2 Days at the Spa, and Ted has arrived!

The big news is that Ted arrived last night. Yay! He hasn't really had much of a chance to see a lot of Ho Chi Minh City, but he observed all of the motorbikes from the taxi on our way home from the airport. Last night we played some “American Idol Karaoke” on Jason’s Playstation 2. It was so fun! I think Rachel and Jason are getting a little sick of karaoke; they said they played more in the past two days than they have since they got the game. But I LOVE karaoke, so I have been pleading with everyone to bust of the mics.

Rachel and I have been testing out more of the spas for the past 2 days. On Saturday, we decided to try the Regency Health & Leisure Club Luxury Spa recommended from her Asia Life magazine. It was advertised as “everything you could ever want in jacuzzis, saunas, Chinese back rub, face masks, haircuts, ear cleaning and massage… They’ve taken service to a new level. For $14.95, you get sauna, steambath, gym access, Chinese back scrub, jacuzzi, hair wash, face mask, face massage, ear cleaning, haircut, foot massage, a free light meal, free cigarettes and iced tea, and an all over body massage,” all in one sitting of about 4-5 hours. Believe me, it was NOT luxurious. Jason was laughing when we told him about it. What did we expect; it was a 5 hour spa treatment for less than $15?!

After the taxi got lost and drove the wrong way down a 4-lane road, we made it to the Regency Health & Leisure Club. It was really hard to find because the hotel it is in has a different name and is under some major construction. After climbing through boards and sawhorses to the half renovated elevator, we were taken to the spa. We tried to confirm the price with the ladies at the counter, but no one really spoke English. They grabbed their brochure, which had pictures of many of the services, and it listed the $14.95 price. We were on our way. The beginning of the experience felt a little similar to the Korean mogyoktang (bathhouse) , which I desperately miss. You enter a small room with lockers where you changed out of your clothes and into a towel. We were first taken into the sauna. It looked like a small plastic space station, with built-in seventies looking seats, a lot like the furniture in the dorms from our freshmen year of college. There were two small, plastic baskets of lemongrass, and I immediately saw a huge live cockroach in one of them. I pointed to it and told the lady when we were all inside. She came in and started spraying it, chasing it all of the floor. Finally it managed to crawl back in the crack of one of the seats, and she said in her meek, light-pitched voice, “It’s okay now. Don’t worry. He die.” We were underway. We climbed onto the chairs and waited for the steam to fill the room. It smelled wonderful and very invigorating with the lemongrass. Luckily the cockroach never made a second appearance.

After that, we were taken over to these interesting looking, shallow bathtubs with built-in blue foam, where we were told to take the towel off and lie there naked. Two women then wrapped their hands with washcloths, and rubbed as hard as they could to exfoliate our skin. It hurt so bad! It was similar to the exfoliating rubs at the Korean bathhouse, but without the specialized cloth, and much, much more painful. My skin was turning red and hurting everywhere. After they rubbed both sides of us, front and back, we were led to the showers to wash off all of the dead skin. We sat a while in the “steambath” and watched MTV Rewind to the 80s, which was probably one of the highlights of the spa. The steambath was more like a hot tub, and the water smelled a little off, but it was okay. Some time later, one of the ladies asked if we were ready for our facial. We looked at each other and decided why not? So we were given some light clothing (like Korean jimjjilbang), and taken through the first of many dingy staircases to the next level. On the second floor, no one spoke any English. They seemed really confused but finally took us to lie down. They rubbed some cream into our faces for a while and then laid long, thin cucumbers slices on our face. It was freezing! We were laying there a long time when Rachel suspected they forgot about us, so she removed a section of the cucumber and motioned one of the ladies over to us. They had forgotten about us, but finally they took off the cucumber slices and sent us on our way. It wasn’t much of a facial, but what could we have expected? Everyone expected a tip after we left each station, and the face ladies were screaming at us as we walked to the shampooing ladies.

Next we were shuffled across the hair salon to get our hair washed. This lady was pretty good, but I felt like she was never going to stop washing my hair. Not to mention I had already washed it that morning at Rachel and Jason’s apartment. After what felt like 30 minutes of shampooing, she dried my hair, and then she showed me to another hidden staircase to the next level. This one had lighted strips along the floor like in the movie theaters. I met Rachel in the foot massage chairs.

Two men brought us tea and gave us a foot massage. That was probably the highlight of the spa treatment. It actually felt pretty good. There you could order the free light meal, which was ramen noodles. We skipped it. The lounge was terribly smoky, though, because it was also where you were given all of the free cigarettes. Jason was laughing when he heard that the spa was giving out free cigarettes. It does seem a little ironic.

The final part of the experience was the full body massage, which we could rename “Hell on Earth.” It was awful. As we were taken back through more scary, hidden staircases, we were brought into an old, wooden paneled 70’s looking room. The air conditioner was so loud Rachel asked them to turn it off. No one understood, so they turned it up louder and positioned us on the tables. One women climbed on my butt and started kneeing me everywhere. It really felt like she was doing the splits or some dance routine on my back. There were bars on the ceiling, and sometimes she was standing up, doing ballet or something across my back. Rachel asked her lady to lighten it up, but no one really understood. They were pinching, twisting, bending, and slapping us everywhere as they moved about the tables. The final treat was getting my hair pulled over and over and over. There was nothing relaxing about it. Rachel described it as if these women made no adjustments than if we were 300 pound men. After about an hour, the torture ended. At the end of each service, we had to sign a slip of paper, and these women were really pissed off we weren’t giving them an automatic tip. Rachel tried to explain to everyone that we were tipping downstairs at the end of everything, but these women we pulling our arms, and shouting, “TIP! Madam, TIP!” and pointing to the paper. We ran out and somehow found our way through the maze of staircases back to the front desk. We paid a full $18.75 each, including tip, and then left. I would agree with Asia Life; the Regency was taking the service to a different level, a painful one!

Yesterday, we went to a much better, up-scale, French spa that Rachel and Jason had previously been to. We are no longer trusting the Asia Life magazine and only returning to the spas Rachel has tried out previously. If the Regency was “Hell on Earth,” the L’Apothiquaire was as close to a slice of Heaven that we may find in Vietnam. We got the Half Day Relaxation package, which lasted about 4 hours, all $82.50, including tax. We were taken to a station to fill out a skin questionnaire for the facial. Then we changed into the robes, and the relaxation began. We had a one hour foot massage, one hour full-body massage, and then a 45 minute to one hour facial. It was amazing! I never wanted it to end. When it finally did, we had lunch (included) and tea in the garden. The day was incredible, and although there were some customer service issues when we paid (we were supposed to receive a 15% promotional discount but no one spoke enough English to fully understand what was going on, and there was a huge communication breakdown), it was worth every penny.

Other than going to the different spas, we have been trying out some of the restaurants, doing a bit of shopping, and playing a lot of Playstation 2 karaoke. Woo hoo! Well, now that Ted is here, I image we’ll be sight-seeing a lot more.

Oh, the other big, exciting news! I’ve moved to a new level. I crossed the street by myself 4 times! At first I was terrified. It was raining, so Rachel and Jason didn’t want to walk across the street to the ATM. I looked at them with the sad eyes of a child, “You won’t help me cross the street?” But then I did it! And I feel so proud. It’s a very liberating feeling.