A couple of weeks before we were to travel I read a post here from a guy who was arranging prices with his usual beach massage girl. She got a little cheeky and with his wife standing right there she asked if he wanted the banana massage too. The wife didn't understand. Her comments were something like, 'don't they know the prices of bananas'. I was rolling! I had to show that post to my wife, and she didn't get it either. 'Bananas aren't expensive'. I had tears in my eyes. My wife is usually pretty quick about stuff like this. It was surprising that I had to explain it.
I was telling this story to the Aussie/Brit couple one evening at Mama's Warung and 'That Girl' explained us that yes we have no bananas in Australia at the moment.
We never did go for a beach massage. Those girls hands did not look too clean. But we did go a couple of times to the no name shop almost directly across from the Deutsche Tauchschule in Tajung Benoa. The massages were great. Two very professional young ladies did the job for 65,000Rp each, for an hour of pressure points and long strokes on the major muscles. Unfortunately there was no actual door on this shop. Traffic was a little loud and that tended to take away from the experience.
Our next try for a massage was a couple of days later 'Anggi Nature Spa', across from the Bali Mirage hotel also in Tajung Benoa. Don't let the name fool you. This was a simple massage shop that also offered interesting looking facial treatments. I went for a massage and aloe vera facial while my wife had the massage and a pedicure. My massage girl had no clue what she was doing, but she gave me the best facial I've ever had. That took a couple of years off my face, in one sitting. My wife had a great massage from the owner, but she wasn't satisfied with the pedicure. We arranged to go back the next day and I got the massage from the boss, while my wife got the facial from the young lady who handled it for me. Massage and facial? 130,000Rp and it was money well spent.
Because there seemed to be only one good massage girl we moved onto the next shop, Smile Massage, just a few steps away. Same prices, slightly different routine but just as good a massage as any that we had had so far. And for my last day I went to Smile for a massage and body scrub, and then back to Anggi for another facial. How's that for European decadence?
Now if someone could just do something about the price of those bananas!