By Becky,

Having a Turkish bath was something I knew I wanted to do since we started planning our trip. The day finally arrived.

Every town or village in Turkey has a hamam, or public bath. Some towns are lucky enough to have two separate ones, one for men and one for women. Unfortunately, Selcuk only has one, which made me a little apprehensive about the whole experience.

Mixed bathing is something that simply isn't done in traditional Turkish society. A Turkish woman would likely rather take her own life before she went to a haman where men were present, and in old times the penalty for a man entering a women's haman was execution. To avoid these unnecessary deaths, most towns with only one haman would open the baths strictly for women a few days a week at select hours. However, due mainly to the tourist boom, things have changed and now most hamams, especially ones in touristy areas, are open for "mixed" bathing (which would only be considered by infidels/westerners) which prevents the Turkish women from not only being able to enjoy this luxury but also takes jobs away from the local gals as woman are forbidden from working in a men's hamam.

I was quite a dilemma for me, but in the end I decided to go ahead and go. First of all, I probably would have been way too intimidated to go without moral support from Chris; secondly, a few other couples whose RTW websites I keep up with had gone to this exact hamam; and lastly there were several people at the hostel who went. Be it morally right or wrong, this is how it was and I figured that I wasn't going to change anything at all by boycotting.

When we arrived at the haman it was totally empty and we were the ONLY people there aside from the tellak (the bath attendant). We were given pestemals (sort of like a sarong) and I was told to keep my bathing suit on (had I gone to a women only session I could have gone au naturale!) and wrap it under my arms, while Chris wrapped his around his waist with strict instructions not to take it off at any point during the bath (as if!). We were shown into our own private little camekan (cubicle) to undress and store our stuff. We were then led into the haman itself where we were told to lay down on the circular marble slab in the middle of the room and wait. The room was beautiful, all done in gleaming white marble, and a cathedral ceiling with cut-outs of stars and circles that allowed the natural light to come through in rays. The room was lined with marble basins and water spouts all around it, so we filled a basin with cold water and used a little metal bowl to soak ourselves down before laying on the heated marble to sweat any toxins out of our bodies. We were left to sweat for about 20 minutes before the tellak came back and tapped me on the shoulder, indicating that the fun was about to begin.

He started by spraying me with cold water (which was a welcome alternative to hot water given how humid it was in the hamam) and scrubbing me from head to toe with a "kese", a woolen mitt that sort of felt like a SOS pad. The dead skin balled up into these huge worm shaped chunks. I couldn't believe how much dead skin this guy was removing from my body! I actually read somewhere that this process removes about 15% of a suntan, which I wasn't too happy about since I worked so hard at it in Greece.

After about 15 minutes of scrubbing, he led me back to my basin and indicated that I should rinse off the dead skin worms and then lay down and sweat again, while Chris got his sloughing.

Once Chris was done and was deworming at the basin, the tellak brought me back for the soaping procedure. This was pretty cool. He used a giant cheesecloth type bag, sewn together on three sides, which he filled up with water and bubble bath gel and blew air into it producing a huge amount of soapy bubbles that he squeezed onto me. He scrubbed me to within an inch of my life, starting with my legs, back and neck, before flipping me over and doing my face, neck, chest, belly, legs and feet, a process that lasted about 15 minutes. He sent me back to the basin to rinse off, and repeated the procedure on Chris.

Next came the massage...the moment we had both been waiting for! Mine was luxurious...I love to be pampered. He kneaded muscles I didn't even know I had, with just the right amount of strength. I was in heaven. Chris didn't fare so well. It must be sort of a macho thing to see how much pain the tellak can inflict before a guy will scream out in pain. He bent Chris around in every which way, cracking his back and neck, yanking on his arms and feet, basically pummeling my poor hubby. Chris didn't scream out in pain, but he was pretty sore for the next few hours!

After the massage, we were told to rinse off and lay on the marble slab and sweat for as long as we liked. We were brought fresh pestemals and towels for our hair. When we emerged from the hamam room after about 10 minutes we were served apple tea and sat down with the tellak and watched a pretty comical Indian movie on the television.

All this for about $6.00!

It was a great experience, especially if one likes to be groomed and pampered as much as I do! In fact, we both enjoyed it so much, we went again in Istanbul just before we headed off to the airport for our flight to Bahrain. This time we patronized the exquisite Cemberlitas Hamani, which was built for the wife of a sultan in the 16th century. Being a more traditional hamam, mixed bathing we forbidden and there were two separate sections for men and women. This time I had the full treatment by a local Turkish woman, au naturale!


- Lost in Stambul -