Northern Style Thai Massage
This last week I found a very small, unassuming massage shop…very simple understated Thai Lanna-style salon with rough dark stained wood…a couple couches draped with yellow ochre and red umber raw silk cloth. Branches of pussy willow fill a huge rough dark brown ceramic vase in the corner along with various other Thai decorative pieces. I am very comfortable here. The lively and gracious salon owner, Ratchanida Bhuranabhan, brings a pan with slices of lime floating in the cool water. My feet are washed and toweled while I drink a cup of strong sweet ginger tea…good for me she says.
On my back, my masseuse pushes my legs down into the thin mat with her knees…slowly working to get my right knee to reach a full extension that has been limited for years from a car accident. Pinn, about 50, is small but strong. She is very popular around town and works freelance, including working with nerve damaged patients at the local University Hospital. Elbows between tendons and muscles, between muscles and bone. Standing, she lifts my leg straight up, and is just tall enough to push down on my toes with one hand and plant her elbow into the bottom of my foot…Oy! Oy! Then, holding my foot she pulls back on my knee and leg with her other hand. Squatting, she lifts my leg over her legs and rolls her forearms back and forth over the muscles in my tibia and femur. Oy! She squeezes muscle…thumbs pressing deeply and then sliding slowly forward…stretching the fascia covering the muscle. She finds the points of attachment of tendons, ligaments and muscles and plunges her thumbs into the crannies while I grimace and groan…she watches my face…she can tell exactly when to let up. She laughs. I laugh. Over the years, favoring my right leg and knee the muscles, ligaments and tendons have atrophied and tightened which in turn has been pulling on the muscles in my lower back causing considerable pain when I walk. She sits down at my feet, facing me, grabs ahold of my foot and pulls while she pushes her foot into the inside of my legs at short intervals all the way up to my groin. She opens my legs, pushing one leg into a bend and pushes my bent upper leg and knee into the mat with her knee…I feel like I am doing the splits. She turns me on my side and with her thumbs works her way into the inserts of my butt and hip muscles…then on my stomach she finds muscles in my back I never knew I had. Still on my stomach she sits, with her back to me, on the backs of my upper legs and pulls my legs up one at a time as far as they will go. OY! My back, my back! Then she kneels on my back and works her way up and down my back with her knees. She turns over on her back and rocks back and forth with her butt bones massaging my lower back. And on it goes for two hours, very effortless, slow, very gentle and deliberate movements…Ok? Ok? she keeps asking. Mai pen rai, I gasp! I get to endure this for about $7. I give her a hefty tip. After almost a week of this I am almost a new woman. Today she suggests I take a couple days off to heal before resuming again on Tuesday Not all Thai massage therapists work this way. Most farangs just want a nice light relaxing massage so you have to ask for “very strong.” I tell her she is my angel and she beams. I am walking on air…pain free.
Highly recommended:
Baan Sanae Chan Salon
on Charoen Prathet near the Governor’s House
(053)28092 for appointment
R_bhuranabhan@hotmail.com
Tags: Chiang Mai, Massage, Thailand
Zoe