The Thai Massage

Guest post by Joanne Edmundson, a writer and an expat Canadian living in Columbus, Ohio. She would go to Thailand again in a heartbeat. Visit her at Snapdragon Ink.

My Let’s Go made the traditional Thai massage sound like an hour of innocent bliss that I would not want to miss. At 150 baht – or about $5 – I couldn’t wait to try it. It was, in fact, the only real plan I had for all of the six weeks we were going to be travelling in Thailand.

Kissing my new husband goodbye, I walked quickly down the busy Koh Samui street to the first massage place I found. A woman with waist-length hair saw me stop near the door and motioned me over. She held out her hand to me and I let her pull me into the cool and airy interior, into a waft of incense and menthol. She motioned for me to leave my sandals at the door and then led me through to the back, passing a row of mattresses lined up neatly against one wall, each covered in a crisp white sheet. “I am Saleema” she said and she handed me a pair of full-length blue pajamas that reached just below my knees.

Once dressed, I lay down on the mattress Saleema had prepared for me and waited, happily anticipating the hour ahead. We had just moved into our little hut on the beach and here I was already about to have my first authentic Thai experience. I had no idea what to expect.

Starting with my toes, Saleema worked her way slowly North, pulling, pushing, twisting, and pounding every inch of my body until she reached my head. One by one she shook each toe out of its socket and smiled at every satisfying click. She pounded her fists into my calf muscles, and pushed my thighs into unseemly positions. She yanked each finger in the same way she had dislocated each toe and then massaged the palms of my hands as if to apologize for the preceding pain. She pulled my hands high up over my head, twisted my body left and right, and dug her feet deeply into my back, while somehow using a knee over which to bend the rest of my torso. It was a baffling game of two-person Twister without the happy mat of circles. It was painful and unnerving and yet, strangely, at some point it became pleasant. I actually began to enjoy the sensations. Each pull and punch left my muscles rubbery, my body light, and my limbs rolling on the mat as if they belonged to someone else. “Ah,” I finally sighed, “feels good.” Saleema was pleased.

Before long, I realized with some dismay that Saleema was punching me in the head. There being nothing above my head, this clearly meant the massage was coming to an end. “Ah well” I thought dreamily, “maybe I can come again tomorrow.”

And then Saleema sat me up on the mat. She crossed my legs one over the other, she pulled my hands behind my head, and wrapped me into a tight headlock. She stretched me backwards as far as my body would allow. I was loose and happy and I let my muscles ease into the position she wanted. In my head, I was calculating how many massages per week we could afford while we were away. And then, suddenly, there was a sickening crack and I was facing the opposite wall. Saleema had whipped me around to the right. She was grinning at me. I yelped, but she was busy twisting me to the left. “Stop! STOP!” I cried out.

There was a violent hot pain between my shoulder blades. It hurt to breathe. My back was completely out.

Teary-eyed and more than a little worried, I explained to Saleema as clearly as I could that she had hurt me. She seemed to understand but the fact that she looked just as worried as me meant that there was very little I could do. I did my best to smile politely while pushing my toes back into their sockets with shaking hands and gracelessly collecting my limbs off the mattress. I hobbled back to my wallet and paid my innocent torturess for her trouble before slipping my feet into my sandals without bothering to do up the straps. I couldn’t fathom the pain involved in actually reaching for my shoes.

When Geoff arrived back at our little bungalow, I was flat out on my back on the cool sheets of our bed.

“Hey, how was it?” he asked.

“Pretty good,” I said.

Geoff sensed the touch of negativity.

“Just pretty good?” he asked.

“Mm hmmm” I murmured, pressing my lips tightly together. They had begun to twitch; tears were imminent.

Having been raised in a family with a rather dark sense of humor, I fully expected Geoff to laugh at the fact that my first Thai massage had rendered me crippled – a crippled backpacker on her honeymoon. Even I found it a little bit funny, if darkly so. Geoff, however, was just worried and he helped me back to the same massage clinic. We didn’t know where else to go.

Saleema was also worried. In fact, every woman in the shop was worried.

As soon as I pointed at my back and said cryptically “Pain…please help” I was placed on a bed and the several women there spent two long hours rubbing medicines into my back, chattering to each other in worried, rapid Thai, and taking turns attempting to press my spine back into place. Poor Saleema was almost in tears. She kept repeating, “I sorry, my friend, I pay for doctor.” Of course, I wasn’t going to a doctor and I most certainly wasn’t letting Saleema pay for it, but I was worried too. The women kept working away and then sent me hobbling home on Geoff’s arm where I spent a long day keeping my back still.

When I woke up the next morning, my back was stiff and sore, but much better and I returned to Saleema as promised. Again, three women flocked around me and began rubbing medicines into my back, each of them treating me to another half hour massage.  It would take another four days until I could finally walk without pain and four more before I could lift my own pack.

My back would continue to go out at the site of that one dramatic twist for years to come, an indelible reminder of that first – and last – Thai massage. At the time, however, I was simply thankful to have experienced the famous Thai hospitality through the kindness of three lovely women.

Why I like this story: Things go wrong all the time when we travel. Trying new things sometimes leads to, well, discomfort. But there’s something touching about these ladies trying to make it right, and about the writer, Joanna, letting them do so.