…having ugly feet.

OK, technically it wasn’t in Bangkok.  It was in Saladan, the small town nearest to where we live.  And it wasn’t really a “massage parlour” in the titillating sense.  It was one of the ubiquitous places here where you can get manicures, pedicures, massages, a cup of cleansing tea, etc.

But somehow “Saladan Bamboo Foot Care and Traditional Thai Massage Center” just doesn’t have the same headline cache as “Bangkok massage parlour.”

Anyway, my feet have always been rough and (in Karin’s words) horrible.  Now, after a few weeks of going mostly barefoot or in sandals, running, doing bare-foot boot camp on the beach, etc. my feet are extra crunchy, scratched, and have a couple of small punctures from rocks and coral.  So I went in for a foot scrub.  The manager gave me a warm smile and asked to see my feet.  “Oh.”  She assigned me to, I presume, a very competent staff member who had me lay down, feet up, and then began to apply some coconut oil mixed with something else.  All good.  After a while, she walked away, chatted with the manager, and walked back.  She continued to apply oil while peering closer at the landscape of one foot and then the other.  She seemed to be saying “Tsk, tsk” in Thai.

The manager came over and they started to work together.  Then other staff joined in to have a look, chatting with each other and pointing at different parts of my feet.  It seemed a bit like medical residents doing rounds and stopping to look at a particularly interesting (sad?) case.

After about 15 minutes of staring, scrubbing, chatting, and pointing, the manager, who I later learned was married to a German and spoke pretty good English, explained that I had some real issues.  Hard skin here, soft there, neglect everywhere.  She finally said apologetically that they “couldn’t really help me”.  She offered some products to take home (a pumice stone and a small tub of vaseline) and gave me very specific directions about how to scrub and vaseline my feet every day.  She repeated the instructions about 3 times to make sure I didn’t screw it up.  She said that she wouldn’t charge me for any of this (except about $1.50 for the products) and invited me back in a few weeks after I’ve completed the triage.  I was offered a cup of tea and shown the door.

So now I’m off to bed, with self-scrubbed feet that are coated in vaseline and cozy in clean socks.

Remedial foot care products.