I went to the masseuse to celebrate feeling not as bad. I've found a lady with magic fingers--first time in Thailand I've found someone whose touch is comforting and whose fingers know how to find the spots that need them and work the kinks out without a fantastic level of pain. So I'm half asleep and blissed out as she's working on my legs and blood is circulating to places it's been avoiding for a while.
It is Thailand, of course, so it's nothing close to the drool-inducing deep tissue work back stateside, but it has the comforting discomfort of a rigorous, post-workout stretch.
There's a position where the masseuse sits at your feet and throws one of your legs out in a canopener sort of figure-four, a-la Captain Morgan but flat on your back. She holds your foot and braces your knee with her foot, then she kneads your hamstring with her other foot. (The pic is as close as I could find without hitting the point of critical temporal devotion and needing something perfect to justify the time investment.)
She starts with her feet close together, her left foot behind my right knee, right foot just groin-ward from my knee. It's a strong position, a position for the masseuse to use bigtime pressure, a position designed to work deep into big muscles. Muscles and ligaments popped and flexed and released blood into areas that had not seen it in quite some time.
Alarms didn't have time to sound. Suddenly one of the boys was between her foot and my leg and she was exerting considerable pressure.
I've been floored before by accidental blows in sports, stray tennis or soccer balls, the occasional dog jumping up and getting in an accidental thwack on the way down. And I haven't been there, but considering that a deliberate blow is measured to dole a certain amount of damage at a relatively controlled rate and under full consciousness, it has a degree of built-in control mediated by the anti-sadistic nature of the population at large.
This had the control, glancing misdirection, and restraint of a meteorite.
Not even screaming, just rolling over and puking. A green-gray-out for an indeterminate time until a flock of blabbering hands patted and prodded me to another explosion. A big guy picking me up by wrapping one arm under my belly and swinging me half sideways, half face-down onto a foot-massage lounger. After stabilizing in an atrociously uncomfortable fetal curl, puking came as I was broken into an open and exposed foot-massager recline.
I won't get frustrated. In Thai, the basic "nahm" sound has seven or eight different meanings, depending upon your inflection. There are as many for the basic "keng" sound. Still, "Nahm Keng" means firm/solid water, or ice. "Cha Menow" is hot lemon tea. I don't see how the two overlap, but somehow asking for "ICE" and "NAHM KENG" produced a cup of boiling hot lemon syrup tea with three people trying to pour it down my throat while half a dozen people kept up a constant commentary.
Such "assistance" provides great motivation to get up and walk out of the nausea and pain. And the option of a private squatter pot or public bench/corner in a Saturday afternoon mall also helps the recovery process.
What's odd is that I am enthused about returning for a session with the same masseuse, especially since I have a voucher for it.
But I will NOT call it free.
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