Getting healed by the Barefoot Doctor in Phi-Phi
“Open your mouth,” the Barefoot Doctor asked. I complied, stretching my mouth wide and sticking out my tongue.
“Too much shu-ga!” he laughed as he peered into my mouth. Wait, how does this man know that I snuck in a coconut donut on my way here? He’s already found me out, and I haven’t even been here 30 seconds. But what does my sugar addiction possibly have to do with my weird snapping shoulder pains?
I had walked by the unassuming barber storefront on my way to the beach, and got distracted by the testimonials written in all different languages that claimed this man was a healer. I’ve been struggling with a snapping scapula for years, and no shoulder surgeon, chiropractor or physiotherapist has been able to make any improvement. I figured it couldn’t hurt to see if he could help, so made an appointment for that evening.
“Too much shu-ga, too much coffee,” B.D. (his real name is a mess of vowels that I can’t even come close to pronouncing) repeats matter of factly as I take a seat. I actually haven’t had a coffee in a whole four days, but maybe I had so many lattes in Melbourne that it’s all added up against me. “All block, all block, go on long time.”
OK, my eating habits veer in extremes, but even I recognize that I have been blessed with an extraordinary metabolism. I have a variety of excellent excuses to rationalize my sugar intake, but my most popular one is rewarding a meal of good eating with dessert, or an entire bar of dark chocolate. I also don’t believe it’s a real meal unless it has a healthy dose of carbs.
“I eat really healthy, I swear,” I weakly exclaim as I sit down on the makeshift bed. “Lots of fruit! I just had a pineapple smoothie this morning.”
He begins to prod my pinkie toe with some sort of wooden implement. “Pineapple no good. Full of shu-ga. You no eat pineapple.” The poking of my pinkie toe is actually starting to get really painful, but I’m distracted by the ultimately depressing thought of life without pineapple. 
“You feel?” He’s still poking at my pinkie toe, and I’m distracted by how much pain I can manage to feel in a digit that I haven’t even thought about in ages.
“Feel what? Yeah, it hurt.”
“No, no,” he says as he points to my ankle. “You feel here?” I shake my head, he shakes his. “All block, all block.” He pokes at my foot with a tiny wooden stick in ways that make me feel like a human voodoo doll, the pain overwhelming my senses. I grit my teeth and clutch the pillow, cursing myself for not only enduring this but PAYING FOR IT. B.D. then hops up onto the table and starts to walk on my back, gripping onto the ceiling for support as he exerts pressure in some places in a weird sort of foot-based acupressure.
An hour and a half of this torture continues, but slowly, I start to feel the energy coursing through my veins. Even better, the weird snapping thing I do with my shoulder–I can roll it back and it makes a crazy paper-crumpling noise–has almost completely dissipated.
I went back to B.D. three more times when I was in Phi-Phi: each time he and his wife gave me more nutritional advice (cut out the carbs and sugary fruits: aka pretty much my entire diet) and sent me home with crazy herbal laxatives, and B.D. prodded me with a wooden stick until I was within an inch of tears.
Whatever doubts I had about Asian medicine ended here. B.D. was able to diagnose and solve within hours a problem for which no doctor at home has been able to give me a concrete solution. It might have been painful–I cannot adequately express just how much my pinkie toe was throbbing–and it might have included news I didn’t want to hear (still feel guilty every time I sneak a bite of pineapple)–but it worked.
So next time you go to Phi-Phi, skip the hangovers and get healed instead. Sawattchai Yasukim aka the Barefoot Doctor is at 969 Phi Phi Island and can be reached via email at sawattchai24@hotmail.com. His wife is also an excellent barber–boys, get styled up!
