The massage that went wrong

Tweet

Quite some years ago we went to Thailand on an organised school trip. We travelled well north past Chiang Mia almost to the Myanmar border. There we stayed in a Karen village for three weeks, helping to lay a water pipe to bring clean water to the village. I’ve written about the ubiquitous bamboo which was used for just about everything in the village. Within the first few days my husband, Vince, started having a lot of trouble with his back but we were told there was a local resident who was good at massaging people who had aches and pains. It was arranged for the young man, whose name believe it or not was Sumsuk, to give Vince a massage. Vince wasn’t too keen but he was assured that the treatment would be effective. Our guide taught Vince the Karen word for ‘stop’ in case the massage became too painful. However it hurt so much Vince forgot the word for stop and the young man kept on despite Vince’s yells of pain. Then the young man straddled Vince who was face down and was pummelling his shoulders, at which point the bed broke. So that effectively brought about an end to the session. However within a short time a replacement piece of bamboo had been sourced from the jungle and the bed was repaired. However Vince decided his back was very much better so they called it a day. The photo is a view from one of the roads we travelled on our way to the village.