I’m lying face down on the floor of a Thai prison. Behind me a convicted felon has just delivered two damaging blows to my kidneys and now has her fingers locked around my neck. I manage to turn my head slightly to the right and squeeze one eye open. From this angle I make out the tepid cup of tea she offered me when I first sat down. For the pleasure of this punishment, I am paying just over $5 US.
The Chiang Mai Women’s Prison offers a number of rehabilitation initiatives to prepare prisoners for their release. On offer are cake baking, gardening, working in the prison vineyard (?!), and traditional Thai massage. Upon reading about this in my guide book – an activity described as a “prison spa” where you needn’t worry as you won’t be “massaged by hardened crims” – I declared this a must do activity.
After enjoying a watermelon shake in the freedom of a teahouse garden, Mr. Happy, Tex, and Loppy Lou follow me – somewhat apprehensively – to jail.
Like most buildings in Asia, we are asked to remove our shoes when we enter. So it was we found ourselves being led by a barefoot guard into a brightly lit room with cinderblock walls. There were no bars on the windows. There were no windows. Loud, Thai pop music blasted from a small boombox sitting on a chest of drawers. Above the chest hung a mirror in which the criminal masseurs snuck looks and retouched their hair each time they passed.
I was handed a set of Thai pajamas and told to change in the bathroom.
I was then directed to a mattress on the floor. This is when I meet inmate No. 44. She nods toward a cup of tea saying it’s for me. I detect a note of recklessness in her eye. She could care less if I drink my tea or not. I don’t. I’ve had too much of that watermelon shake I mentioned earlier.
“On your back!” She orders and proceeds to mash my feet into the floor. Usually these massages begin, “Are you hurt anywhere?” or “Is this too much pressure?” But No. 44 just haves at me, applying the pressure of a jack hammer.
To me, this is a mind game. With each pressure point No. 44 hits she dares me to beg of her “go easier”, “slow down”, or “let me go home”. I refuse. I can take anything this convicted Thai prison inmate cum masseur can dish out.
No. 44 hits, punches, presses, and pounds my body. She whacks, she cracks, and jostles my brain inside my head. I will not scream.
What is she in for? I want to know, weighing the possibility that people of greater guilt have already touched my body. Did she write a bad check? Hotwire a tuk tuk? Buy a baby?
When she moves to my neck and starts plucking my ligaments like guitar strings my tough facade finally cracks. I make a face.
“You in pain?” No. 44 asks.
Who me? “Sort of,” I relent, giving her only so much.
I anticipate the relief I’ll soon feel when she loosens her fists of steel.
Then I hear the cackle. “Hahaha!” She laughs, “Pain is good!”
This, I think, is indeed a criminal mind.
After one hour the massage is over. Mr. Happy pays the guard at the front desk and I hand No. 44 a tip.
“How did it go?” I ask Happy.
“It was good. But she was a little on the gentle side. You?”
“Yeah…gentle,” I manage, rubbing my dislocated shoulder. “I can’t imagine that little lady was guilty of anything.” Pain is good. Pain is good.
Then I suggest a glass of wine at the prison vineyard.
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