The Pavilion shopping centre in KL is a high-end mall. Think Marc Jacobs, Gucci, Prada, Juicy Couture and Louis Vuitton. But we were bypassing the luxury goods and heading up to the fourth floor, so that fish could eat our feet.

The fish foot spa, we'd been told, is a must-do, unique spa experience that is proving very popular especially in Asia, involving the use of 'doctor fish'.

These handy little suckers live only on dead or diseased tissue, leaving healthy skin intact. One day some enterprising fellow realised the beauty biz would go nuts for live exfoliators, and the fish spa was born.

We selected the half hour foot treatment, but braver souls can go for the full monty, immersing themselves up to the neck and having little fish peck and gnaw at all their rough and scaly bits.

In the preparation area I lathered and hosed down my legs and feet and covered up a scratch on my foot with a band-aid so the fishies wouldn't go into a feeding frenzy and gnaw my leg down to a stump.

Then it was time to pop our feet into one of two ponds - one filled with little fish for beginners, one with larger fish for those who really want to get rid of the callouses - and let the doctors do their work.

One of the guys in our group manfully went first and dunked his feet into the pool of smaller fish. It wasn't reassuring - his face contorted and he immediately jerked them back out.

Once I took the plunge I could see why. The sensation was extremely unsettling. Scores of tiny fish were nibbling on my toes and the soles of my feet, and it tickled more than you could imagine. It took a few goes before I could put my feet in and keep them there, and even then it was impossible to sit still and quiet.

There was a lot of arm-waving, lip-biting and "Ooh, I think I'm getting the hang of th-ARGH MAKE IT STOP" going on in our corner of the pond. Not exactly your blissful, chilled-out spa experience.

More seasoned clients, most of whom had gone straight to the big fish pond, sat impassively as we squawked and wriggled.

Eventually, though, we did get used to the tickling and nibbling - it was almost soothing, really - and our conversation resumed at a more appropriate indoor level.

But where was the fun in that? So we moved on to the pond with the bigger fish, and it began all over again. Instead of little nibbles, it felt like I was being attacked by a plague of electric drills. I looked down, expecting to see gaping holes in my legs, but apparently it felt worse than it looked.

Again, for most of our group the sensation became bearable after five or ten minutes. We sat on the edge of the pond, our feet in the cool water, taking pictures of the swarms of fish surrounding our limbs. It was peaceful, in a way.

When the half hour was up we wiggled our legs to dislodge the fish (who immediately surged towards the other available feet in the pond), rinsed off and were on our way.

My feet and legs did look very smooth and most of my dead skin was gone (although the effect was only temporary - by the next day they looked exactly as they had before).

Thus tidied up, we were off to shop ourselves silly in Malaysia's capital.

Amy Williams travelled to Malaysia courtesy of Malaysia Airlines and Tourism Malaysia.

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