Anyone who has spent some time in Asia has become familiar with massage. You can get all kinds of massage here: Japanese "shiatsu," Chinese foot massage, Thai, Vietnamese and even Swedish massage. But all the different methods can be confusing. Let me set it straight for you.

The masseuse presses points up and down your body so that you emit oohs and aahs. She steps on you and squashes you like a bug and karate-chops your shoulders, but overall it's pretty painless. If you're looking for pain, however, I highly recommend therapeutic Thai massage, especially if you are getting old enough to realize you are no longer invincible. All those sports injuries have come back to haunt you, and you have a stiff neck from sitting at the computer all day.

For my first therapeutic Thai massage, a tiny Thai woman leaped on my back and started pounding with her fists and digging in her elbows. Then she took out daggers. Next, I'm pretty sure she drove a truck over my back. Not just a normal pickup truck with a couple of bales of hay and a dog in the back, but a Mack truck full to the brim with chickens clucking and feathers flying out the sides. Believe it or not, it felt great. When I become too old to work, I'll volunteer to be a part-time speed bump.