I have said it before and I will say it again. When life is getting you down, when you are having a bad hair WEEK and your nails are chipped and you are beginning to feel more Road Weary than Road Warrioress then it is time to sling your backpack into a corner and set out in search of a beautician. A variation of my Motto of Don’t get mad, get a facial is Don’t get a migraine get a massage or Spa me Up Baby.
Last week in Guwahati, exhausted from the high speed bullet train speed with which we searched the length of the Brahmaputra we checked into Hotel Dynasty. Having already spied the Spa when we had checked the hotel previously, I cried off from meeting with a transporter and made an appointment with the newly opened Spa. The Spa Manager took one look at me and smiled reassuringly. I like when that happens,even though she was probably afraid of me sitting in reception and scaring their clients away with my fresh from a jungle expedition look, she made it look as if she had saved a booking just for me and whisked me into the inner sanctum of the Spa. The massage therapist showed me the ropes and handed me a fresh crisp white cotton spa suit. This impressed me no end, it made me a promise of renewal.
There was hardly time to wonder how the therapist managed to walk along my spine without needing to hold onto anything for balance. She just let her feet do the talking for all those twisted little hard to get spots between the shoulder and the neck and spine. Even though I was being kneaded like a piece of chapatti dough, everything felt just as right as it could be and i drifted, drooled and dozed through the realignment of my road weary body. After the massage I was led to a steam room or a sauna before a cold shower revived me to my usual half sensible state.
The next day I made a beeline to the hair salon and put my head and vanity into the hands of the young man in the very modern looking salon. I am always very nervous of having my hair cut in strange places ever since the day I mistakenly rocked into a brothel in Kathmandu and asked for a shag (cut). It wasn’t until the Pimp of the place was attacking my hair with a pair of blunt scissors that I realised the salon was only a front and that my hair was in the hands of Johnny the pimp! Then there was the time I got a Special K cut and had to cover all the mirrors in the house with black cloth for two months.
So it was with some trepidation that I put my tresses into the hands of a boy who didnt seem much older than my own grandson and whose English was about as good as my Assamese. In fact as we both calmed down a bit, his English improved enough for me to understand that he was Bengali and that he had trained in some impressive sounding places in Kolkata. Just make me look fabulous I told him and sat back with my eyes closed until he announced that I was. Peeking at the mirror I was indeed a lot more fabulous looking than before I arrived in Guwahati, in fact probably better than I had looked for ages.
Blessing his little cotton socks and thanking him profusely, I decided to tip him outrageously on my way out but alas I was never given the slightest chance to do so and was whisked away to reception and out the door before I could say SPA ME UP BABY!
Images courtesy of Hotel Dynasty