So ... Bali huh?

 Part 1 ... The Massage

Way back in July of this year, Caroline and I celebrated 30 years of marriage. At the time, we had a fabulous dinner with our family and the members of our Bridal party that were in Adelaide for the occasion.

We’d discussed doing a quick weekend getaway somewhere to celebrate as well, but with life being busy with work and an offspring’s wedding, we didn’t managed to do anything until September.

There was a lot of discussion about where we might end up and finally decided on Bali; being able to get there direct from Adelaide, it not being too far and importantly, it being affordable.

So off to Bali we went. I talked with family that had been recently for advice on avoiding the dreaded Bali belly given that was one of my lingering, less pleasant memories of Bali from 10 years prior and decided to follow their advice and precautions.

Getting there was easy and getting to the resort was easy too, which meant all there was to do for the rest of the day was explore and eat. Oh and importantly, for Caroline, find a massage. Happy days.

We managed to first two items on the agenda easily enough and even finding the massage was simple too. I mean anyone that’s been to Bali will have seen a massage joint every 15 metres or so down the street.

I was so-so on getting a massage though. Call me weird, but strangely I just don’t love them.

Turns out I’m a bit soft, really. I just don’t enjoy someone inflicting pain on me with the intent of making me feel more relaxed. I mean, I’m pretty sure I tense up more because of the anticipation of pain and only make things work. But hey, we were there together so I decided to suck it up, enjoy the spirit of the occasion and share it with my wife. I made sure to ask for a relaxation massage rather than any sort of remedial, muscle re-aligning torture-based routine.

Having agreed and hoping to see some delicate young lass (so that she hopefully wouldn’t have the strength to hurt me) emerge to massage me, I was immediately disappointed as a young man appeared. I made very sure to emphasize that I wanted relaxation, not bruising. I’m sure when he saw who he was getting to massage he was even more disappointed than I was!

We were led back into the building and each into our own rooms where we were left to undress. I stripped down to my underwear and waited. When he came back in, he looked at me briefly before presenting me with a pair of mostly transparent black paper briefs and told me to change into them.

Yay.

Accepting my fate, I did as requested and pulled on the distinctly unflattering garment. Well, mostly pulled on. Being made of some sort of paper-like construction, they didn’t really pull all that well, especially given the felt like maybe I was pushing the boundaries of the size envelope for that particular selection.

So with them mostly on and partially torn, I lay down on the table, feeling anything but relaxed and comfortable, ready for my massage.

I will give the guy credit. He had clearly listened to my ‘please don’t hurt me’ request and the massage was in the main part good. But I couldn’t really relax, because I kept expecting things to ratchet up and reduce me to a whimpering, pathetic old man. When he reached the lower portion of my calves and down to the Achilles, that’s pretty much what happened.

Not to mention the boundaries of the paper underwear. I mean, there wasn’t anything inappropriate happening, but in terms of relaxation, when the fingers get under the band of the underwear, relaxation is out the window. The tension escalates quickly as you wonder whether the next thing to happen IS going to be inappropriate.

When all was said and done, I think I can some up the experience best by saying it was probably something neither of us wanted to endure.

Needless to say, I didn’t bother with another one.