A Panther Stuns Her Prey

Thai Massage review

Location: Salanpaa Traditional Thai Massage House, Bangkok

Rating: Five hundred and eleven stars

Rule number one when seeking one of Thailand’s (deservedly renowned) massages is never go to your fancy shmancy hotel asking for one. Instead take a 2-minute walk in any direction off property to find an air conditioned tin shack joint run by real people. There will be no Aruveda oil drizzles on your chakra, no ringing of tiny finger bells, and no whale music. There also won’t be a $200 charge.

What you are likely to get is a top-down physical *realignment.* A patient reworking of all the spinal and muscular mess you’ve created at your desk job in a cold-ass country, peering at your PC and smartphone the last several years.

All in one hour and for 300 baht, or $8.15.

I searched “traditional Thai massage” on Google maps and found three air conditioned tin shacks listed about a 4-minute shuffle from the Mandarin. I peered into the windows of each and for some reason chose Salanpaa. “Thai Massage, please,” I said to the grizzled grandma running the front desk.

“One hour?”

“Yes, please.”

This was going to be my first Thai realignment in about four years (pandemic and all that) so one doesn’t just irresponsibly jump into the two hour. There was going to be some entry pain. I knew that and was resigned to pay my dues.

Grandma assigned me “L,” a chubby but bright faced, smiling, and burly girl of about 25 I’d say. L washed my feet quickly and took me into the back to a very clean space with only a hard flat mattress and a folded clean set of Thai massage pajamas. I changed into the PJs, as instructed by L.

While quietly chatting to another girl working another customer the other side of a thin cotton divider curtain, L kneaded. I’ve always liked Thai massage girl chat. I don’t understand a word but it sounds like song birds. (Thai men sound like honking geese.)

Thai massages give attention to all of your body, but I’ve long ago realized the art focuses quite a bit on legs. Your legs are not getting out of there without being stretched, pushed, squeezed, clamped, and forced into positions you wouldn’t have thought possible. If you are a cold white Anglo who wears leather shoes and commutes on trains and scrapes ice off your windshield and who eats way too much, you are going to *feel* this leg stuff, just put it that way.

L pressed. Hard. And long. Thais do these pin the customer to the mat compressions right off to the side of the groin area on the tops of your thighs, for instance, that temporarily block all blood circulation in key life-sustaining arteries. Then they lift away and blood rushes and surges back to where it’s supposed to be. They do these clamp-pushes on your shoulder/chests too. You are pinned, helpless, perfectly on the teetering edge of either screaming murder or rejoicing to our Holy Creator Above…yet the experienced customer knows when the compression stops, your entire body will surge with freedom and breathe anew.

Using her knees, elbows, wrists, and calves, and employing gravity and Newton-type natural force laws that I will never understand, L ironed and straightened me out. I was a rag doll for her play by the end of thirty minutes, and we still had thirty more to go. L took no shit from my back, my concrete stiff neck, my ass, my scalp, and each of my digits which popped compliantly at her flicks and tugs.

At precisely 60 minutes she jumped back and let me up. “Finish! Thank you!” she beamed. My attack panther knew her blubbery prey was sufficiently mauled and dazed. I wasn’t escaping anywhere.

L then retreated to the front desk to wait for me with a face towel and some cold herbal tea. I stood in the mattress room. I breathed deeper, I stood notably straighter. I felt absolutely no pain, nor any more of that northern hemisphere chill in my bones. I changed out of the PJs and went to the register to pay my $8.

I gave L a $4 tip and asked if she would be at Salanpaa the next day at 2pm. She smiled and said yes. I’m booked for another realignment today.