Nepal : The Hair Wash

We're in Pokhara, Nepal and you must make allowances for the lack of facilities... at least at our price point. For $25 per night, we have a basic room in a friendly guesthouse. However, I can't take a shower this morning since the hot water takes a few hours to reach our room on the roof once it's turned on each morning.

So when I notice a barber shop later that day I tell Dan that I'll give it a shot.

Dan is sceptical. "There's no water."

"Come in madam. Yes, water." He takes me to a corner of the shop and after first noting the price of $3, I give myself over to this soft spoken man with black greasy hair. Dan leaves for the hotel.

My standard for a hair wash has been set in China. It's very high. In fact, my experience with price, massage, and hair wash in Shenzhen has stayed with me for years. I have searched for similar experiences in Toronto, heading to Markham and trying out salons in this overwhelmingly Chinese area. But nothing comes close to the treatment you receive in China. There, they throw people at you. Someone on your head, another on your arms. I've even had a hair wash while lying on a leather recliner in a darkened room with soft music. A high standard indeed.

So I'm game to give it a try in Nepal.

It begins at the wash stand and I lie back on an uncomfortable chair. Technically there is water but the barber draws only enough in cupped hands to moisten the shampoo which he squeezes out of foil wrap. The shampoo smells sweet. He massages it slowing and then vigorously. It lasts a long time. It's nice.

The rinse requires two people. My barber squeezes out the suds as another pours warmed water from a beaker. Not a drop is wasted.

I'm taken to another chair for a towel dry. At this point my barber takes on a seriously professional pose. He rolls up his sleeves.

The towel is a red-check table cloth, cotton and absorbent. He whips it over my head like a toreador flashes a red cape, challenging the beast. My head is then rattled from side to side, thrown forwards, backwards and then he rapidly applies pressure to my temples and I feel like he has the bull in a vice grip. I'm hoping my windpipe is spared as he moves down my neck.

"Your work in an office, I know."

Uncanny.

"You have this point in your shoulder. You need full massage."

So I agreed. Yes, I'm a dopey tourist and a soft touch. But I do like to support the local economy. So I allowed my $3 hair wash to turn into a $22 shoulder, neck, arm, back massage plus hair-dry (with a comb and blow dryer that kept falling out of the wall socket). My barber smelled good and I use my nose a lot when travelling.

I'm taken into the backroom and asked to take off my shirt while he turns his head. I know the routine from back home but now I'm sceptical.

There's Indian dance music playing in the front room. I hear the rhythmic grinding drums, horns, and in my mind's eye see the lithe Bollywood heroine teasing her lover with swaying hips and fluttering arms.  All I can make out is something like

wahee samee lamdili ohum rooooooey mansee naked

wahee samme lamdili ohum rooooooey mansee naked.

"You tense lady."

My barber goes to work again. The pressure he applies is strong and gives heat without being painful. I relax and start to enjoy the session, and even more when he identifies the source of a previous episode of sciatica.

"No good here lady. Pain for you."

Things are going well but then in a curiously athletic move, he hoists his body up on the bed and kneels over me, pressing his palms deeply in my back with all his weight. Perhaps he feels he must double his effort to offset my growing tension.

He focuses now on to my hands. Once he finishes, which I wonder if I would ever type again, my session has ended.

I look in the mirror. Someone who has just emerged from the inside of a vacuum cleaner stares back.

"Wait lady. You need comb hair. There."

I thank my barber for his efforts and pay the bill. Dan meets me coincidentally on the street, wondering where I've disappeared to yet again. Arms folded tightly, he's tense and worried.

Perhaps he needs a massage.

(by C.Moisse for www.maturetraveler.blogspot.com)