An interesting day at the spa

On almost every street corner in Vietnam you can find a sign for “massage.” However, you have to be careful what kind of massage you are getting, especially if you are a guy. I won’t get into the details, but several people came back to the ship with some pretty interesting massage stories and I had the opportunity to hear many of them in my sexuality class. Again, I was surprised at how mainstream it was for places to offer “special” massages. For some reason I imagined them to only exist in seedy areas. Putting aside the thought of “special” massage, I’d heard that Vietnamese people had a gift for giving massages and that this was a huge part of their culture—so of course I had to see for myself. Since Amanda and Anna had left for their trip to Cambodia on the 3rd day, Jane and I had a couple days to ourselves in Ho Chi Minh City. We decided to have a morning of pampering.

The whole experience was wonderful but also comical at times because of the language barrier. Jane and I were the only people there so we had their undivided attention. In other words, all of the women were surrounding us and talking to each other in a language we couldn’t understand, most likely making fun of us. I would normally say that I was probably just making a generalization, but in this case I’d have to say there was no question. One reason being the following. When they asked me to go behind the curtain and take off my clothes, they handed me a robe and what I assumed was a shower cap. Although I noticed there were holes in the shower cap, I figured it was just ripped. However, when I came out with it on my head, all of the women were laughing. Apparently it was underwear, not a shower cap. Oops. Strike one. I went back in and put them on, but of course being the normal size American that I am, I couldn’t even fit them over my thighs. (They weren’t ripped before, but they certainly were now.) When I tried to tell them that they were too small, they just laughed at me and looked at each other. I hadn’t even gotten my massages and already I felt great about my body.

This scenario continued throughout my pedicure and leg massage. Everything was going well until I felt the hottest sensation and looked down to see the lady pouring something on my leg with a metal ladle. (This could not be safe.) I had to fight back so many curse words until I finally managed to signal to them that it was way too hot and I did not want to go home with 3rd degree burns thank you very much. (Especially when I’d already dodged getting burned on the motorbike.) Then, when they were waxing my eyebrows, I could’ve sworn that they had waxed them completely off. Maybe I was just being paranoid from all the earlier confusion, but the entire time all I could picture was me coming back to the ship with no eyebrows. No eye brows and burned legs. Luckily, it was in my imagination and everything turned out fine. In all, after almost 3 hours of getting a manicure, a pedicure, foot and leg massages, and an eyebrow wax, my total was $36, including a tip… Like I said, I LOVE Vietnam!