The majority of Turkish cities have a hamam or bathhouse.
Traditionally, men visited the baths about once a week, partly for hygiene and partly as a
social function. Today, if you are male, (or female and visit the bath with a man), you
can go at any time. If you are female, you may only enter one day a week, usually Fridays,
when the scrubbers are women. We went together on a Tuesday, and both opted to wear
bathing suits.
We entered the hamam and a man checked us in. He had on a
brightly- colored towel wrapped around his waist and wooden thongs. That was it. He handed
us each a fresh towel that matched his and we changed clothes. When finished, we followed
him into a room with a huge stone slab. The room was dark except for a skylight in the
center, right above the marble slab, that allowed small circles of light into the room. It
looked somewhat like an episode of The X Files. Our "scrubber" didn't speak much
English, so he sort of gestured toward the stone and grunted. Luckily, there was already a
man lying down on the stone to sweat, so we were able to figure it out.
Ten minutes of baking and sweating and it was time. Our
scrubber appeared looming over my head and held up a gigangic metal sponge
(think Brillo pad) and proceeded to exfoliate layers of skin off of me that had probably
been around longer than I'd care to imagine. There went the tan I got in Greece. He first
grabbed my arm and slid the sponge up and down until I was numb. Then he continued with my
legs, back, and stomach. Another grunt and point, and it was time for a
"douche"--a shower to wash off all that loose skin. Then back to the slab to
rest up for the next "treatment."
A little bit of sweating and then a grunt woke me out of my
meditative state. It was soap time, complete with an odd machine and a big sponge. The
scrubber sure knew how to "work it" with that sponge. Not an inch of my body was
free from the soapy lather and aggressive scrubbing. Scrub, scrub, scrub. Turn over.
Scrub, scrub, scrub. Grunt, point, shower time again. Then you guessed it, back to the
slab.
The final rest-on-slab and then a now-familiar grunt for the
final step: massage. Like the word bath, the word massage generally conjures up pleasant,
relaxing images of spas and new age music. In this room, it meant "let's see how
black and blue I can get the foreigners." He dug his hands into my arms, legs, neck,
stomach; squeezing and kneading muscles, fat, bones, whatever he came into contact with.
He ended with a flamboyant back cracking move and it was all over. A deep breath: We had
survived the Turkish Bath.
One last shower, and then we exited the steam room. We were
given fresh towels, and sat down on a bench to dry off. We noticed a room in the
back that had more comfortable furniture and beverages, but it seemed to be restricted to
men only. We kept wondering how people did this every week, it would take at least that
long for our bodies to recover from the shock. We both agreed we'd never been cleaner. And
this was our year for roughing it! So for those of you back at home, concerned with our
personal hygiene, fear not. We have been conquered by the bath.
