offering from the Grand Palace.

The next day before check out we decided it was time to try the infamous Thai massage. After two weeks of sleeping on a wooden bed, sitting in my office at school for 4 hours everyday, and weekends walking around all of Thailand what I really need was someone to really work out the knots and kinks in my shoulders and lower back.

Thailand is famous it’s massage parlors. In most neighborhoods in central Bangkok you can find them on almost every street so it wasn’t long before we were sitting in a chair getting our feet scrubbed by an angry looking Thai woman. She scrubbed away for a minute, dried them and then led me upstairs to a room where there were about 6 mats on the floor. I had expected this, as one of my friend had warned me before I came that the Thai massages happened on the floor in full view of the five other people in the room with you. Jenny and I were the only ones in the parlor at the time so we lucked out a bit. Next they gave us a light green shirt to put on and the largest pair of dark green pants I have ever seen. This should have been my first warning. After all, how does one use massage oils when I have clothes on?

I laid on the ground and my angry Thai woman came back and took her aggression out on my poor body.

It was an odd experience. At first I thought she was just warming up, pounding the feet lightly to get the blood flowing, hey that pressure point feels nice, okay that one’s a little more painful, perhaps you don’t have to hold it that long, up goes my leg, okay it could use a little stretch, um, I don’t think it bends that wa…oh, ok guess it does but it might snap off in a sec…hiyo! Where are your hands going?

I’m sure it resembles rolfing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolfing) a lot but to me it felt like I hadn’t done Yoga in months and someone was contorting my body into the positions for me while I laid there helpless, I mean motionless. And they really aren’t afraid to put their hands in places that would make a masseuse in the States blush or worry about a lawsuit; plus their bodies are quite entwined with yours. My favorite stretch came when she lifted my leg and bent the knee at 90 degrees and put one foot on my cheek and the other on my hamstring and pulled my ankle towards her slowly. It was interesting.

While it wasn’t the relaxing experience I was really looking forward it I did walk away from the experience feel great. My body felt straighter and more in sync that it had in days. With all my muscles and ligaments moved back into their correct position I returned to the school dorms to get an almost good night sleep before my first day of classes.