Four-handed massage: sure. Hot-rock treatment: fine. Getting stepped on by an elephant: now you’re talking. Behold, the five craziest massages in the world. Why, yes, a lot of them do require a trip to Thailand...
File under “Thailand being Thailand”: a women’s prison where you can stop in and get a massage. The joint’s focused on rehabilitation, and the inmates are trained in Thai stretching massage and cake baking. Warning: the cakes probably have files in them.
First, Disney taught an elephant to fly. That was... something. But this, this is also something: a baby elephant that gives you a backrub on the beach using its feet and trunk. Feel free to tip in peanuts.
Step one: martial-arts master applies hot glass cups to your back. Step two: he puts an herb paste and alcohol on your skin. Step three: he lights it with a blowtorch. This is supposed to relax your muscles and ease your pain. As soon as it’s done causing pain, that is.
There’s eccentric. Then there’s this Israeli woman, who opened a roadside attraction of flesh-eating plants. Not satisfied with that, she developed a massage technique in which a knot of (nonvenomous) serpents unknot themselves on your back, chest and face. Indiana Jones does not approve.
Cleavers. Great for quartering a chicken. Apparently also great for your aching shoulders. At this giant Taipei market, you sit down, pitched forward at 45 degrees, and your masseur rhythmically gets to work on your pressure points and sore spots, armed with only two small cleavers. Which you hope are dull.
