Bodhgaya

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Day 7 – Varanasi part 2

This day Meaghan and I decided to spend the day recuperating from the cold we adopted from Michel at our semi-swanky hotel. Not such an exciting day to report on… except maybe for our ayervedic massages.

The sign on the wall that we were directed to read stated “if you would like to show your gratitude to the spa staff, please do not give them money directly. Instead, please put money in the tip box”. We were led into adjoining massage rooms by our two grandmotherly masseurs and were instructed to undress… without them leaving the room. Hmmm. Okay, when in India. Being that these were grandmotherly women I shrugged and complied. Both women stood in my room hotly whispering close to my face “don’t tip box. Management bad. Take money. Tip to us” all the while my masseur undoing my bra for me and demanding that I get entirely buck. The massage came with about a bucket of oil, just enough to deep fry me later. Regardless, it was rather relaxing. I even enjoyed being pounded with a scalding hot bag of herbs. Luckily I had gotten the quieter grandmother masseur, whereas I could hear bits of conversation from Meaghan’s granny who was relaying a long story of how her husband had left her because she had two miscarriages and how my granny’s husband had left her because she had a girl instead of a boy. After the hour (an extra 15 minutes than we paid for) Meaghan and I guiltily tipped them 100Rs each to them personally and 10Rs to the tip box and left, our hair dripping with oil, muscles completely relaxed.

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