Turkish bath - not for the modest at heart - Bodrum, Turkey
Bodrum, Turkey
Karen and I found our way to Rashid's Turkish Bath - also known as a Hamam. Neither of us really knew what to expect, but just thought when in Turkey...We were greeted by a very friendly man, Rashid himself, and he showed us how they heated the water - using ground olive seeds. There was a massive pile of black "dirt" on their grounds and you could even smell olive in the air.
We were led down 3 flights of stairs to a basement area, lots of paintings of very full-figured women being bathed by black women on the walls going downstairs, where we were shown the changing room and two little bitty towels - Turkish towels. The lady motioned for us to change or undress and put the towels on. She came in a few minutes later to check on us and I had obviously put my towel on incorrectly. So she just shook her head in disbelief, unwrapped my poor attempt at towel wrapping, and gave me my first experience of complete nudity and a preview of what was to come.
Following her to the sauna, she opened what appeared to be the main room and I saw a full-figured man sprawled out on a big round marble slab. Thankfully I only saw belly up, but started giggling like a 10-year-old-girl. The whole thing was becoming a bit uncomfortable - not sure of what we were actually doing, unclear on instructions, standing in a little towel with nothing underneath and people walking in and out. Let me stop right here and say I am not a prude and have become more comfortable in my own skin, especially after living in China where women's changing rooms are anything but modest. But this was pretty intense! We first went into a side room where we laid on marble benches and began to relax. Well, I think relax is a bit of a loosely used term. Supposed to relax yes, but the fear of the unknown did not really let me unwind. A man stuck his head in about 10 minutes later and gestured for us to follow him. We went into the big sauna room with really tall ceilings and natural lighting coming from the top, an octagon-shaped marble slab in the middle and basins everywhere. We lied on the octagon in the middle and waited...not sure what to do or where to go, we lied down on the octagon and I played a game in my head of what would come next!
A full-figured lady walked in with her bikini top and a towel. She didn't smile or say anything to us, so I wasn't sure who she was or what her role was. She filled some water in a bucket, splashed it around appearing to clean the floor, and went over by the door and lied down. After awhile, I began to get restless. I started looking around and fidgeting. Maybe this was the lady's cue because she immediately came over and began her work.She filled a bucket of hot, olive-heated water and poured it on my body. Two times she did this and got me soaked. I was surprised at the first dumping, but the second one felt really good. Then she put on a black, coarse glove, thinner than a boxing glove but similar style, and about as soft as an SOS pad, and the exfoliating began. She started with my legs and I thought she was going to rub them raw. I had a scab on my ankle from snorkeling in the Philippines and hitting the reef - now it is just a memory. Being very thorough, I was sure my leg hairs even came off. She worked her way up to my chest, which I guess had the most dirt or dead skin because she did the most scrubbing there. There was no-nonsense with this Georgian (later found out where she was from) bather. At one point I was brave enough to open my eyes and saw the black glove covered in dead skin...covered! I exclaimed very ladylike "Ewwww" and she just smiled and continued scrubbing. My back was still burned and peeling from a bad sunburn obtained in the Philippines a week earlier. That was all gone without a trace of a burn except for a faded tan line. Oh, and while the scrubbing was going on, the towel had now moved from covering my chest and lower areas to now just a wet towel, serving very little purpose except to act as a lower, private area covering, now placed in a sumo style wear. She rinsed the dead skin off me with lovely heated water - a quick sorry to Karen who was lying beside me and I am sure the dead skin went floating right past her!- and then came the suds!
Georgian lady lathered me up with some soap and had a thin towel that she used to get the suds really big and bubbly. The towel reminded me of what we used to wash our car with in the summer time. I was sliding around on that marble slab and she kept pulling me back to her hooking my knee and arms with her elbows. She did a few rough massage techniques that I have experienced only in Thai massages - you know where you feel like you are going to break a leg or dislocate a shoulder. This somehow felt worse due to the hard surface and no protective covering of clothes, a cushioned massage table, or anything else that would feel better than stone on the bones. The soap burned my newly scraped clean skin on my back, but the rest felt great! After lathering me on my front, flipping me on my back, and back to my front again - where was I??? (towel now completely thrown to the wayside), she poured more buckets of hot water on me. Sigh. Bath was over. She picked me up, floor still slippery, and walked me over to the basin. "Shampoo?" She yelled (again, language barrier). I shook my head no in fear - I didn't want any more scrubbing! She shrugged her shoulders, said, "Okay", and took me through the sauna to the front door (where was my towel???). She opened the door (again, no towel), took me to the main area where they had nice, clean, white towels stored for people like me. I got one wrapped around my body (all inhibition now gone) and one over my shoulders. She smiled and led me to my oil massage.
I was dazed and didn't know where I was. All I knew was that the term "squeaky clean" had a whole new meaning. Would I do a Turkish bath again? As they say in Turkish, "Evet!" (YES!) And four days later I am still feeling my soft, clean, baby butt-feeling skin! Highly, highly recommended!