The Green People

Our last vacation destination (and also the most expensive - always be suspicious when they give you leis and coconut drinks for free on your arrival):

the real story behind
Somatheeram Ayurvedic Resort
Disclaimer: Actually, what follows could probably be a story that occurs in many ayurvedic resorts, on a daily basis.

Now, I don't pretend to know much about ayurvedic medicine. When I read that it was based on humours in the body, I immediately thought of medieval alchemy and bleeding people and decided that my conversion was unlikely. But then we read more in our hotel room and learned that there are three basic personality types: two are lighter-skinned and have thinner features and lackluster sex lives, while the third is "broader and thick-boned" with darker skin and has an "intense" sex life. Aside from the suggestion of some ethnic stereotypes here, who would volunteer for the first two types? I wondered if that meant that white people have more fun with tans until they get skin cancer.

Reading about the treatments is like entering a dark alley alone - at first you think you'll be ok (oil massage, sounds good; herbal face pack, a-ok), but then you get to the "other" treatments. Let me just say, rather than listing the details, that when I was sitting waiting for my massage with the other "patients," that a group of Swiss women next to me whispered (about another woman) "It wouldn't hurt if she would just relax." This sounds like the transcript of either a colonoscopy or a rapist's confession. But certainly not like anything that I would want to subject myself to voluntarily. I was happy to limit my experimentation to the "rejuvenation hand and foot massage." No, not a massage OF my hands and feet, a massage WITH the masseuse's hands and feet (not at the same time).

Waiting in the pre-treatment area, you recognize the veterans because they are wearing oil-spotted green robes and often, head wraps made from torn rags, while you sit there, innocently waiting for your "initiation," your street clothes marking you as a target for the "initial consultation" with a "medical officer." My initial consultation was disappointingly brief, since as soon as the "mo" learned that we were staying for only 3 nights, he was only interested in our blood pressure and heart rates. In contrast, while I was being rejuvenated a short while later, I could hear the in-depth consultation in the room next door. Think about the effect on your massage that listening to such a conversation can have:

"Patient:" Frequency? mumble, mumble. Well, work has been stressful.
"Doctor:" How would you classify your . . .mumble?
"Patient:" I wouldn't say that I eat meat that often.
"Doctor:" unintelligible
"Patient:" Four out of seven days.

Of course this was completely distracting. Forget about lying on the floor bathed in oil with someone's foot pressing on my stomach - what was the rest of this guy's story? Why was he here? Would the treatments cure him? It was all I could do to keep from jumping up, sans clothes, and running into the consultation room to find out.

So now I'm sure that you're curious about this hand and foot rejuvenation massage. Forget modesty. As the woman in the next cell (well, with brick walls and no windows, what else would you call the rooms?) was overheard to say, "Take EVERYTHING off? (pause) This too? EVERYTHING?" Actually, after I dutifully followed directions, the masseuse handed me a gauzy cloth that I assumed was the head wrap (though I didn't stop to wonder why you would put on a head wrap before the head massage), so of course I put it on my head, which caused her to break medieval silent torturer character and laugh. I had just put the disposable underwear on my head.

Back to medieval imagery. The massage took place in this dark room - first, the woman lit an oil lamp and then proceeded to light pieces of cloth afire, tearing them apart after they started to burn, then stepping on them to put out the fire (Is this weird enough yet?). Then she came over to me, sitting on a stool in my disposable underwear, put her hand on my head, and chanted a prayer that probably meant, "Jeez, my feet hurt" or "Make her give me a big tip." Skeptic that I am. Then she unfolded a large cushion on the floor and fastened a rope to a hook on the ceiling. Would I survive? There was also a massage table to the side, which I found out was for the later "hand massage." She commanded me to lie down, face up, on the floor cushion, with my arms out to the sides. Crucifixion visions abounded. Drawing and quartering, maybe? Oh, I forgot about the part where she took a brown bottle of oil, poured it into a pan, and heated it over the flame before pouring it back into the same bottle.

After pouring some of the oil onto my stomach, she took hold of the rope and (at this point I closed my eyes like you would before the scary part of a movie) - it was odd; she never jumped on me or even used both feet at the same time, but she used her feet with as much skill as if they were hands. I'll depart from the detailed play-by-play at this point, but there was a lot of oil-pouring, flipping over of oiled Ellen like an egg in a skillet, and by the last part, which was a face massage, I really didn't care about the patient next door's meat-eating habits or frequency of ? In fact, I had a feeling of smug complacency when I took my place among the other "patients" in the post-treatment porch area in a comfy chair and waited for the warm coconut milk, wearing my newly-acquired green robe and head wrap (the real one, this time).

Do I look happy?

OK, what about drugged?



Speaking of drugged, you know how you go to Mexico and suddenly a large straw purse with flowers seems entirely appropriate, along with a floppy straw hat, straw coasters, and straw wall hangings? Then when you get home you wonder what the hell you were thinking? I think the same sense of warped reality exists in many vacation spots, but it was at a high point at our spa.

Guests went to meals, even dinner, in green robes and oily head wraps, carrying canvas bags with the resort's name and logo as if they were badges of achievement - but they needed those bags to carry several things: the brown bottle of "medicine" that every legit patient took to meals and put on the table as a centerpiece (note photojournalistic effort here),
a thermos of herbal water, and the one or two mandatory books that patients needed to create a social barrier between themselves and any tablemates. I always thought that reading at the table was rude, but groups of people who, presumably, had come to the resort together, sat during lunch and dinner transfixed by their novels. This resort was so quiet that the girls and I fantasized about what it would be like if various loud, ornery types showed up, such as the Guerin family.

There was one loud complainer who brought joy to my heart - first we heard him complaining that his fish was taking to long to cook (we'd had the same feeling, but bore it in Somatheeramistic pained silence), then, the next day, he went into a rage that there was no bread at the buffet: "I've NEVER seen an Indian buffet without bread!" They brought him bread, but charged him 20 rupees for it (50 cents), which he, on principle, refused to pay. YES! I loved this guy!

The last night of our stay, we finally officially "met" this man and his two young adult children, and spent several hours at dinner laughing and talking - I think that the staff was in shock. People laughing? I'm surprised that the medical officers didn't cordon off the area, though we did manage to clear out the dining area pretty quickly. We seemed to share a common view of ayurvedic medicine, which was skepticism. What WAS in those universally brown bottles of medicine? At one point, I had witnessed a post-treatment victim, er, patient, being given a full bottle and heard her say, "Drink ALL of this by tomorrow morning?" Of course she sighed and took the bottle, while the other patients around me smiled understandingly (but no laughter, of course - there's a fine line).

And, for world history students, there's lots of evidence of cultural diffusion in Kerala. Their version of Christianity was somewhat different from what I had experienced before. I had never seen a Christian outdoor "temple" with multiple statues of Jesus on different levels, behind glass. People came early in the day and brought offerings, which looked a lot like the rituals that Hindus perform at temples or small shrines early in the day. When I first saw the outdoor temple/church?, on my way to the beach, I found it a bit frightening. Gradually I became more comfortable with the structure, which I named the "three-story Jesus."

From a distance . . .


and closer . . . (notice the gold robes that don't usually appear in Western images or statues of Jesus).
I think what scared me, other than the unfamiliar appearance of this monument, was that just as you passed it, ANOTHER statue of Jesus appeared that had not previously been visible, this one without glass but much larger
Was this a sign that I shouldn't go swimming? It did give me some pause, though what gave me much greater pause was the fact that about 1/2 mile down from the beach, fishermen were crouching in that familiar pose that I first saw in Mumbai, adding their contributions to the many bacterial forms that appear in the ocean.

Plus it was too darn hot on the beach, even at 7:30 AM - I went back up to the pool after taking a couple of obnoxious tourist shots of the local fisherman pulling in their nets, then sending another crew out to sea.













By the way, the only thing worse than an obnoxious Western tourist is a Western tourist who tries NOT to be obnoxious and attempts to "fit in" while quietly taking pictures - it's like well-to-do Edina HS students dressing like gangstas and rapping about "drive-bys."

Women came from the nearby village with metal tubs on their heads, bringing some food and drink and then using those tubs to carry back the fish.

Guess what the women brought first to the returning men? Chewing tobacco, or "paan," the national craze, which results in small pieces of aluminum-foil wrappers in every nook and cranny of India, along with gobs of red spit. Attractive.

OK, time for the random photo of the day: Amy and I modeling our new saris just before she left last night. We had to watch several youtube videos to figure out how to wrap them. and last, but not least, an ad spotted in a Delhi metro station that makes coffee sound almost as good as cigarettes: