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The idea of an ayurvedic massage in a very prestigious spa house Health Land Spa in North Sathorn Rd, Bangkok, got us on the road last night.

Getting to the building we notice the high quantity of expensive cars in the park area.
As we enter, we are offered scented water while we give our names and choose ayurvedic for our massage, 1h please.
Guided by a man, we are taken to another room where we are seated for a moment. A woman comes out through a curtain with a tray and swaps our shoes with comfy bamboo slippers.
We are asked to follow the man who takes us to a longer room, with a row of beds enclosed by curtains on one side.
He puts me in one and Hector in the next one and stays with him.
A woman promptly comes to my bed and asks whether I want the curtain separating Hector’s space from mine undrawn. I say I prefer it drawn.
Next she asks, “Where is the pain?”
And I innocently point at my shoulders and neck mumbling something about stiffness and stress.
What happens next makes me seriously think I’ve misunderstood the woman, and what she truly asked was “where will the pain be?”
When I was 12 years old I climbed the Pyrenees to camp for 4 days at Lake Maurizio. We had to carry everything we needed, tents, cookware, clothes etc. by ourselves. From this occasion I got something that has stayed with me through the years, a bumpy left shoulder.
It just looks a little bit higher and feels a little bit stiffer than my right shoulder.
Every time I have a massage, the masseur tells me that I need to get some serious deep-tissue massage to “undo” this knot in my muscle.
And while this woman that barely weighs 50 kg but aimfully pushes my muscle down and away from my neck I realize of two things:
1. It’s going to be her.
2. It’s going to hurt like hell
I have mixed feelings coming up. Although I know undoing this knot has been in the list of things to do for way too long, I’ve just come for a relaxing massage.
I believe a little mental preparation can help you through difficult and painful moments like this. But I also believe in opportunity so I decide to “go with the flow” and let her do what I want to trust she does best.
Finishing with my shoulder and having shed more than one tear of pain. She motions me to lay on my belly, she’s ready to work on my back.
I then sigh with relief trusting the “hard work” is over and my so expected and rightfully deserved relaxing massage is about to start.
I will only say that this has been the first time that I have wished a mattress be way softer so that it could take some of the pressure of her coming down on me with her fingers between my back ribs.
You see, the problem is that I tend to think a professional masseur would feel when it is “too much”.
And if it is painful, in their vast knowledge they’ve decided there is no other way out, as in the case of my shoulder knot.
But recently I’ve learned not to push my body too hard beyond its limit while doing yoga stretches…
So at this point I am confused and end up not saying a word. I withstand her excruciating muscle splitting with her fingers, getting to the deep-tissue. I truly believe that she, the only person who knows by heart the size and shape of my kidneys, would have massaged my heart if I had asked her to.
I have to admit the little masoquiste in me liked being pushed, getting to know my pain thresholds better, going beyond what I thought once unbearable and finding some pleasure if only when she stopped to move from one area to the next ;.)

Note: Popping his head from behind the curtain, Hector told me he had been given a similar treatment, only 3 times harder! His masseur kept trying to put together the collar bone that he broke when he was 14 years old and that it didn’t heal.