The Bali Experiment: Best money I ever spent!

We decide to walk there, can't take us more than an hour to get there and we will REALLY appreciate the foot reflexology after a good long walk, right? Well, it was more like a 90 min walk, which got us there about 10 minutes late, but we were still in a good mood, and they didn't seem to notice that we were late.

We sat, had some water, and then chose which oil, scrub, and mask we each wanted. I don't remember exactly what we chose but we mostly chose ones that were good for inflammation or aches and pains over the ones meant for younger looking skin, except Mat picked one thing, I think the mask, that was meant for young skin and would "whiten" it. We found that it is a common practice here to try to lighten their skin, as they believe that darker skin makes them look older.

After making our choices, we walked into a lovely room with two massage tables and a large stone (or similar) tub. It was laid out such that the tables were side by side in the inner part of the room, and between them on the far wall was a small windows with shutters out to the front area, which in and of itself was basically a covered porch. The other end of the room was like a garden with a tub and a shower to the left of it. The roof covered half of it, the rest open to the sky with the wall coming as high as any wall would.

The tables, instead of having an extension for your head, it had a hole right in the table. Below, on a shelf under the table, sat a bowl full of flowers in water making a lovely focal point when staring down through the table.

The drool bowl under the table

They told us to undress and put on the provided paper undies and ring the little bell when we were ready. We were prepared for the undies, as we were told that the government required them to provide/offer these. I hadn't planned to wear them, but I decided "what the hell" and we donned our matching black hair-net underoos.

We rang the bell and two women returned telling us to sit on the edge of the tub, where they proceeded to scrub our feet and then directed us to each lie down on a table on our backs where they protected our modesty (as if we still had some) with sarongs that they laid over us. They then did our foot reflexology. There was a bit of confusion because the day before we had asked for a little hand and neck reflexology as well, mostly curious if it was any different than a back/hand rub, and the woman had agreed. These girls, however, said no, then talked to the woman, then said, "no, we can't do that in here" or something just as final. We conceded, deciding not to let such a small thing spoil a great day.

The reflexology was intense, that is the best word I could use to describe it. Mat was fine, but there were about four spots on my left foot that were extremely painful for me. I don't know if my girl was just stronger or if the area represented something particularly wrong with me, or if I just had sore-spots, but the area just under my left big toe felt like she was sticking me with metal, the outside of my ankle was ver tender, and the center of my foot was particularly painful as well. Interestingly, none of these were an issue on my right foot.

After the reflexology, they washed their hands and flipped us around, now working on our hair and face. They put something, presumably conditioner, in our hair, washed it out, then added a mask and wrapped our hair in a cloth. They then applied 4 or 5 different things to our face, washing in between each. As far as I could tell, it went cleanser, lotion (with massage), scrub, astringint, mask. At that point, they put something over our eyes and told us to relax. After waiting a bit, we decided that they had left the room, and we peeked to see what was on our eyes, as it didn't smell like cucumber. I had thought that it was flower petals, from the texture, but it turned out to just be gauze.

We were ordered to "relax", so who am I to object

A while later, they came back, washed our face and then did our deep-tissue massage. She asked if I wanted whole body or just my back, after my feet being in so much pain, I decided that I didn't want to risk her deep pressure on my legs, which are more sensitive than my back, so I chose my back only. I am glad I did because the whole thing was incredibly enjoyable, which is just what I had wanted. She climbed on the table, sometimes straddling me with no weight on me, and sometimes had her knee between my knees in order to get the right pressure with her elbows. As different it was from what I am used to, I much prefer results to conformity, and the results were great. Mat's masseuse was smaller than mine, and although she was easily 20 years older, she seemed much newer as my girl was directing her most of the time. I am not sure if it was her age, Mat's gender, or what, but she did NOT climb on the table and had little weight to throw into her massage and so his deep-tissue was little more than a relaxational massage, but he was not disappointed.

After the massage, they had Mat on his back and me on my stomach and applied a scrub and then mask and then covered us with a sarong and told us to again "relax" while they left the room for 10 min or so. Upon returning, they flipped us and did the opposite to each and then left for another 10 minutes. When they returned, they had first me shower and then him and slip into the flower-filled bath.

Dinner in the tub

Enjoying the duck

What's there to say...

Mat about to throw flower petals at me

After Mat threw flower petals at me

There, they fed us our meal, which was only ok, but there was plenty of it, so we ate as much as we felt appropriate to not offend! There was nothing bad about it, just not super, which Mat had hoped for from the duck.

Once finished, we got out, got dressed, and went out to the main area where they waited to do our manicure/pedicure. There was a 6 year old boy, Aria, one of the other messeuse's son. He entertained us while we had our nails done and when he was bored, he played games on my phone.

It was difficult to convince them to paint Mat's nails, but we finally got the mom of the boy to agree to paint his nails gold. We had to tell her that it was to amuse our son, but really it was more that "we paid for it, why not get it all!" Mat was annoyed that they didn't do his toes, but I agreed to pick up some polish and do his toenails later on.

At the end, they gave us some souvenirs and we went on our way. Overall, it was a glorious way to spend 6 or 7 hours. In the future, we would probably skip half of it, now that we know what it is all like, but don't regret any of it. The mother of the little boy, and the woman who we had first talked to were in rooms doing massages at the end with an older American couple who said that they had been coming for 3 years. From the noises that they made, we decided that those two were the masseuse's to ask for!

Total cost, with tip for 7 hours of luxury for both of us, about 125 USD.

Not much more to add, the next day and a half has been little more than 4 Americans lying around in paradise, devouring such literary masterpieces as "Dreamer", "The Holy", "Devil's Nebula", and "Wildwood"... In fact, after finishing "Dreamer" yesterday, I picked up "After Dachau" this morning and had it fully read (for the second time) by 1:30, at which point I decided to update the blog.