By Nancy Wigston

Aligning energies: After travelling all day you'll have earned a calming massage. (Photo: Kevin Oroen)

It must be fifteen years ago that I first tried a “traditional thai massage” while waiting to rendezvous with friends in the city of Chiang Mai, on the edge of the Golden Triangle. A bicycle-taxi deposited me at what looked like a night club/restaurant that was closed in the afternoon, and I was lead to a private room. Here I undressed, somewhat nervously. I lay down on the mat, following the sign-language instructions of the masseuse. I spoke no Thai; she spoke no English. No worries. She vigorously pulled and cracked my fingers and toes, expertly pressed her weight on every vertebrae and at one astonishing point - I could have sworn - was kneeling on my back while stretching my arms out full-length.

When another bicycle-taxi picked me up and took me, all loosened and relaxed, back to my guest house, the conversation went something along the lines of: “What? You paid that much? I could have gotten you a much better price.” I paid about CDN$10. Welcome to Thailand, Land of Smiles and Great Massage. Prices may vary. These days I would not visit Thailand without sampling a massage or two or three. Travelling vast distances in cramped airline seats, jolting your bones in jeeps on the way to remote hill villages, the tedious luggage-laden schlep through airports the size of small towns: there are more than enough reasons for your sore body to receive a healing massage anywhere in Asia.

Or, you might, like my husband, have a chronic disc problem. The acupressure method practiced in traditional Thai massage makes a perfect antidote for disc protrusion pain. At Moon Muang Samoonprai Traditional Thai Massage in Chiang Mai, just around the corner from our room at Gap’s Antique Guest House, a photo-gallery in the window shows each step in the massage procedure. My physician-husband studies it closely before entering. Intimately familiar with his troublesome disc, he knows what needs to be done to relieve his sciatic pain. I am already upstairs in a room painted a soothing blue, surrounded by young western backpackers on the customary floor mats. A child sleeps under the whirring ceiling fan as his mother works on the tourists and their kinks. I must admit that my 6’2” husband does not obtain complete relief, as hard as the tiny masseuse tries. “She packed a punch,” he admitted with admiration. We pay our $10 (for two, including tip) and depart, measurably more relaxed than when we arrived.

At the plush Regent Chiang Mai Resort, about a thirty-minute drive from the city of Chiang Mai, in Mae Rim, visitors and guests can indulge in the Lanna Spa, named for the style of swooping roofs and dark teak floors that earmark the Lanna period of Thai civilization. The rooms run to the expensive - Hilary Clinton stayed here during her husband’s presidency - and are done in the best of taste, using traditional Thai crafts wherever possible. You needn’t be a hotel guest to enjoy a lunch over looking the hotel’s lush gardens and its own rice paddy (rice crops are given to local villagers) or to partake of their traditional massage treatment in the Lanna Spa. Warming ginger tea is offered on arrival; fresh flowers float in bowls; towels are plentiful; there are bathrobes and lovely showers. No neighbours distract from an atmosphere of pampered privacy. Is the massage itself better than others? Slightly perhaps, depending on the skill of your masseuse. The towels are certainly fluffier, as they should be, where prices compare to those at home.

As famous as Thailand for its traditional massage and world-renowned for a whole body of ancient medicine, is the south-western Indian State of Kerala, which also boasts of a one hundred per cent literacy rate. In Kerala, medical students choose from three kinds of medicine: Ayurvedic, modern (Western), or homeopathic. The Ayurvedic course lasts five and a half years, followed by three years of postgraduate study. This I learned from Dr. Manoj, resident doctor at an Ayurvedic health centre in the resort town of Kovalam. Dr. Manoj does not condone the mushrooming of dubious ‘rejuvenation’ and other health centres in Kovalam. He is working with the tourist board to maintain standards; so far a mere dozen are officially licensed - probably not including one called The House of Occultism. He adds that Ayurveda works best if combined with yoga practice.

Before my massage in his clinic (about $30), he explains not only Ayurveda’s rigorous medical requirements, but also its roots. “Ayurveda goes back to 200 bc, when Dhanwanthiri, the god of medicine in the Hindu epics (the Vedas) gave it to the people of the earth.” Due to the special contribution of eight families of expert practitioners, known as the Ashtavaidyas, who reinterpreted the classical works, Kerala is considered the centre for the purest form of Ayurveda. “Kerala styles cannot be found in northern India, but traditional medicine can, since the ingredients remain the same.”

When massage time arrives, I am ushered into a chamber where two smiling females await (the sexes are never mixed). Stripping down to the ghost of a g-string, I climb onto a table where I am anointed with oil containing numerous herbs. Working in long synchronized strokes, the women move along my body like dancers awakening the deepest tissues. When they start rubbing circles on my breasts, I suppress a giggle at the thought that medicare might cover this treatment in future. Opening my eyes, I see my two angels smiling down. When at last they finish, I am noodle-limp. Depositing me on a stool, they massage my scalp before allowing a warm oil-removing shower. Heading to my hotel room, I go straight to sleep.

I hadn’t planned on getting a massage in China, but my recent trip to the southern end of Hainan Island was plagued with incident. We found that the new highway to Sanya, where the beaches are, was closed for repairs. We detoured. Regaining the highway, we blew a tire. My neck began to hurt. After getting the tire fixed (“American tire, no good” was the mechanic’s verdict), we finally reached the Gloria Resort, where Beijing-based Americans fly in for weekends of golf. Our drive, a grueling eight hours, left my neck complaining, my whole body stiff. On the beach next morning, nobody but me was wearing a bathing suit; the Chinese stroll the tar-free sands in business attire. But under some nearby umbrellas I discovered an island treasure: Mr. Huang.

Mr. Huang turned out to be a skilled masseur, who informed me through my friend and translator, that he works on the vice-president of the People’s Republic when he visits Sanya. Good enough for me. I climb onto his low cot and let him go to work. In my experience, a beach massage is a languorous affair. Huang hasn’t heard, obviously. Working in a combination of acupressure and shiatsu, he gives me the most determined hour I’ve ever experienced. The price is high (about $40) for China, but not out of scale for this planned island resort. Huang also provides advice on how to sleep-with my pillow under my back, not my neck-and says good-bye as if he expects to see me again, soon. I only wish I could.

Nancy Wigston is an Ontario-based travel writer, photographer and reviewer, a frequent contributor to The Toronto Star, National Post and The Globe and Mail.




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