Just What the Doctor Ordered

We had a few issues this week with the people who help Jip out. And the rainy season seems to have suddenly begun in earnest, so her legs are feeling stiffer than usual. And the pace picked up at my job. And I stayed up too late one night watching a movie that turned out not to be worth it. Long story short, Friday afternoon came and I was dragging.

Of course, some weeks are bound to go that way. That’s why the world has pubs, I suppose, and shopping malls, and karaoke.

What I did Friday evening to put the week behind me was walk ten minutes from the office to a nondescript storefront, where four matronly women wearing lab coats looked up as I pushed through the door. “Massage?” they asked. “Please,” I said. Soon I had changed into a pair of cotton pajamas and was lying on one of the dozen mattresses spread around the open room.

I had first heard about this place from a colleague at CDC. She had arrived ahead of me and was two mattresses away. “Make sure you tell them you want two hours,” she mumbled, before apparently slipping off to sleep.

The woman who worked on me had probably acquired her strong hands by harvesting rice in an upcountry village. She and her fellow lab coats laughed as they worked, gossiped about who was passing by outside, and commented on the action in a soap opera that was blaring from a TV.

Of course I have other massage options in Bangkok. At this place, clothing was not optional. It was free of candles and incense. The only decoration in the room was a set of Buddha images on the top shelf of a bookcase by the desk. But my cares wouldn’t have melted any faster in a fancier setting. The price, with a generous tip, came to under ten dollars.