Turkish Baths

Today Courtney and I made our own boat tour by taking commuter ferries from place to place and then we hit up the spice market where I bought enough herbal tea to last me for the next year at least. We then spent the afternoon at some Turksih baths, which was quite an experience.

The website has photos of models wrapped in towels lounging about in a sauna. Our experience differed a bit. When you enter the lobby you pay for the services you'd like and receive the corresponding tokens. We went with the traditional bath experience then added a clay facial mask. We were led to a locker room where we dressed in the black bikini bottoms provided and a towel-like wrap (notice I did not mention that we were provided with a bikini top). Then we made our way to the baths. We walked through a big wooden door to find a dozen or so topless women, few of which could be mistaken for a model, lying on a large round flat stone in the center of a room with many sinks around the edges. We laid out our towels on the warm stone, laid ourselves on our towels, and waited. It was hot and humid in the room so we started perspiring immediately, which I think is the part of the process.

After awhile a worker came over to me (you could distinguish some of the workers because they had a black bikini top, but mine did not) and had me follow her to another spot on the stone where I was told to lie face up. She then took what must have been a large brillo pad and rubbed my skin raw, then had me flip over and did the same thing to my backside. Then she dumps half a bucket of cold water on me, dumps the other half on herself, and rubs bubbles all over me. All over me. This part involved another flip, some more buckets of cold water, and a mini massage. She then led me to a sink on the edge of the room, had me sit, shampooed my hair, and dumped 10 more buckets of cold water on me to rinse me off. Then I was left to do my own thing. I lay on the warm stone for awhile and then when Courtney was finished we went into the jacuzzi for a bit.

When we'd had enough we went into the towel room where a mud mask was painted on our faces and we were led to the lounge area to wait for it to dry. The lounge area was cool and dry, filled with women wrapped in towels (the website wasn't completely misleading), and drinks were being served. After we each drank a bottle of water and our mask was dry we went back to the towel room to wash our mask off in the sink. However we were scolded and told that we must wash it off in the shower. By this time we had regretted not signing up for a massage and asked if we could do so then. After some dialogue back and forth between a number of workers we were led upstairs to the massage rooms. The massage was enjoyable and seemed completely unintrusive after what we had just gone through.

While in the bath it was so hard for me not to laugh. It reminded me of when my high school friends and I had all turned 18 and decided to go to an adult store just because we could and had to fight to not giggle because although everything about the experience was hilarious, the other people there meant serious business. (Tell me you and your friends did the same thing and that I'm not a total perv?) Once I was able to control my laughter and get used to being so close to another mostly naked stranger it turned into quite the relxing experience.