Fish foot massage in Siem Reap, Cambodia

My feet are gross...really gross. I went to Vung Tau, a beach resort town a bit outside of Saigon, and the ocean water mixed with the leather from my sandals stained my feet a dark black to look like I just spent the day working in the rice fields. The skin on the heel of my foot is also rough and calloused from walking and I can easily pull dead skin from old blisters off of my toes. I've tried brushing my feet and exfoliating it with St. Ives apricot scrub, but nothing seems to work.

Then I went to the Siem Reap night market, where there were many fish massage stalls scattered throughout the market with very forward workers trying to get you into their stall. They're more of an attraction to foreigners, who are lured in by the cheap price ($2-3 for 20 minutes), a free can of coke/Angkor beer, and the novelty of having fish nibble on the dead skin of your feet. I was a bit hesitant at first because I wasn't sure if it was sanitary, but considering the awful state of my feet, I was willing to give it a try.

Massage is actually a misleading term because this is far from the soothing hand motions felt during a typical massage. These "massages" involve dunking your feet into a pool of fish, which then swarm your feet to feed off your dead skin. You kill two birds with one stone--feed the fish and have your callouses eaten off.

Right when I placed my feet into the inflatable pool that housed the hundreds of little fish, they swarmed my feet like bees to honey. I actually felt them nibbling my feet and it was very ticklish. After a few minutes of trying to restrain from pulling my feet out in a fit of laughter, I got used to the sensation of fish feasting on my old blisters and broken skin.

The fish loved eating Tammy's feet much more than mine.

Me, Tammy, and our new Finnish friend, Pilvi, who we met on our Cambodia tour--all enjoying our "massages."

After: Still Black! I thought those little fishies would eat off the stain on my feet, but they didn't. However, they did remove my callouses off my heels and toes so while it still looks disgusting, the sole of my feet were actually very smooth.
Was it worth it? Yes! The rough skin on my feet were eaten away and I had a new and interesting experience to store in my memory. Would I do it again? Only if I can pay the cheap prices I did in Siem Reap. Fish foot massages are something of a trend these days, worth a hefty price back in the States. So, I guess there is another reason for me to return to Cambodia.