We came to take this Thai Massage class for one week… and stayed, finishing week #3 on Friday… earning our diplomas. It’s been a good challenge and experience. To practice, Annie gives me two massages each day this week and I give her two as well. They now take about an hour each. When she stretches me, she’s very limited (my legs only move so far). When I stretch her, I start pushing her leg towards her head and her leg moves like a switch blade knife, folding up to her neck, her head, and keeps going. Last week we had one of the previous students give Annie an hour massage as I video’d it. When Annie practices the massage on me she uses her notes. I found it too frustrating, so I have the video running as I work on her. It’s getting easier as we repeat it over and over. Eventually we won’t need our notes or the video.
We planned on traveling up to the town of Pai on Saturday. A crowded bus would cost us under $10 each…a private car would cost under $100 total. But then we looked at reviews of the way there… it’s a 3-4 hr drive with about 700-800 tight curves in the road…. and the drivers speed to get there quickly (and they might be stoned for all we know?). The busses and minivans offer you motion sickness pills… and there are signs along the way “Vomit here!” That’s all we needed to read – we’ll be staying in Chiang Mai the next 10-days and see Temples and other local sites. That will give us a few days in Bangkok before we fly home.
There’s not much to take photos of here at the massage school and we’re too busy with our studies and cooking. Next week we’ll try to post some fun adventures with photos and videos.
One note… there must be a monastery next door. We keep getting woken up by loud chanting at 5-5:30am. The chanting isn’t bad…. it’s soothing and mostly lulls you back to sleep, but when the head monk starts speaking using his microphone it’s hard to block him out. I keep thinking I should play my ocarina (like a little flute) when they’re singing just to confuse them.