Combobulated

I left the mall looking for a place called Old Medicine Hospital. It supposedly offered the cheapest massages in town, Baht 250 for 2 hours. I figured I'd pay 150 for 1 hour just to see what it was all about, and besides, it wouldn't take much to relax this dazed little farang because he was still struggling with some serious lag. I left my bike parked at the mall because according to my cryptic map the O.M.H. was only a block away. No sweat? Actually, a lot of sweat.

The map I had showed the OMH as a huge building, which is exactly what I pictured in my head: a large hospital. I had reservations about getting my first massage at a hospital; had reservations about visiting a hospital at all, especially on my first day. If anything I wanted to wait until I got malaria or bit by a cobra before I took a tour of the Thai medical facilities. But I didn't want to question the advice of my hosts, so I decided to at least check it out. This huge structure did not seem to exist, however. At least not on the main roads, where one would expect to find a hospital. I walked up and down the two large streets bordering the OMH's location on my map, but to no avail. I was just about to give up searching for the place (finding only a ginormous driving range enclosed by a net large enough to cover half the Swamp), when I happened to look down one of the side-streets (called sois) that connected the two roads I'd been combing. I hadn't thought to explore these sois, because they looked more like dark alleyways than any kind of thoroughfare. But as I glanced down a particularly filthy soi, infested with mange-bitten dogs, I noticed a building with a faded-looking sign that signaled I had found my destination.

Making my way through the pack of diseased canines, I realized I was treading on their turf, and it said so in their eyes. And Christ on a waffle cone, were there a lot of them! Dogs are to the cities of Thailand, what pigeons are to NYC. Thai pooches are a different kind of beast at night, as I would find out first hand later that week, but even in the daytime they have a look about them that says, "Fuck you and your uprightness. We're just two opposable-thumbs away from running these streets." I think the only thing preventing these dogs from showing me who's boss was that it was so fucking hot. Not all dogs are aggressive (i.e. domestic dogs, most little dogs, older and fatter dogs), but for the most part I would rather share a popsicle with a stray dog in Gainesville than pet any dog in Chiang Mai, not including Spot and Spot of course.

I have plenty more stories about Scott/canine relations in Thailand, and I'm sure I'll get to those at a later date, so enough about dogs. This post is titled "Combobulated" and at this point in my trip I was anything but. Now I know that combobulated isn't a word, but we're finally getting to the part of the story where I become...let us say...un-discombobulated.

The outside of the Old Medicine Hospital was very unimpressive. First off, it's in an alleyway surrounded by Cujos, and the building itself reminded me of the asylum in Kesey's One Flew... When I took my shoes off (which you're asked to do before walking into any house, establishment, and especially temple) and stepped into the lobby, I half expected an Asian Nurse Ratched to escort me to some whitewashed room where I was to be tied to some kind of massage-rack and pummeled into submission. I was more than a little nervous. The receptionist however, was a very timid and sweet young lady, and she told me to sit and wait for the next available Thai masseuse (I'm not sure if that's what they're called, but whatever). As I waited, I gathered through some of the waiting-room literature that the OMH was no hospital at all. I couldn't determine if it used to be a medical clinic at some point, but today it is solely a massage school and parlor (again, I don't know if the Thais would use the term parlor...there's a lot of things I don't know, yet). I was relieved.

I wasn't waiting long before a tiny old man about the size of my big toe walked through the front door, bowed deeply in my direction, raised his eyebrows, and said something like,"SawasdeekopenKRAPTUMTAAATEEDAAAAAmmmmditaamgaroonaaaa." I loosely translated that to be, "Hello thank you for coming to get massage HOLY ELEPHANT HAIR YOU ARE VERY LARGE follow me please." He then chuckled nervously at the receptionist and led me up a stairwell (in hindsight, I think the poor fellow was more nervous about having to communicate in English than having to massage a man of my height, because he was more than capable). While following the tiny Thai man, I asked him his name. Seeing that he didn't understand me, I gestured to myself and said,"Scott." He then promptly pointed to himself and said,"Turd." Knowing I misunderstood him, I said,"Really. Very nice to meet you, Turd," and we continued on (later on the phone, Noland confirmed that his name was indeed Turd).

Turd showed me to a dimly-lit room with some small corner fans, a few dressing rooms against one wall and a raised platform running alongside another wall. The platform had five bedrolls laid down about four feet from each other, with curtains separating each one. Four of the bedrolls were occupied by three Thai men, and one blond American-looking girl who looked to be in extreme pain. She managed an unconvincing smile, however, when she saw me. Turd then handed me what appeared to be hospital scrubs and gestured towards the dressing rooms. I put the scrubs on (the pants barely covered my knees) and walked over to my designated bedroll. I laid down, and Turd went right to work.

I can't go into too much detail about the actual massage because I was soon fast asleep. I do know that he started with the feet, worked his way up the legs (coming dangerously close to the crotch), then to the abdomen (where he kneaded my internal organs into a vichyssoise), and up to the shoulders, neck, head and back. There were some painful parts, but all-in-all I could see myself coming back for more just about every day of the week. In conjunction with yoga and meditation, this shit was going to change my life. I was so relaxed and limber after just one-hour of massage, that upon leaving the OMH, I jumped up, kicked my heels and farted a rainbow. The once putrid smell of polluted O2 now smelled sweeter than a plate of yams with extra syrup. My bike-ride home to Santitham was butter, like a hot comb through nappy-ass hair. I felt capital. I was finally ready for sleep.