I
t was our fourth night in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and my friend Laura and I were getting a little tired of the sparse bars late at night. We saw loads of travelers in Chiang Mai during the day, but at night, bars would only have a half dozen people. We weren’t newbies to the backpacker scene…we knew by now that drinking and partying go hand in hand with budget travel. Despite that, each night we continued to wander in vain, searching of a fun bar filled with the backpackers we knew had to be around.
This night we decided would be different. We did some digging around, and after getting a tip from an English expat, we descended late at night upon a popular street corner with four distinct bars on each side. To our dismay, there was yet another small showing of travelers. As eleven at night approached and the bar started closing down, I asked the owner/bartender, with a bit of hopelessness, where we could go to keep our night alive. “I believe Spicy is the late night place to be at the moment” replied the British expat. So, after some debate with the taxis nearby, and a rough idea of the location, we set off to “Club Spicy,” and what an entertaining place it turned out to be.
“Spicy,” is a small club with a local dj blasting American hip hop and EDM tunes while an even mix of western backpackers and Thais danced and mingled. We were somehow placed at a private table overlooking the dance floor with a waiter taking all of our drink orders. All things considered, with a personal waiter to take my drink order, reasonable drink prices, a dance floor nearby, and decent EDM music…I was, shall we say, thrilled.
That euphoria ended rather abruptly when I went to the bathroom. “Club Spicy” took the concept of a bathroom attendant to a level both I and whoever invented the idea had never imagined.
After using the urinal in the men’s bathroom and heading to wash my hands, I was approached by two attendants who very nicely gave me soap, a towel, and a mint. So far, so good. As I started washing my hands in the sink, from behind, two unknown hands landed on my shoulders and began to massage me. Strange and alarming, but after looking in the mirror and seeing one of the club attendant uniforms, I figured, when in Rome…why not? So I went along with it.
Shortly after the initial shock of the massage, another attendant walked over, grabbed my right arm and started massaging and stretching it. At this point, I was done washing my hands, and I found myself standing in front of the bathroom sink as two well dressed Thai bathroom attendants were stretching and massaging me. I had no idea what to do. Fatherly advice instructed me on how to shake someone’s hand, make eye contact in an important situation, and navigate an interview, but I never learned the respectful moment in which to leave a personal bathroom masseuse. Maybe I just didn’t pay enough attention when I was a kid. Either way, it was an odd experience and probably an even stranger sight to other patrons.
Then, suddenly, and without warning, the attendant directly behind me grabbed my neck and…wham! He threw my neck to the left to the tune of a horrific cracking sound. Then…crack! One more time to the right. Despite the shock of it, and the lingering awkwardness, I have to admit that I felt good. I knew though that this was my cue to leave the bathroom before any other toilet staff member started trying more elaborate chiropractic moves. I politely gave the two entrepreneurial staff members a tip and went on my way. I couldn’t decide what to make of the encounter other than being amused at just having had the strangest bathroom trip of my life.
Unfortunately, my second bathroom trip was even more uncomfortable.
As the night went on, the male patrons of “Club Spicy” smartened up and avoided washing their hands, thereby avoiding the massage team and the guilty obligation to tip. So, not to be outmaneuvered, and with apparently no shame, the “Club Spicy” massage team began their attack the moment you stepped into the bathroom.
As I walked into the bathroom for the second time to use the urinal, the absolute last thing I expected, or wanted, was a neck massage. But, that is exactly what the staff attempted, and in some cases succeeded at doing. I challenge anyone to walk into the bathroom like I did that second time to see bathroom attendants massaging men as they used the urinal and not utter the words: “what the fuck?”
While I tolerated the last awkward bathroom encounter, I was not going along with this new technique. As the luxuriously dressed Thai bathroom attendant approached stealthily towards me while I unzipped in front of the urinal, an angry look and a strong “NO!” sent him fleeing back to the sink area. I got out of there without any more trouble, but the attendants had succeeded in turning what started as a rather strange and funny experience into a supremely creepy one.