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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Birthday Treat For E@L

I know that I've made unambiguously outrageous remarks about Thai massages in the past (back when E@L was funny and outrageous), but tonight I thought I was going to need to have several thousand x-rays and multiple orthopaedic surgeries rather than just a coupla wet-ones to mop up the usual oil-slick and associated mess.

Wham bam, take that Sam! 2 hour Traditional Thai massage in a legit place, open area, so no funny business. In fact there were electricians working in the room at the time... Nice older masseuse, no English, she worked harder on my adductors and my tensor fascia latae (not a coffee) than anyone, ever, including my ridiculously expensive deep muscle therapist guy in Singapore. (That was an attempt to free up any nerve entrapment that might be causing my peripheral neuralgia. Felt good, in a bad way, bad in a good way, but hell it was $100 for 40mins! - and didn't have any effect on my feet.)

Though today... Cheeeeerist I haven't my legs spread so far apart since that time in South Africa... (long story: crazy Zulu party, amyl nitrate, herd of wild hippotami, you know the drill...)

Speaking of drills -- elbows drilling into my thighs, knees pummelling my back, thumbs and then elbows again drilling into my shoulders, YEOW...!

The only happy thing about the ending was that IT ENDED! Hope I can tell you tomorrow that it was worth (Bht350 for 2 hours) it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~




Birthday dinner on the banks of the Nan river in Phitsanoluk in North Thailand was with a few colleagues - nothing like the festivities of the Big Five-0 from 2007 - but still, a pleasant enough evening. They didn't have any wine and of course E@L hadn't thought ahead, so that was the only let-down. Had to celebrate with a cocktail!

  1. Gaeng som (sour soup with egged-vegetable squares and prawn)
  2. Wing bean salad with ground pork and dried chili - Prik paeng
  3. Pla nin manau (Steamed river fish with lemon and chili)
  4. Tod man pla (Fishcakes)
  5. Yum boon sen (Glass noodle salad with pork and chili - the litle green toefuckers - I'll be excreting hot coals tomorrow)
  6. Haxen !! (German style pork knuckle with those green chili again in an optional sauce)
  7. Broccoli with prawns and onion in nam pla (fish sauce)
  8. Steamed rice
  9. Birthday cake - sponge cake with chocolate and candied almond slivers on top.
  10. Washed down with several draft Heineken (Hi Nik) and a Maitai (My Thai)



E@L blows

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Happy 52nd!

My to date best legit massage is a tie (ha!) between one I had at the Banyan Tree spa at the Oberoi in India and one I had in Canada way back when. In India I booked the full 2.5 hours and was it ever worth it.

In Toronto the masseur was an older Latvian gentleman who had pictures of all of the famous people he treated over the years. I can only recall Patrick McNee being one of them now. I had had a miserable head cold and he had me sit in the dry sauna for 15 minutes before he started working. When I was finished an hour later he said I should go straight to bed, pull the covers up to me neck and go to sleep. He guaranteed me my cold would be gone the next day. And it was. That was more than 20 years ago and until I did the Banyan Tree massage 2 years ago it was easily my number one.

expat@large said...

Jay: cheers.

And what disappeared next day after the Banyan Tree massage? Your money?

I had a great four-hand massage (two lady, legit) in BKK, except we all kept breaking out in laughter - my boss was on the next table.

Other stories include the pajama massage in Beijing where they expected my female colleague and my then boss and I all to get undressed and changed into these animal motif jim-jams -- in the same room! My boss and I were OK, but she was incensed!

'2nd knuckle' was our shorthand term for any, ahem, non-traditional massage.

Lost in Melbourne said...

You sure know how to make a man jealous!

I had a traditional massage in Angkor in a business set up by an NGO to teach the locals a traditional skill for earning income. It is all legit and the tiny woman beat the crap out of me, it was worth it though.

It sounds like a pretty good birthday by most measures.

Dick Headley said...

That sounds awful E@L. I trust you made a full audit of your vital organs before leaving the establishment.

Unknown said...

Best was by a lady called Blah when I met you in Hua Hin. No hanky panky my girl friend was alongside. I thought that I was going to be disjointed a bit like a chicken.

Indiana said...

Happy Birthday :-)

Will buy you a beer the next time I see you.

expat@large said...

Scott: I've had 3 massages this week. All for 2 hours each, definitely the way to go, let them get into a rhythm.

DH: did fall asleep, but didn't wake up a bath-tub of ice...

Bludger: it was probably Pla - a common nick-name, it means fish. Yeah some can really throw you around. The Singaporean girls also are rough, treat you like a potato sack.

Indy: cheers. I'm working up a thirst for that moment. Tonight? Sunday?

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