Living in the land of Spaahhh

Besides rice, traffic, motorcycles and plastic; there is an incredible abundance of spas in Indonesia. Since I am totally nuts about a great massage, this is a wonderful match-up for me.

I first became addicted to massages when sweetums and I lived in New Orleans. I love the smell of a spa, the great relaxing music they play, the calmness. It practically makes me swoon. The fragrance is what I would call a clean beachy smell. Kind of salty, a tad bit earthy, and ever so slightly musky. At this point I feel like I should be saying, "My name is Judi, and I have a problem."

One of the interesting and surprising parts of this culture is that massage is very much a part of life for practically everyone. It doesn't matter if you live in a palatial home or you are someones housekeeper, massage is deemed a great cure-all for many things. They seem to appreciate the therapeutic value of human touch.

Another thing that I have found unique about the spa experience here is the huge variety of spa experiences you can have. Let me tell you about a few of them.

One of the most widely popular massage/spa experiences is called a cream bath. No, it does not involve sitting in a tub of high fat dairy product. It is the application of a delightfully rich conditioner to your hair accompanied by a head massage. The application of the conditioner and massage usually takes about 30 minutes. Bliss I tell you. After the application, and having your head rubbed and scalped coaxed in to submission, your hair is wrapped in a towel to allow the goop to work its magic and not drip all over you. If that weren't enough, while you are waiting for the transformation of your lovely locks, you are given a shoulder and arm massage by an ever attentive technician. AAAHHHH. After about 15 or 20 minutes of that, the towel is removed from your head and your hair is washed, rinsed and blown dry. Your silky tresses are glorious and you feel so relaxed I think you wouldn't really care if they had shaved your head. Hmmmm. Wonder what's in that stuff? As mentioned before, this treatment spans a huge socio-economic slice of the population. It is something that should be offered in the US and isn't. They are missing the boat on this little money maker.

Next up, on the totally opposite end of your body, is the fish massage. This is a spa treatment that appeared in a few locations around the US; briefly. It was shut down after some regulatory commission sighted health concerns. Not sure if they were more worried about the fish's health or the patrons. Whatever the case, it is not an issue here, so Fish Spas are all over the place. While not as abundant as the cream bath venues, you do see at least one in every mall. The point of the fish spa is that the hungry little buggers will nibble all of the dead, dry skin off of your feet and legs and they will be transformed in to smooth, sleek, appendages. Appetizing, no?

Several of my friends enjoy visiting these spas. I held out for a long time because it just seemed so....strange. However, I succumbed to peer pressure and the un-refusable request from a very sweet friend to accompany her to the fish spa before she moved away from Indonesia. Thus, on a sunny morning in August we drove to the mall and headed for the fish spa. We were the first customers of the day, which I had hoped for when we set this up the day before. Instead of the heady spa fragrances and the quiet little treatment rooms where the piped in music puts you in an almost catatonic state, you have multiple islands of fish tanks scattered around the room. I don't know what the formal name is for where they keep the little fishes. They aren't really aquaria, yes that is the plural of aquarium, and they aren't really ponds. So let's just settle on calling them tanks, but you must use your imagination here.

When you enter the spa it is restful and there are those tanks of cute little, hungry fish swimming around just waiting for you to put your feet in. But before that happens, you sit in an area where they wash your feet and legs before you are allowed to dangle them in the tank. Don't want any icky lotions from your legs making the ikan(new Indonesian word for you to learn - means fish)sick. They give you little slippers to wear so as to not get your nice clean feet dirty while you walk over to the spa tank. Sitting on the side, you slide your slippers off and plunge your feet and legs in almost to knee level. I learned that you don't want to be the first one to stick your feet in. Those guys swarm you. Your feet and legs become covered with eager fish. It looks like you are wearing these weird boots made out of wiggly fish bodies. Oddddddd.

It is kind of a buzzing sensation when the fish work you over. It kind of tickles and vibrates all at the same time. So I guess that is why it is called a massage and not a fish pedicure even though you are kind of getting a little bit of both. Maybe we could call it a fish pedisage. No, that sounds worse. Never mind.


Now according to my sweetie pie, he had a similar experience every time he got in our backyard water garden to clean it or make adjustments. He would get in the pond and the fish would come over and size him up to see if he was good eating. Somewhere along the way, he would have to get out, change from shorts to long pants because the fish were getting a bit to interested for his liking. The little nibbles would begin to feel like piranha attacks according to him. Keep in mind we did have some sizable fish. Most notable were the three LARGE albino cat fish. Those guys were big enough to fillet and eat. I would not qualify this as a fish spa experience by Indonesian standards.

There are a couple of OTHER kinds of spas that I WILL NOT address on these pages (and no, I am not talking about THOSE kinds of spas. They are here too, just like most anywhere else in the world). These are a different kind of spa. It is very strange to me to live in a place that so strongly encourages woman to cover up almost completely and holding hands in the mall gets you stared at will tolerate this. I guess I still have a lot to learn about living in a different culture.

Let's move on. Reflexology is also very popular here. It is one of those kinds of treatments that you think to yourself, "This is going to feel so much better when they quite torturing me." Reflexology is based on the theory that the soles of your feet have points on them that match up to various organs or areas of your body. The technician will rub and kneed your feet; sometimes using her knuckle to dig in to places on the bottom of your foot or the pads on the bottom of your toes. It is sometimes painful, sometimes it feels good, and sometimes you are almost crying for mercy. When it's all over, your feet feel a little tender, but surprisingly good.

It is nice to know that when the streets of Jakarta get you down you can go to a tranquil spa and let them work out the knots in your neck, kneed your muscles until you feel like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and float for a while on a gentle river of music until you feel relaxed and ready to get back out there and do it all over again. It's a spaaaahhhhh world after all.