I love getting a good massage, although Swedish massages are expensive enough in this area ($60-$70 for an hour) that I can very rarely afford to splurge on them.

However, even if you paid me $70 an hour, I wouldn't get one of these massages,

Israeli health and beauty spa offers a snake massage for £40

The treatment consists of six non-venomous snakes massaging the client's aching muscles and joints.

Ada Barak's snake spa, in Talmei Elazar, northern Israel, uses California and Florida king snakes, corn snakes and milk snakes for the massages, which cost £40 ($70).

Miss Barak believes that physical contact with the reptiles can be a relaxing experience. She says that she was inspired by her belief that once people get over any initial misgivings, they find physical contact with the snakes to be stress relieving.

"Some people said that holding the snakes made them feel better, relaxed," she said "One old lady said it was soothing, like a cold compress."

Yes, "Some people said that holding the snakes made them feel better, relaxed," and the rest said, "Help me! There are snakes all over me! Get them off! Get them off! Get them off!"

I mean seriously, I could understand paying money to have people take snakes off of you, but who pays money to get covered with snakes?

The only good thing about having a snake massage, aside from the possibility it might actually start to feel good after 20-30 minutes or so when you got over being creeped out by the snakes, would be that it would make for a great story. For the rest of your life, you could tell people about the time you got a snake massage in Israel...and there is something to be said for that, I suppose.