What Were We Thinking?

Our hospital room at the Ayurvedic cllinic

One of the things we were looking forward to the most was our visit to the Ayurvedic clinic in Coimbatore for some good old hot oil and massage therapy. We eschewed a spa as inauthentic and went straight for the jugular: the AVP clinic, which is the seat of Ayurvedic medicine in India and the world. Ayurvedic medicine is geared to improving health, not just healing, so you don’t have to be sick to go to an Ayurvedic hospital. We booked 10 days although we knew were cutting it short as the recommended treatment time is a minimum 3 weeks, with 5 weeks preferable. OMG. I cannot imagine even 3 weeks there, let alone 5 weeks. We lasted exactly 2 days. You can’t expect a lot for $10 a night, but there was no toilet paper, no towels and no top sheet; and forget a hot shower. There was no shower at all… just a spigot and a bucket . Plus, we were in the middle of nowhere, and an hour by car from the nearest anything. We received only one 1-hour treatment a day and the rest of the time we just sat around in the sticks feeling like prisoners. There was no gathering area to meet with other patients, no cafeteria (believe me, after a few days, room service gets really really boring). The treatments were pretty weird, too. Rubdowns with hot oils sounded great, but the massage tables are hardwood (emphasis hard) with troughs carved at the sides so the attendants can recapture and reuse your oils. First, they cut a little diaper for you out of muslin, which they tie on and then totally ignore, oiling you up everywhere. You are never on your stomach; just on your back and your sides. The weirdest part was being massaged on your side because you just float all over the oily table, desperately trying to get a handhold somewhere to keep yourself from slip-sliding all over the place. I found the first treatment intriguing, the second irritating, and fervently hoped there would never be a third. Ed, as it turned out, totally agreed, and we fled together from the clinic. We felt badly about it because our doctors and attendants were so wonderful; but once we were out of there, we were, like, Whoopie!!!!!

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