Of all the massages I have experienced, this was by far the worst

Some people just don’t like massages. I’m not one of them.

I find them therapeutic when I travel, even if the massage is more relaxing than remedial. Besides, a little bit of hedonism isn’t a bad thing.

Most cultures use touch in their healing practices in some way, whether it’s rituals involving black soap in Morocco or hot oil in India. A Hawaiian Lomi Lomi is a big gentle embrace; Japanese Shiatsu can leave you reeling in pain.

Not every massage is a pleasurable experience.Credit: Getty Images

For many travellers, having a massage (or two or three) is so often an essential experience, at every price point, from gentle stretching on a Thai beach to a vigorous pummelling in a Swedish sauna.

The good thing about the massage economy is it creates small businesses and often puts money directly into the pockets of the practitioners, especially if you deal with the masseur directly, not through some overpriced cruise or hotel spa.

But it’s not all jasmine scented oil in a Balinese garden. I’ve had my share of massages that have been painful, uncomfortable or just plain awkward.

I’ve been scrubbed in Turkey until a few layers of skin came off. I’ve been burned by hot rocks on the Gold Coast.

I’ve fainted from the pressure of a Shiatsu massage in Tokyo. I’ve been shaken and kneaded like a dirty rug by a woman in Budapest. In Hong Kong, a heavy woman walked along my back, almost cracking it.

I’ve had my belly set alight in Thailand.

But of all the massages I’ve experienced, one stands out above the rest.

It was (two) hands down the worst massage I ever had.

Admittedly, it was 40 years ago. I was travelling in China with a team of five others to photograph fashion pages for a magazine, at a time when China was just opening up to the world.

We visited Beijing first and spent a punishing few days driving around the city shooting in locations like the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square, always aware we were being watched by the security police.

It was amazing, exhausting and stressful. Like rock stars, we were followed by hundreds of curious people everywhere we went.

When we arrived in Guilin in the countryside, we were well and truly ready for a break. Our hotel was a soulless, basic business hotel, the only place foreign visitors were permitted to stay at that time.

At 6pm every night we were obliged to report to the vast, empty dining room, where we were served a banquet of mostly inedible food. There was nothing else to do until 9pm when the small bar opened. It served beer and snake bile wine. The only entertainment was watching TV, the programs featuring an assortment of generals making stern but unintelligible speeches.

We decided to treat ourselves to massages on the last night before leaving for Canton (now Guangzhou.) I asked reception if it were possible. They said yes, they could organise six doctors to come from the village. The price was low, as everything was in China at that time, and so they were booked.

We dreamed about it all the next day as we drove around the countryside, shooting in paddy fields. We returned to the hotel dusty and bone tired.

The doctors were waiting outside our doors, dressed in white coats, male doctors for the men and female doctors for the women.

My doctor was stern and the language barrier meant we didn’t say much. I kept my clothes on, and she waved me onto the narrow bed, where I lay down.

She was a strong-looking woman and I expected that the Chinese would have developed some interesting traditional massage techniques over the centuries.

Instead, she just patted me for 45 minutes. It was very weird.

Afterwards, it seemed everyone else had the same experience. Their treatments were terrible, and they had barely been touched. We concluded that this was the way the modest Chinese enjoyed massages.

We checked out the next morning. As we were carting all our luggage out the door, six cleaners in pale blue coats, with their mops, stood in a line to cheerily wave us farewell.

We realised the cleaners had been our “doctors” and they had simply changed their coats.

I always wondered what they had spent our cash on, whether it had gone towards food for the children, or if they were out partying in downtown Guilin on shots of snake bile wine.