Foot Fetish

Erwan Falls, Kanchanaburi, 6/27/11

We frequently had fish when I grew up and, if Anna and I were lucky, they would last two months before meeting the toilet. That said, our aquatic life always fared better than Anna's ill-fated parakeet, an obnoxiously loud birthday gift, hated jointly by my father and the dog. The bird mysteriously "died" one evening shortly after arriving at our home. Anna is still convinced that my father's Russian lineage inspired an atypical late night KGB-style move.

My favorite fish were always the silver, gray sucker fish, who calmly hugged the side of the aquarium, providing free housecleaning services with no complaints. One could watch this cleaning action for hours and gain a free lesson in sucker fish anatomy. In Thailand, my love for these fish increased ten-fold.

Nearly all of the Bangkok massage parlors have huge fish tanks and offer expensive "Fish Massages" in which tourists dip their feet into aquariums filled with thousands of these suckers. When one places his feet in the tank, the sucker fish go wild, clamoring to the bipeds like bears on honey hives and beginning their vacuum-esque massage. Fifteen minutes in the tank and layers of dead skin is gone, giving one's feet a fresh, baby-like feeling.

In Bangkok, I always opted for traditional massage over the fish variety. At levels five and seven of Erwan Falls, however, the massages come for free. Enter these two particular pools and it is like Sucker Fish Mardi Gras and your feet are giving out the beads. I'm barely in the water before twenty sucker fish are on my toes, arches, heels, and ankles consuming my skin like an experienced zombie. The sensation is at once incredibly ticklish and uncomfortable, almost like one's feet are being hit with hundreds of spiked hail balls. The whole neighborhood joins in, baby sucker fish, ones that are clearly the godfathers of the community. It's a regular foot fiesta. Tata and Lexi seem reserved and ambivalent, but I know better, thrilled to be reunited with my favorite fish friends. And as a lifelong liberal, I have always been supportive of foreign workers willing to perform the down and dirty services derided by all Westerners. These sucker fish do it for the love of massage, not even accepting one baht or cracker as tip. I bow my head and fold my arms in gratitude and continue through the jungle, like walking down a runway with my new supermodel feet.