Thai foot massage

The other day, after a full afternoon of site-seeing, hanging out in Khao San the backpackers ghetto (the biggest concentration of white people I have seen in SE Asia, sickeningly ominous) and dinner at a lauded noodle house specializing in Pad Thai, Todd took me to go get a Thai foot massage in Silom, the gay ghetto of Bangkok (though there are plenty of other spaces outside downtown that queer Thai frequent, beyond the reach of marauding farang.) They sat us abreast in leather reclining chairs with foot rests--the place smelled pleasantly of camphor and none of the outside din of tuktuks and vendors could be heard inside,just the hum of the AC. Our masseurs were two thai boys maybe 20 or so in woven ethnic pants and castro-issue white v-neck t-shirts, they were both thin, but well toned, and fairly cute. It started out with a foot bath,toweled down and our feet massaged gently with camphor oil, giving me a fair amount of shivers it was so soothing, but then too soon the work of hitting the pressure points began, digging into tendons, and rubbing around ligaments and ankles with the balls of his fingers. This went on for the better part of an hour, getting my heels slapped, my calves punched, and getting the tips of my toes and the soles of my feet re-shaped with a wooden stick. I seemed to be getting a much rougher treatment than Todd (later he claimed that he had a reputation there as liking his massages on the lighter side, he also mentioned a friend may have gotten a torn or sprained trapezius from an especially thourough full body session at the same place), I didn't hear as many punches and slaps coming from his masseur, unless my flesh is especialy resonant and it just sounded like I was getting worked over more. When my masseur would dig into an especially sore spot of my shins or the arches of my feet , I would visibly wince, is that okay, he would say in his very fay english, just say stop, I said it was kind of hard, but okay--thinking it proper etiquette to just grin and bare it--not too spicy. The rest of the session, anytime I flinched, my masseur would just smile laughingly, which in turn made me smile at the ridiculousness of it all--on the edge of my seat at the hands of some Thai boy. The rest of the session included getting forced into leg bending positions, my knee pressed into my chest, and my torso turned, and then a strange, potentially titillating (but not in this instance) maneuver in which he rested his weight on his hands pressing into my thighs,and then walked his hands up towards my pelvis (one slip and he would've made me break into falsetto) and then back down again. They sat us up at what I thought was the end of the session, and gave us a nice cup of sweetened black tea, then they did a mini-backrub, and more forced stretches with the arms and back, and then the hour was over. Walking back to the sky train station, my feet were still tingling, feeling I had an extra set of cushioning in my shoes, but I felt like I had a crick in my right leg. Now I know what it's all about, and this knowledge didn't put me back more than 10 bucks and maybe a few smal bruises.