Sauna, Thai style

Whenever I feel a cold coming on, or overdo it on the bike, I take myself down the street to a sauna that is part of a wat compound.  This is a very low tech affair:  wood fired, the room is probably 10 x 12, with 2 wobbly slatted benches down the long sides.  The 'door' is a piece of fabric and it's more of a steam room than a dry sauna. 

After stuffing 20 baht into a big wooden box, I go to the changing area, which is part of the sauna/'gym' (see below) roofed over structure.  There I try to get out of my clothes and wrapped in a longyi withoug displaying too much flesh.  Not easy!

The sauna is open from 3 to 7 pm every day, but if you get there before 4, the fire hasn't heated the room enough.  When you pull aside the curtain and step in, you can't see anything because of the steam.  Hands will reach out and guide you to a spot and the proceed to poke you and ask questions in Burmese or Thai, depending on the nationality of the speaker.  After giving my name, age, and nationality, I relapse into sweating.  The other women keep up a steady stream of talk, dressed in longyis AND bras, sometimes for younger women it's a T shirt and shorts.   Periodically, I stagger out to  deliciously cool air, every once in a while receiving an herbal drink the color of rust and tasting about the same.  'It's good for you, drink it all!' I am commanded by one or another of the Thai/Burmese ladies.

After an hour, I've sweated out my aches, so I reverse the process of putting on clothes while holding the longyi in place.  Usually one or more items end up on the concrete floor.  Then it's out through the 'gym' where middle-aged Thai men are using what looks like home made wooden equipment to do ab crunches, arm excercises, push ups, and engage in long conversations before heading back to their sauna.

It's lovely!

Looking from the change room to the pipe feeding the sauna with heat

View down the alley leading from the wat to street