The famous Turkish Bath

HAMMAM - Turkish bath
Louise, Sarah, Byron, Tim, James and I had arranged to meet up at 5 to go to the local Hammam (a Turkish Bath). I wasn’t completely sold on the idea as bathing and massages and communal scrubs weren’t really my idea of fun, and watching the sunset seemed much more exciting. However, as the others said, a Turkish Bath is one of those ‘must have’ experiences, and Tim had assured me that it’d be a
a bit of hot water and a casual arm scrub and that was about all. Some of the other ladies of our group had been to a bath the previous night in and had raved about the experience. Our experience turned out to be completely different!
On arrival, we were shown to change rooms where we striped down to just underwear, and handed a (very) small line towel to wrap around. We had expected - from the other ladies’ experience - to have segregated male / female bathing areas. However, we discovered this wasn’t the case. We were all directed into a hot room lined with benches and taps over wash basins. Apart from one other man, we were the only people in the hammam. It dawned on us all that we were in this together. Just like the high school days, the boys placed themselves on one side of the room, and the girls and I on the other. We all felt a bit uneasy and just a little ‘exposed’ in our tiny towels! We giggled and the boys laughed and Tim carried on with his dry sense of humour about ‘flossing’ in undesirable areas. I think we were all just a bit scared of what would happen next! The poor lone man that we had railroaded upon just sat there quietly, observing our antics with disdain. A staff member then came in to deal with us. He was an older man, and I think he picked up that we were first-timers. He pointed to us girls, and made us sit near the basins. He then filled up bowels of water and poured them on us from over our heads until we were thoroughly saturated, and then directed us to lie on a large slab of heated marble in the middle of the room. He then exited the room. We lay for a long while, beginning to roast. The boys poured water on themselves. The old bearded man returned, this time with a cheeky gleam in his eyes. He walked over to the taps, filled a bowl with cold water and much to our mirth, threw the water over his cooking victims. We squealed and writhed about on the hot marble, providing great entertainment for the boys who watched the whole scene, laughing at our expense! More and more water, more squeals and laughter. Eventually the cheeky old man stopped and had us leave our torture table to follow him into another room. We left the boys still laughing at the show. The room we entered had 2 massage tables, and another old man joined us. Louise and Sarah climbed onto the tables, and I sat and watched, awaiting my turn. I must say, at this point, we were expecting
women to be handling this next stage. Jess had assured us that if it were men, they are ’professional’ and see us just as ’meat’. I could see this was the case, however it didn’t make us feel that much more comfortable. Anyhow, the girls were scrubbed down head to toe with lint-like mittens peeling off layers of skin. After being rinsed, they were then soaped up with a huge bag of bubbly soap. Accompanying the soaping was some intense massaging. Meanwhile, the boys in the other room sat, roasting, their eyes transfixed on the door to our room. Erupting from the door were big loud slaps, groans and squeals of pain, water splashing and hysterical laughter. I watched on consoling the girls in sympathy, knowing that my turn was to come soon.
Our ordeal lasted about 30 minutes. It did feel weird to be scrubbed and washed like a child again! We came out feeling strangely high, relaxed and sleepy, very dehydrated and just a bit traumatized!. But we were all glad to have experienced the famous traditional Turkish bath.