In my opinion, the Thais give the best massages in the world. Those petite girls are so strong, and know exactly what they are doing.

I go to Thailand quite often as I find it works out cheaper to go there for a week than it does to go to the Gold Coast. For a couple, we usually pay around $2000 for a week away in a 5 star resort, with breakfast, and return airfares. And depending on what it is that you do in Thailand, you don’t need a whole heap of spending money.

I go there to relax. Relaxing is very difficult for me to do. By nature I am a very highly strung person, as well as suffering from insomnia. You could basically say that I need to take a chill pill at times, so I find this is the perfect location for me to unwind.

As I have frequented Phuket a bunch of times, I have pretty much seen everything there is on offer, so I don’t bother with the touristy things anymore (day trips out to Phi Phi island, elephant riding etc). I just go there to swim, ride a scooter around the island, get a tan, eat the Thai cuisine, and the most important part – get cheap massages.

The massages are very inexpensive in Thailand. The price is usually around 400THB (or roughly AUD$12.00) for a 1 hour massage. They offer a few different massages, including the famous Thai massage, which I tend to avoid as its almost a form of torture. I always opt for the oil massage. Obviously after having been a regular visitor to the island of Phuket, I am familiar with the best places to go for these massages. In the beginning however, I did have an incident which never fails to get a laugh out of whoever I relay the story to.

Thai massages usually require you to strip down to your underwear. I have no problem with getting naked, so this part is a non-issue for me. They start with your back first, and then make you flip over so they can do your front. The best part of this is, they actually massage your breasts – in a totally non-sexual way of course. And whilst I’m aware that the Thais are known for their “happy endings”, if you go to a good place, there is absolutely nothing sexual about these massages.

The massage that has managed to be now forever imprinted in my mind is this dinghy little massage parlour I went to one night in Patong. All Thai massage parlours are the same. They all have a bunch of girls standing at the front trying to tempt clients into their shops. “Massage!” they yell out to each potential client that walks past. If it’s a seedy place, the girls are dressed in denim short shorts, and if it’s a professional place, they are dressed in sarongs. This is the easiest way to distinguish between the clean ones, and the more “rub n tug” style of places.

The one I went to this particular night was in one of the back alleys. It was late – around 11pm (the massage parlours are generally open until midnight), and the two girls that were left were in a very jovial mood. The Thais are very friendly people, however it does tend to border on flirting a lot of the time I must warn you. We followed them upstairs to the massage rooms. Most of the massages are conducted upstairs of the premises – the downstairs areas are set up like a hair salon. They generally have hairdresser work stations in half of the downstairs of the area, and the other side of the shop contains reclining chairs where the foot massages, and pedicures are performed.

So we head upstairs – which is quite treacherous in itself – for some strange reason, the stairs in these buildings are very steep, and each step is built at a different height to the other, so you really have to be careful when navigating these staircases that seem as though they have quite possibly have been constructed by the Thai girls themselves.

So we get upstairs and are ordered to undress. I take off everything except for my knickers, and lay down on my front and await my massage lady. She comes in and instructs me to take off my underwear as well.

“No, that’s ok, I’ll leave them on” I tell her.

God knows why she wants me to take them off. Although I wouldn’t mind her massaging my butt come to think of it.

“No, you take off.” She orders me.

I think about it for a second. Well, she can’t really see anything, and I’m sure they’ll give me something to cover up my nether regions once its time to flip over.

“Ok” I oblige, and remove them for her, and place them with my things.

Then she straddles me, and starts slapping my ass, while simulating fucking me, exclaiming “you very sexy lady!”

I am beyond mortified.

My husband, who is laying next to me having a massage, is beyond pleased – after all, isn’t this every straight mans fantasy? I know the Thai women are touchy feely, and love to muck around, and as I’m reasonably tolerant to most things, I let it go.

She knocks it off after a second, and starts to massage my shoulders and I finally begin to relax. She works her way down my back, before getting to my butt, which she massages firmly, commenting again that I’m “very sexy”, and then suddenly, her fingers are suddenly precariously close to areas they most certainly shouldn’t be.

“Um ok!” I exclaim as I sit up swiftly. “Can you stop that?!”

She laughed, and stopped it thank fully. My husband was enthralled.

“Ok, turn over” she said in her sing song voice. I’ve always wondered why Thai women spoke like that.

Turn over? Ok, I was fine with having my (lack of) breasts on display, but I was not fine with being naked from the waist down.

“Can I have my underwear back?” I requested.

“Its ok, me not shy” came the response.

Holy shitballs.

“Uhhh, that’s ok, I’m shy” I responded to her. I was beginning to get frustrated.

“No, no, me not shy. We have same!” she replied, pointing back and forth to herself and me.

“No, no, I want to put my underwear back on” I said more firmly now.

“Ok!” she laughed as she grabbed my underwear and held them out for me to put back on. “I put on for you!” she said as she was holding them out in the same manner that

you would for a 3 year old child.

“Um, no, I can put them back on” I said as I snatched them from her outstretched hands, her face now looking rather disappointed. Good grief.

So even though this was a particularly odd experience that I was molested on this occasion, it certainly isn’t indicative of the type of massages I go to Thailand for, nor the excellent ones that are on offer. Ordinarily they rock. Just take my advice and choose a place where the girls are spruiking for clientele wearing sarongs, and you’ll quite literally be in safe hands.