Beauty & The Hairy Beast

Day 43: Still in Hoi An, traded our push bikes in for something with a motor and cruised around the "Old Quarters" of Hoi An and again managed to resist buying many many wonderful things...
We were walking through the market when a lady pounced on me and started strongly encouraging me to visit her "beauty shop". Now I'm not sure if the lady had see my growing hairiness from the distance, or if she just scored lucky, but she sure had found a client who was ripe for the plucking...

Before I commited to anything though I wanted to check out what she intended to use - I wasn't going to have any of that 'non-strip wax' that they just remelt into a big glob after use and then re-use on the next poor unsuspecting hairy tourist... She insisted that there was no problem... "special way..." [oh... uh oh...]

When we had woven our way through the winding market stalls to her 'shop' - I discovered it was infact a 'box' that anyone walking past could easily peer into - she sat me down and, once she'd gotten over how long my leg hairs actually were [& shown all her friends who were equally amazed at the hermaphrodite that had appeared before them - yep, they were long, even for my most feminine of standards...] - she rubbed this chalk stuff over me and then brought out some cotton. She doubled over a long strand, held it taut over my calf, and then all at once, with a flicking/twisting motion, she used the cotton to 'wax' my legs! Sans-wax! Amazing really...

I was so impressed by the novelty of it all that by the time I she had finished the "test strip" to see if I wanted her to go ahead, I hadn't even noticed the pain.
Of course, by the time I noticed the pain, I had already commissioned the "dear little lady" to proceed with the full deforestisation.

It was too late.

And it was at this point, that I also realised what a PAIN-stakingly slow process it all was. By this time I had told Row that I'd be fine and to just cruise back to the hotel and that I'd be there in half an hour no sweat... So I had no-one with whom I could share my pain - although I did befriend another Vietnamese lady who sat down beside me - I held her hand as tightly as one can hold one's hand!

So - I sat there, crying from the depths of my soul within, all the while thinking of the many gruesome torture stories of the wars in Vietnam... I couldn't help but wonder if any of the fighters had used "cotton waxing" torture to break the hardest of prisoners...
You see, the pain I felt during that long long process was more intesnse than any other pain I have felt before... more than getting a tattoo... or even falling out of a moving car... and then, all of a sudden, I had a vision.
- I was in Grade 4 or 5, minding my own business at home in Bellerive, when low and behold, my middle sister Boo, and her best friend Bec Viney tore into the lounge room holding a deadly weapon in their hand... an EPILADY!I screamed!They chased me!I tried to run away, but they pulled me down.One held my leg.The other used the weapon to rip my leg hairs from my little 10 y.o. legs.

I cried.

They cackled.
Somehow - I managed to get away and vowed to myself that I would NEVER, EVER let anyone epilade me again...
And yet - here I was, 16 years later... in a box... in a stinky market in Vietnam... allowing myself to be epiladed by a little lady and her leathal cotton...
Once it was all over, she insisted she "make my feet beautiful" by giving them a manicure and softening them. I thought I could do with a bit of pampering after my ordeal so gave her the a-ok, and besides, the bright blue nail polish that I had applied at Bec & Richie's in Perth 2 months ago was starting to look slightly tatty..
After she had "manicured" me, she got me to lie on teh "bed" on my belly, and instead fo using a pumic stone to gently rub away the drier parts of my sole, she pulled out what can only be described as a 20 year old knife. She proceeded to cut away at my foot! Ahhh! I panicked, but soon realised she was only "cutting" the dead parts of my skin and so I didn't actually feel it. There was no blood, and I have had no real symptoms of 20-y.o. knife infection since...

5 mins later she showed me what she had done. Amazing - somehow she had managed to get a few good tablespoons of my foot in her hand without me feeling anything! I know this is grose - but it really was quite amazing!

My feet had never felt so good!
And so, just as I lay my head down to breathe a big sigh of relief - my worst night mare came true. She had started the 'waxing' again.

On the back of my calves!

FARRK! I cried [literally] - I thought she'd finished!! But no - and so, I lay there, for 10 mins more, singing Celine Dion and R. Kelly "I Am Your Angel" out loud [don't know why I sang that!?!? It just came to me], and tried to levetate my mind away from my body to escape the enduring pain...
Anyway - 1 hour later, she'd also managed to 'wax' my eyebrows [I actually cried at this point in time, asked her to stop, and she had to get her neice to hold my eye taut while she did it]... She then took the chance to peek under my armpits and offer to 'wax' those too - I said, NO YOU DON'T - and that was it.

I was free!

My feet were crustiless!

My legs silky smooth!

My brows shaped like... lady eyebrows...

I WAS WOMAN ONCE MORE!!!