These Thai massages can be ...brutal !

Mike in his massage 'PJs' !

This morning I am not at yoga as the new yoga teacher was overly ambitious for my body and I let him hold me in a stretch with one leg in the air for far too long.  So I have been utilizing the services of our wonderful massage lady more frequently than usual since last Friday when it happened.

In fact one of the things we are both really taking advantage of here in Thailand are the very inexpensive massages.  A one hour Thai massage costs around $10 - sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less.  However they are often just as much about pain as pleasure !

We have had massages in a multitude of different places.

In the busier more tourist oriented places a typical massage place has about 10 massage ladies in uniform all working hard on foot massages, Thai massages or oil massages.  These places often also offer manicure/pedicures and hair braiding as well.  

At the other end of the tourist scale (depending on what sort of tourism you are after) - we once strayed into an establishment where there were individual rooms and the doors could lock from the inside!  Mike felt most comfortable in a room with the kids on that occasion.  I didn't feel especially relaxed and it was a lesson to get a recommendation first.

The best places come in inauspicious packaging !

Here on Koh Phangan they tend to be quite small practices - the place we go to regularly is not particularly smart, the mattresses are on the floor rather than on a platform, the changing room is really a cupboard.  However all the Thai and expat recommendations are "go to Lek" - she is revered on this island for her skill.  So we regularly go to Lek Massage.  In fact it is the only massage place we have seen, which seems to have just as many Thai people having massages as farangs (Westerners).

Lek is an amazing Thai woman, a devout Buddhist, who practices meditation daily at a small house she has just built for this purpose and to invite others to meditate with her (she has been teaching me how to meditate, but that is for a different story) and who has adopted and cares for orphans in her Chang Mai home. She trained in massage at one of the Bangkok hospital schools.   Thai massage and herbal medicine were originally brought to Thailand by Buddhist monks from China (to where it had initially come from India) and filtered through the country.  After some time knowledge began to be lost, until a King brought together all the practitioners to capture this knowledge in written form, and then a later King set up the schools in Bangkok which still exist today.

Lek has the extraordinary skill of being able to run her eye and fingers up and down your spine and being able to diagnose pretty much what is going on with you.  I am currently suffering from a re-injured lower back and hip and I trusted her enough to let her crack my back the other day and I am usually very wary of that particular manipulation.  Mum had a few gentle oil massages from her while she was with us and felt it made a huge difference to her neck problems.  Mike - who is ever-seeking a strong massage, and usually finds that they are not strong enough for him - says he has never had such a strong, accurate massage - but is hoping that when he next goes back she will be busy !

Lek finishing up her treatment of Mike.

We were planning to spend a day training with her on back massage, however she is so busy she cannot spare time for teaching right now.

Lek has a small team of women working with her, and actually my favourite massager is an older lady named Lai.  In fact I have found that many of the best massages have come from the older practitioners who combine strength with years of accumulated skill.  (Apparently the most revered massagers are blind.).  Lai seems to have the knack of finding the muscles and points that need attention and easing off the pressure before it becomes agony.  

I love Lai !

Because Thai massage is not for the faint hearted !  

In a 'real' Thai massage place you first get changed into a some loose fitting clothes that they provide you - they often look like a pair of white pyjamas.  One size fits all - the trousers tie at the waist and Mike can never fit into the t-shirt tops, so wears his own.

And in the more traditional places they also start and finish with a short verbal offering and 'wai' to the Buddha shrine in the room.

Then treatment starts with cleaning your feet - either washing in a bowl of water or just wiping off with a cloth.  They start the massage with lying on your back and working on your feet or legs and push and prod their way up and down your legs along the energy meridians and muscles.  They then move on to your arms and you turn over for your back.  You turn onto one side, then the other for them to get into shoulders, buttocks.  Toward the end you sit up for a last bit of attention to the shoulders and back.

The amazing thing is now the massage person is completely physically committed to the massage - hands, arms, elbows, legs and their whole body is at times being used to apply pressure, bend, stretch and pull you.  However she can sometimes also being having a great conversation with the next door massage person in Thai.  Of course we don't understand a fraction of what they are saying, or what is causing them great mirth.

The massage ends with you lying on your back again, with your head on a pillow, and the massage lady sitting cross-legged behind you.  She uses a hot towel to rub the muscles in your neck and shoulders, finishing with your head and then face.  To me it feels extraordinarily nurturing to be lying with your head in the lap of the woman who has been massaging you for the last hour or so.  This is the relaxing bit,  and also a strangely intimate experience to have your face, and particularly ears, washed by another person.

At Lek's they always offer us green tea and a small snack afterward if we want to hang around a bit longer before leaving.

Despite the fact that this is often not a particularly relaxing experience, for some reason I have been persevering with Thai massage.  
I think there are 3 reasons for this:

Firstly, for authenticity of our experience.

Secondly, because it is nearly half the price of an oil massage (I have been pondering on the economics of this - and writing this prompted me to ask yesterday as one lady spoke English well - apparently the premium is partly for the oil, but mainly for the increased 'power from inside the body' that the practitioner has to use in an oil massage.  It is constant movement rather than the Thai massage where they use their weight to apply much of the pressure.) 

And lastly I have some belief in Lek's oft used Western words "no pain, no gain".