What actually happens at a Balinese massage

Almost everyone who walks in for a first Balinese massage arrives with the same two unspoken questions: how much clothing comes off, and how much is this going to hurt. Both are reasonable. Neither gets answered on most spa websites, so here is the whole sequence, in order.

Before anything is touched

You take your sandals off at the step and your feet are washed in warm water with bruised lemongrass in it. This is not theatre. Ubud is dusty and most people arrive having walked, and a therapist would rather start with clean feet. You are given tea and left alone for a few minutes.

Then comes the part that matters most and that people tend to rush: ten minutes of talking. Your therapist asks where you sit, how you sleep, what you did yesterday, whether anything is injured. They will press a few places and watch your face. This is when you say the thing you were going to keep quiet about — the shoulder, the old knee, the fact that you find deep pressure unpleasant.

What you wear

You undress in private, to whatever level you are comfortable with. Disposable underwear is provided and plenty of guests use it. You lie under a sarong and a towel, and only the part being worked on is uncovered — a leg, a shoulder, one side of the back at a time. Nothing else is exposed at any point.

If you would rather keep your own underwear on, keep it on. Oil washes out of most fabric, but bring something you are not attached to.

How it should feel

Traditional Balinese work follows the urat — the lines of tension running through the body — rather than isolating a single muscle the way a sports massage does. It combines long gliding strokes with thumb pressure and gentle stretching, and it covers the whole body rather than the one place that hurts.

Pressure should sit at the edge of comfortable. A good therapist works to a level you agreed out loud, and checks once or twice. The word to remember is the only Indonesian you need in the room:

Pelan-pelan — slower, softer. Say it the moment you think it, not ten minutes later.

Pain that makes you hold your breath is too much. Tenderness that makes you exhale is right. You are allowed to change your mind halfway through, and nobody will be offended.

Afterwards

• Get up slowly. Blood pressure drops during an hour face-down.
• Drink water — more than you think, especially after a warming ritual like boreh.
• Leave the oil on your skin for a few hours if you can. It is doing the second half of the work.
• Do not book anything demanding for the rest of the day. The point is the hours afterwards, not the hour itself.

If you leave feeling slightly slow and a little vague, that is the treatment working, not a problem. It passes by evening and is usually followed by the best night's sleep of the trip.