Thai Herb Ball and Steam Bath

I had another fun and interesting day, away from the resort today.

After breakfast my taxi driver collected me and took me to the Sunshine Massage School in Chaing Mai where I did my Thai Yoga Massage last Xmas.

           Me with my smiling teachers again.

My beautiful friend Aom had arranged for me to come and take the class in Thai herb ball massage and steam bath that she was running that day.

Many ingredients were layed out. We looked through our manuals at the names and properties of the different ingedients. They all smelled amazing.

Zingiber and tumeric root are rhyzomes similar to ginger; Kaffir lime leaf and the rind of the fruit; lemon grass; tamarind leaf; sea salt; Camphor; Menthol; Acacia leaf; & Padanus leaf (which smells like freshly mown grass).

They each have different properties: healing, cleansing, aromomatic and vaporizing.

We each had a different job to do. My job was stripping the leaves from the kaffir lime. I got a thorn in my finger, though I was very careful. (It is still hurting a bit actually.) The others were chopping up the roots and pounding them with a mortar and pestal peeling the limes and chopping grasses.

While we were chopping, grinding and tearing, Aom was preparing the steam bath. I could describe it as a tent made from a shower curtain. She had a boiler which she put the herbs to cook in.

After showering we took turns to enter the steam room in ones or pairs. We wore a sarong with elastic to hold it up. Someone said it looked like a hospital gown. A very colourful and shapeless hospital gown.

We stayed in for 15 - 20 minutes. The feel of the steam on my skin and the smell was intense.

The heady smell in the room was amazing

After my chakra dance ceremony last night, I was definately getting high, (in a natural way.)

We had 2 times each in the steam bath.

We made the herb balls, wrapping the mixed spices in linen and putting them into a steamer for later.

At lunch we had such a great time, though we were very serious we couldn't stop laughing. They were a delightful group of people, I was so happy I could spend the day with them. They were all studying massage at the school.

There was a power outage so we even got to have a nap after lunch. It was so relaxing.

So was watching Aom give the lucky model the massage. I took a picture in between naps.

Then I got to experience the massage.

I felt so clean and my skin felt so nice. It was a great experience and now I'm qualified to do them to you! (If you are very lucky 😉)