Turkey was my first real massage experience. I went to the famous Turkish baths where I frolicked around pools with other naked women. (Boys, don’t get too excited – there’s nothing sexy about the place.) I was there to find relaxation and work out the kinks my backpack had left in my shoulders, so I quickly inquired about a massage. I was shown into a massage room and told to get completely undressed. The massage bed resembled a stone bench, but I uncomfortably managed to stretch out. While I was lying there waiting for the masseuse, I was caught off guard when the hairiest greasiest man came in to massage me. Oh my! I quickly shut my eyes and bit my lip. This hairy man is going to touch me as I lie here in my naked state? I had shivers at the thought of his rug brushing against me. Despite the creepies, I did have a great massage and was encouraged to try more. In Vietnam I found myself in a borderline brothel. My husband and I went to a massage place and were sent up these dark stairs to bare rooms. This young girl, maybe 12-years-old, came in and told me to get undressed. She stood there while I took off everything. She offered no towels to cover me, led me to the bed and started all sorts of bizarre “therapeutic” treatments. My body was twisted in so many directions as she evilly looked at me. She even found the need to “de-tense” my groin muscles. Who does that? I was so tense by the entire situation that the idea of relaxation went out the door. Meanwhile, Tony was offered another form of relaxation…aka special massage which was demonstrated with rapid pumping of the arm. After that I was very leery of massages in Asia…

As I was sunbathing on the beaches in Koh Samui, I did manage to get over my reservations of Asian massages and tried the $5 walk on my back in Thailand, the foot massage in China, and then a Latina special in Central America. But it wasn’t until India that my senses were once again thrown into a spin. We were on a road trip south of Mumbai when I was subjected to a bath in oil while I slid and slipped across what looked like a human-size wooden tea tray. The bonus of this massage was that I wasn’t completely naked. Instead I was given a paper-maché strip to cover my private parts. It was extra long so the end hung over my bum like an oily tail. In this massage I was subjected to frenetic rubbing from my head to my toes, which included a figure 8 across my bum, fingernails on my feet and a special long boob rub. There were also a few strategic pressure points that made me super glad I had sex before going to the massage. Yikes, I don’t consider myself to be prudish, but there were a few moments that made me jump.