A Local Adventure

Kate, Paris and I decided that we wanted to go get our feet scrubbed and get all the dead skin removed. I had it done once in Chiang Mai and they used this scraper (almost like a vegetable peeler [gross sounding, I know, but very effective]) and loved how it felt. Kate got it done a lot when she was here as a teacher before. She has a friend at a massage shop and we decided we would go there. They use some kind of creme and wrap your feet in hot towels. Then the skin comes off easily. We hopped on our bikes and off we went. We went to Kate’s friend’s shop but they said she couldn’t do it until 4:00 (and it was around 1:45). We thought we would try to find somewhere else since that was a long way away. There was a shop really close and we popped in there. They said they couldn’t do it. We knew of another shop close to Tesco. When we stepped in it spelled really weird/gross. They said they could do it, but we chose to leave. When we had gone to dinner with Kung and his family he pointed out a new shop. Since it was close we popped in there. They said they didn’t do that there. By that point we thought we would just kill time until 3 or so and then go shopping (I needed food and fruits/veggies form the market) and go back to the first shop on the way home.

To kill some time I was going to show Paris and Kate this shop that has yogurt and sorbet. It’s close to a shop that does smoothies and makes their own homemade boba. We started riding over there when we saw another massage shop. We though, “What the heck. May as well see if they can scrub our feet since it’s right here.” And by that point we were joking about finding every massage place in the city, seeing as that was stop number 5. A lady with jewels implanted into each canine tooth was leaving the shop as we pulled up. When she saw us she went back inside. I think she words there…? We asked how much it would be and they told us 300 baht (about $10) which we thought was high. Kate thought her shop did it for 150 baht. We told them no thank you. Then they said they would do it for 200 baht, but we just decided to wait. Plus we weren’t quite sure if they understood what we wanted… Haha!

We got back on our bikes and headed to the yogurt shop. We pulled up to a red light and stopped. The next thing we knew, the jewel toothed lady (along with a teenaged boy and younger boy) pulled up next to us on a scooter. She recognized us and motioned for us to follow her. We didn’t know why, and we really just wanted to wait and go back to the first shop. But we acted like we didn’t know what she wanted (which really didn’t take much acting, because we really didn’t know). She had the teenaged boy tell us to follow them. The light turned green and we thought, why not? We followed the scooter on our bicycles. They led us down a side street and 10 minutes later we stopped in front of a massage shop on a VERY quiet street.

We went in and the jewel toothed lady talked to her friend (who seemed to be the shop owner). The owner told us to come in and sit on the massage tables. She knew a tiny bit of Thai and we tried to tell her that we didn’t want massages, we just wanted our feet scraped/scrubbed. We asked how much and she said 150 baht. Fair enough. We all laid down. Jewel tooth got on her scooter and left. The owner started massaging Kate’s legs and her 11 year old daughter came out and started massaging Paris’s legs. We laughed and said we thought there was a mix up. Kate told the lady massaging her legs that she didn’t want a massage. We only wanted out feet scrubbed. The Thai lady told her that we could get out feet scrubbed and an hour long leg massage for 450 baht. Kate told her again, “No massage, just foot scrub.” Jewel tooth came back and they started jabbering in Thai. The shop owner didn’t seem too happy. She asked Kate again if she wanted a massage (by now she’d been massaging her for about 20 minutes) and Kate again said, “No massage, just foot scrub”. More talking in Thai. Then the Thai lady asked Kate, “You okay?” Kate assured her she was and asked the Thai lady SHE was okay. She said she was.

Jewel tooth pulled up a stool and a bucket of water to my massage bed. She motioned for me to sit up and placed my feet in a bucket of ice cold water. She took each foot out and washed it with soap and a white bristled brush. Then she put on an exfoliating scrub and washed them again. She went to town with that scrub on my lower leg and that was not pleasant. After that she got out the tool they had used in Chiang Mai when I got my feet scrubbed. “At last!” I thought! She took one foot out of the water and started to use to on my foot. It only took about 4 seconds to realize that this was the first time she had ever used that tool. She took a couple painful chunks of skin out of my foot and put the tool away. Then to finish it all off she washed my feet a third (or maybe fourth) time. Then she moved on to Kate’s feet and the shop owner came to massage my legs. The leg massage was actually really nice (much better than the sort of foot scrub). She did use this wooden tool on the bottom of my foot that really tickled! I hated it. Then, when it got close to the time she was going to use it on my other foot I got all worked up! I knew it was coming and I knew I was going to hate it! I told the other girls that I was so ticklish on my feet and as I was telling them I started laughing and got tears in my eyes! They laughed at me. I made it through okay though.

After Diamond Tooth finished washing Kate’s feet with cold water she (the metal scraper didn’t emerge again) she moved on to Paris’s feet. After Paris’s uncomfortable, cold, rough foot scrub we were done! We got up and the owner said 450 baht. At first we thought she meant EACH and we were freaking out a little bit. But we soon realized that she meant total. So we all paid 150 baht, took our still rough feet and got on our bicycles.

Afterwards we rode to Tesco and did some shopping.  Our feet are still quite rough (mine even worse than before due to the chunks taken out) and I think next time we’ll just stick to going to Kate’s friend.