Bali, body and sole

BALI may be teeming with willing masseurs but for a really exquisite massage, Sian Powell points the way to go in Kuta and surrounds.

IN many of Indonesia's teeming cities, massage isn't so much a luxury as a staple of life.

Elderly ladies massage away sickness, smartly uniformed men and women knead away troubles, business types pop into salons for a massage on their way home from work.

When I lived in an apartment complex in Jakarta, a woman who worked for a beauty salon on the ground floor gave excellent massages, for less than $10 for 90 minutes of manipulation. Occasionally she patted my bottom and congratulated me on getting nice and fat, but that was the only depressing note (and I knew she meant it fondly).

She spoke no English but, like just about every masseur I've come across in Indonesia, she was superbly skilled. I regularly fell asleep on her table and afterwards always felt relaxed to the point of coma.

In the three years I lived in Indonesia I sampled massages across the archipelago, from Aceh (long before the tsunami, in the middle of the bloody insurrection), where two women in strict Muslim headscarves gave me a good pummelling, to Bali, where there are now dozens of establishments offering all kinds of massage. Catering to luxury-minded tourists, these often offer strange accoutrements, such as yoghurt and hot stones, a far cry from the sandy beach massages hawked by insistent iron-fingered women along the Kuta strip.

One Bali old-timer, Cozy, has now even opened an extremely popular franchise establishment in East Timor, and there are Cozys in Jakarta and Lombok. Here are four Balinese massage establishments I have frequented and enjoyed.

Cozy: Dozens of young women in uniforms offer a formulaic but extremely good massage. Cozy's cool turquoise-and-white headquarters is on a busy Kuta street (quite a long way from the beach, near Galleria), but inside all is serene. I have never exchanged more than about three words with the masseurs. I am so used to the routine, I can do it without talking or thinking. I walk into the curtained cubicle, shed my clothes, don paper underpants and lie down on the massage table. There's soothing music and time flies; the only problem I've had was at the end of a 90-minute massage when I had been lying down so long my nose was blocked.

There are always lots of clients milling around – Balinese, expatriates and tourists – so it's best to book (English is spoken by some of the attendants). I tend to stick to the straight hour-long massage for 76,000 rupiah ($9) but there are plenty of options, including foot massages, reflexology, scalp massages and facials. Everything is scrupulously clean and quiet. Where: Jalan Sunset Blok A/3 Kuta. Phone [phone] (also in Denpasar).

Body Works: Another bastion of the Bali massage scene, Body Works is near the luxury precinct of Seminyak. It's a spa used mainly by tourists and expatriates, where frazzled clients can get everything from seaweed facials to exfoliation massages (including haircuts, colouring and styling). An hour-long massage costs 155,000 rupiah; Thai and Shiatsu massages also offered. Body Works is usually extremely busy so it's essential to book and one nice option is to have a long and luxurious massage and then wander down the street to the beachside restaurant La Luciola and have a long and luxurious lunch gazing at the ocean and sipping on a lychee granita.

Where: Jalan Kayu Jati No.2, Petitenget. Phone [phone].

Jari Menari: The name of this parlour means "dancing fingers". Owned by an Australian, Jari Menari started off quite small, with cubicles open to the outside (I was savagely bitten by a mosquito here once) but it has expanded considerably in recent years, with big new rooms off to one side.

A "basic" session lasts for 75 minutes and costs 200,000 rupiah. Jari Menari doesn't offer standard hour-long massages, but you can choose the hour-long "four-hand" option, with two masseurs, or an hour-long oil-free massage, which also costs 200,000 rupiah. The masseurs, all men, use a technique that differs from masseurs in other parlours: it is a firm and sweeping rub (apparently influenced by yoga), which is quite exhilarating.

Jari Menari also offers foot therapies and specialist back massages. There is a training centre where devotees can learn how to do a nine-step 25-minute massage sequence.

Where: Jalan Raya Basangkasa No. 47, Seminyak. Phone [phone]; www.jarimenari.com.

Everyday: A relative newcomer to the Bali scene, Everyday offers a wide range of services in a very clean establishment (it's not all that easy to find; a taxi driver and I went round and round for some time before we locate it). An hour-long full body massage will set you back 69,000 rupiah, which is remarkably cheap for a professional service by young female masseurs. A 90-minute massage is 79,000 rupiah.

Clients can choose from a range of massages and scrubs or reflexology.

Where: Jalan Dewi Sri, Kav 3-5, Kuta. Phone [phone].

Sian Powell was The Australian's Indonesia correspondent from 2003 to 2006.