I padded over to the freestanding, Japanese style spa in my robe and was introduced to Mallika, who came up to my shoulder and weighed, maybe, a whopping 80 pounds. She took me into a beautiful room, handed out disposable cotton underpants and left while I undressed. Upon her return, I sat on a stool and she applied huge amounts of "Marma" oil (I still don't know what it was) to my head, neck and shoulders and went to work, massaging away. After about 15 minutes, I moved to the massage table and both sides of the body were massaged with the same oil. For prudes, masseuses in the Far East usually massage the breasts too. I tried to tell her to omit them, but she didn't understand.

The next step was to move to a different room in the pavilion, with a thick rope hanging from the ceiling, a massage table covered with a plastic tarp, and a massage futon on the floor under the rope. This sight made me a tad nervous! But, I laid down on the floor futon and Mallika, held on to the rope for balance while massaging me with her foot...talk about something different. After the entire back party of my body was completely relaxed, she flipped me to the other side and continued doing the same.

The ex-Marine getting a massage

From there, I wobbled to the other massage table on top of the plastic tarp, and Mallika proceeded to apply a herbal wrap. It was some smelly, yellow concoction, with little rough beads in it which I later found out consisted of tumeric, sandalwood, gram (some sort of powder), rose water and a mixture of warm water. This was scrubbed on all over my body and she then wrapped me like a big burrito in the tarp with warm towels over it.

I baked and fermented for about 15 minutes looking out the floor-to-ceiling glass at palm trees moving, birds and flowers. Hard to beat.

Mallika walked me out into the yard for a warm water soak in the sunken tub to remove all the wrap mixture then took me to the outside shower for one last cleansing with shampoo and body wash.

Dressed in a robe, with a cup of tea, I was a mass of jelly with incredibly soft skin. What an experience and worth every rupee!