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Published: December 6th 2006
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Spent the last couple of days sorting out boring things that have to be done and exploring Bangkok, markets etc. Then today started a Thai foot massage course. It’s near Wat Pho, so I had to take a cross river boat to the pier, then a ferry to Tha Tien to enrol. The day didn’t start too well when I tried to get on a ferry and the “conductor” ran towards me shouting. I don’t speak Thai too well, but I was pretty sure that she was telling me to get off the boat as she was combining the shouting with a shooing like motion of her hands! So I got off! The next ferry that arrived did let me get on and I got to Tha Tien and walked through the market to the place with Wat Pho Massage School written over the door. And I stood in there for about 20 minutes. Some people were in a back room eating breakfast, and the odd person wandered around, but when I tried to ask for help they just looked at me and scurried past. I kept poking my head through doorways but there was no-one around and no signs of
what I was supposed to do. Not surprising really as I was in the wrong place! It was something to do with the massage school, but it wasn’t where I was supposed to be! Eventually I found a man who seemed to know something and he said that he would take me to where I needed to be. He stooped on the way a few times to chat to friends, with me stood like a lemon at his side waiting, and then we arrived at the registration building. I would never have found it! Once registered I was given a bag with oil, lotion, cream, manual, notebook, pen, bowl and massage stick and then all the new ones (inc. me) were told to follow someone to the foot massage building. The building was full of people, all chattering away - mainly in thai - so I just took a seat and kept smiling like an idiot at anyone whose eye I caught. Then just after 9am the room as a whole turned to one corner and started praying to a shrine. As when the national anthem plays, I assumed the position! The new group were taken upstairs and we started
our lesson. There are 6 of us (2 Japanese - 1m/1f - an American woman, a Canadian man and a Thai man with dreadlocks that the female instructors find fascinating and at lunchtime keep touching and pulling) and 3 teachers (2f/1m). None of them talk much and the friendliest people at lunch seem to be the Thaïs that don’t speak any English. At least they smile! We have a demonstration of the massage and then have a practice on each other. As we’re getting towards the end of the lesson it starts to rain really heavily and doesn’t let up at all. So when we finish I leave, dressed in a linen top and trousers, into torrential rain. I try and walk along the street trying to keep under the awnings and umbrellas outside the cafes and shops, but then - already soaking - get to a wide street I need to cross. I’m stood under cover hoping that the rain will ease - no chance - when a thai man appears with an umbrella, walks me across then goes back into his house/shop. That gets me through the worst and I carry on trying to keep as dry as
I can until I get to a shop where I can buy an umbrella. I am soaked through, and to make matters worse I’m slipping and sliding everywhere as I’m wearing my flip flops that I’ve nearly had several accidents in on any wet or marble surface - i.e. most of Bangkok! I wasn’t managing too badly, even though I think I was walking like a duck lifting my feett up and trying to put them flat down with each step so that I didn’t skid, and managed to get myself onto the return ferry. Confidence then returned and I started to think that I would be ok and could walk in the shoes. I hadn’t slipped, it had stopped raining…. I was wrong. Very wrong. There must have been some sort of suction keeping me upright on the boat because as soon as I stepped onto the deck to get off…… I slide tackled a man, reached out and grabbed him, swung round his legs and skidded off the boat. Embarrassed? Very!
Back at the hotel I spoke to the concierge to see if I could offer any of the staff a free foot massage so that I could
practice. They came back to me and said that I could….if I paid 700 Baht per hour to use a room to do so. I’m thinking not then!
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