First (and last) shower from a bucket (NSFW*)

Sunday

Today was interesting. Interesting as in omgwhathappened. Ale and I awoke this morning super excited for our ayurvedic massages. We arrived at a very nice looking resort and our glee was undeniable. As we were checking in, I decided to ask for a female masseuse. In the states, I really don't care but I just wanted to be safe here in India. Well the guy says "of course" so matter-of-factly, I probably should have realized this wasn't going to be like my last massage. Which by the way, was at The Ritz Carlton in Amelia Island. And with the massage, you get to spend the day using their hot tub and steam room, sauna room, relaxation room, and private spa pool. Now of course, I was not expecting this experience. More like the Thai massages I got twice daily in Thailand a couple years back. Nothing fancy, just clean sheets and some awesome hands and occasionally some good smelling oils.

So Ale and I are brought to our separate doors, we wave goodbye with silly smiles, having no clue what is about to come. First up, I survey the room. It's a series of connected rooms. There is a central room with a rope hanging down (luckily this was never used) and a chair, then off this room there is a bathroom, a tiny changing room (no door), a room with a wood massage bed?, and 2 other small rooms I can't decipher. They don't seem the most relaxing or cleanest. Not unclean, just not what i expected. First, I hear Ale say "my underwear, too?," since the walls dont go up to the roof. Hmm. Now I have no problem underdressing for a massage, but where is my sheet to cover up? "Undress and sit on chair for face massage." Okay, I convince myself to go with the flow and enjoy this experience. I do remember reading in some guide book to not expect an ayurvedic massage to be like a Thai massage. So I get fully undressed and sit on a chair that is luckily covered by a towel (clean, I pray). And I close my eyes to get my naked face-massage. Then I remember I hate oil on my face. Deep breath, Lauren, enjoy. At least it isn't in my hair. And then she dumps like a gallon of oil in my hair. Well, at least I don't have to go lay on that wood thing without a sheet.

And then she leads me to the wood thing without a sheet. I again, take a deep breath and pray this has been cleaned with bleach at some point in the past 5 years. I get to lay down on my belly first, so I am thankful for some modesty. She gives me a slippery rub down for the next 30 minutes, halfway through I have to lay on my back. It isn't half bad, but all I can think about is that a) I'm completely naked b) I'm on a gross wood bed god knows how many people have used c) I'm completely naked and d) she has touched my disgusting feet that are so dirty and now is rubbing them all over my entire body. It wasn't very deep tissue, more like a slippery rub. When she tells me it is time for the steam room, I get excited because I get to go see Ale and we can talk about how ridiculous this was while enjoying the steam.

She leads me to the room next door and points to a wooden box about the size of a dog house , opens the door, and points to the seat for me to sit on. There is no room for Ale. She then closes the door and with my head popped out of the cutout in the box, I get my body steamed. Only problem, I get a little claustrophobic. "How long?" I ask. "20 minutes." I can do anything for 20 minutes, so I talk myself out of kicking open the flimsy wooden door and running for help and instead let my body sweat with an obscene amount of oil (which I think might have been canola oil) layered onto my skin. I then get to stare at a wall covered in dirty oily hands, my body sweating in a box beneath me, and count to 60, 20 times. I am thankful at least my head is not being steamed. When she says "all done," I breath a sigh of relief. I've made it. I don't even care that I'm now not just completely oily, but also completely sweaty. I get up and she says "shower" and I get excited. As a matter of fact, I would love to shower, lady because I do happen to be sweaty and oily.

She leads me to the bathroom and shows me the buckets filled with warm water. Deep breath, okay ill just pretend like I'm using the dirty buckets and dump out the water and shower when I get back. "Sit." Oh my goodness. I then get "showered" by my masseuse out of a bucket as I crouch on my tiptoes of the bathroom floor (I have some weird OCD tendencies and one of them is the floor of public showers. I wear shower shoes when I'm not in my own shower or someone's house.) No way am I sitting down. Meanwhile, Ale relays to me later that at this point in her massage, she reverts back to her 4 year old Venezuelan self and is pretending it is her mother showering her out of a bucket in Venezuela. After I'm done being showered from a bucket by not myself, I get toweled off by not myself. I'm still wet but she sends me to get into my clothes. Yes, please. And it's over. I walk into the lobby and wait for Ale, who comes out 2 minutes later looking like she has passed out. "I had a vasovagal." Okay so she did almost pass out. We said our thank yous and got the first rickshaw we could out of there. It was time to drown our not-so-relaxed sorrows in prawns and fish and mango milkshakes. And that we did.

I'm realizing now nice it is to get to go on these little weekend excursions and then go back home. Hot showers, all our laundry cleaned, guaranteed clean bed. Ale and I are about to embark on a month of backpacking and we aren't going to be going home to freshen up every 3 days. I'm going to have to force myself to shower, even though the water isn't hot or the faucet looks gross or someone else is showering me. I'm probably going to have to rewear some of my clothes. Ewww. It's just a little hard to accept this, seeing how good we have it now.

Ale asked me the other day, "do you think 27 is too old to backpack?" I replied "no, you know you are 27 and you are backpacking?" Luckily she had realized this, she was just probing the subject I was just referring to.

*NSFW= not safe for work (per my sister)!