Massage Therapy?

(Outside the offending salon!!)

Have booked myself in for a massage tomorrow. There are thousands of places to choose from over here leading to the inevitable feeling that massage is as common as!

I have not entered a 'Beauty and Health Salon' in over two years. There is good reason for this. The first time I came to Australia with Dave, we stopped at Kuala Lumpur for a few days to stay with a couple of friends of his. The wife of Dave's school buddy suggested we treat ourselves to a couple of hours of indulgent massage, saunas and facials. I readily agreed. I am not one of those masochistic self deprivation type birds after all.

I, however, changed my mind when on entering the establishment I was handed a pair of scrunchy see through paper knickers to wear and told to strip off and adorn the forementioned garment! Being naturally prudish and self concious (hey I have spent years learning how to conceal my cellulite and wobbly bits to not let some jumped up gorgeous malay woman with noo cellulite try and scrub mine away!!) I was a little perturbed. I did strip off, and I did put on the offending underpants (after first checking they were in fact one use only and completely throw-away-able!) and attempted to sit on the massage table in a manner which would conceal my modesty. Very difficult without mermaid long tresses (reason for my sudden liking in long hair? Discuss!).

I breathed a sigh of relief when someone walked through the door who was not a; a bloke, b; not a gorgeous malay woman but a chunky canadian, and c; obviously not put off by the sight of an english bird cowering in the corner wearing nothing but paper pants! She also had an irritating laugh which I found comforting at first but wore very thin when after twenty minutes of pummelling she still wouldn't let me relax and listen to the tropical birds twitterings or dolphin noises on the 'relaxation' tape playing on the cheap CD player in the corner!

Anyway the Canadian ground some sea salt grainy scrub stuff into my legs and body (thankfully avoiding the whole boob area. Would have grabbed my tshirt and ran if she did) and rubbed it so hard into my skin I felt like I was some surfer dude washed up on a very forbidding coast line. Did anyone tell me that beauty would hurt? No! So with my body smarting from the salt she told me to 'geddinta the sahna, but, hehehe'! There I languished for a few minutes trying to gulp down mouthfuls of hot euculypt air. I was still wearing the paper knickers when I see Dave's friends wife clamouring to join me! I grabbed a towel and sat petrified in the corner until we had to get out!!

Afterwards came the facial and gentle body massage where I swear the Candian tried to tickle my feet to the point of nausea, pummel the knots from my spine until each vertabrae cricked and gave me a facial which would have been relaxing if I hadn't been subjected to the whole story of how she married a malaysian man and had bucket loads of kids only to leave him and had to work sixty hours a week to put all the children through school whilst living in a two bedroom flat!

I swore never again but here I am contemplating putting myself through the same thing again. Am thinking I was spoiled when I volunteered to be Kirsty's case study years ago when she was doing her massage therapy course! She never made me feel vulnerable and when I gazed at the floor through the handy hole in the head of the massage bed I swore she was leaving yellow footprints on the carpet with her stockinged feet! I maintain to this day that I was seeing her 'aura'. Am sure yellow= healing somewhere in the world!

Just wish me luck and I will try and endeavour to ask only for the back massage and not be tempted into having one of the 'specials' which everyone knows is just a ploy to grab many bucks from clients while making them lounge around naked wearing nothing but paper pants!