A massage by any other name...

My brother is coming to visit next week and our friends Johnnie and Tony are coming in a few weeks, so this weekend Steven and I set off on the important mission of scouting out massage parlours that offer a good massage for a decent price, just in case they were interested in spending an hour or two of their trip getting pampered.

If you're looking for a (reputable) massage parlour in HCMC, the best place to go is District One where parlours offering foot massages, hot stone massages, full body massages, skin treatments, mud bathes and more, compete for customers on almost every corner. However, being in District One, as everything else in that part of town, most salons charge as much for an hour massage in Viet Nam as they charge in the US which, to my thinking, is ridiculous.

When Steven and I have gone for massages, we have either gone to a local massuse in a neighborhood where our friends live for less than $2 an hour or to the blind massuse place near the race track for a little over $2 an hour. While these places have great massages, your two dollars doesn't go far enough to cover things like aircondition, soft music, or other comforts that lend to a soothing salon environment - things that we are happy to forgo, but that we thought our guests might prefer. We decided to seek out a place that would offer an option somewhere in between the District 1 salons and our $2 massages.

We stopped first at a place about 15 minutes from our home where I had stopped in months before when considering a massge for Steven's birthday. They quoted me a price of $10 for a 60 minute massage, which I considered for a minute before thinking to myself - '$10 is a lot of money' and deciding to keep loooking. The next place we went into was a fancy looking hotel offering full body and foot massages. They too quoted me a price of $10 for an hour and before I could respond handed me a key to one of the rooms. I hastily returned the key and stepped quickly down the stairs back to where Steven was waiting on our motorbike.

Zero for two, Steven suggested that we try to find the blind massage parlour near the back packer district that we had gone to on our first visit to Viet Nam. Having had a decent experience at the blind massage school near the race track, we decided to check it out.

The massages at this massage school cost 40,000 VND or a little over $2, with the option of paying 10,000 VND more for an airconditioned room. Steven and I opted for the airconditioning and went our separate ways, him to the men's massage room and me to the ladies.

I entered the ladies massage room and was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of concentrated Ben Gay. The room was large with four simple stalls on each side of a wide open central area. Each stall contained a simple massage table and a small bureau with locking drawers for your things, with a curtain closing each stall off from the central area. One of the massueses entered my stall and said something to me in Vietnamese. I answered that I was from the US and spoke very little Vietnamese. She then switched to English and asked me to disrobe and wait a few moments, before closing my curtain behind her. I did as I was told and settled, face down on the table, to wait for my massuse.

After a few minutes wait, another massuse entered my stall and made her way over to the table and began to douse me with a liquid solution that I recognized as the source of the strong smell in the room. As my skin begain to warm, she walked around to stand at my head, put four fingers of each hand on my upper back and began to move her fingers back and forth over one spot, without lifting them. A question arose in my mind. She continued this for what seemed like an eternity and I began to wonder if she were actually a trained massuse. When she finally finished with this small part of my back, she walked over to the side of the table and pressed her fingers in the right side of my back until she found a bone and once she had located this spot, proceeded to rub the skin back and forth over the bone, again without lifting her fingers. She then moved further along the bone and repeated this movement. When she finished with that side, she moved to the other side and repated the sequence. After 10 minutes, I had yet to experience one remotely pleasurable sensation and was in sincere doubt about this woman's qualifications as a massuse. I began to thinking seriously about whether or not I wanted to bear this treatment for an entire 60 minute session.

Just as that thought popped into my head, she began pounding on my back with such force, I began to fear for my physical safety.

She finished her pounding and went back to her back and forth rubbing of my bones. For a second, she began pinching the skin along my side, but jumped immediately back into the bone rattling pounding of my back. She punctuated this misery with an occasional inquiry as to my wellbeing, which which I replied outloud, that, yes, I was okay, while inside trying to think of some white lie that would allow me to leave suddenly without causing her to feel too bad. At this point, I was convinced that they had run out of female massuses and, not wanting to miss out on my 50,000 VND, asked the staff secretary to fill in.

When she began the bone rubbing on my leg and continued with such time and pressure that I instinctly crimged in pain, I decided that I had better get out and get out fast before she caused permenant damage.

I swung my legs down from the table and tried to explain that I wasn't feeling well and needed to use the bathroom. She didn't understand my pidgeon Veitnamese, so finally I just repeated the word for bathroom until she understood and rapidly dressed before she could ask me any questions.

Once out of the massage room, I made for the stairs and was soon out on the street witout looking back - a fugitive from the massage parlour - vowing next week to cough up the $10 for a real massage.