The Turkish Bath (Hammam)

My second to last night in Istanbul, I headed a couple kilometers out of Sultanahmet to a very authentic Turkish bath I'd stumbled upon a few days prior. (By the way, I ate a small overpriced pizza with spicy peppers on it on the way.)

My hammam, or Turkish bath, of choice was constructed in the 1400s. I was greeted by a couple big Turks who spoke virtually no English and I paid my twenty or so dollars for a bath and massage. I was first shown to my room, a small place in the entrance where I stripped, put on the little loin cloth-esque towel they'd given me and locked my stuff up. The room is yours for the duration of your stay and there's even a bed for taking a nap should you feel so inclined.

From there, I was escorted to the back of the building where the bulk of the bath-related activities take place. It's a giant marble room with a giant heated marble slab in the middle and washing stations, wash rooms and a sauna forming a ring around it. The ceiling is a dome and has a few holes in it, which I think opened to the outside. Luckily, at this point a Turkish immigrant living in England came in and, seeing that I was clearly out-of-place, helped me decipher the process and translated.

First, I laid on the (really hot) marble slap, front and back, for about 20 minutes. This relaxes the body and gets the sweat flowing. Then, a big hairy Turkish man, clad in the same loincloth-esque fashion as the bather, comes in to wash you. The first thing he did was chiropractor-esque. He pulled my arm over my chest and popped my back (first left, then right). Then he popped my neck.

Next, he put on a glove made of something like a mix between sandpaper and steel wool, with which he scrubbed me from head to toe. This is intended to scrub off the dead skin. Then I sat up and he dumped a couple buckets of colder, very refreshing water over me (remember, it's really warm in this room and the slab is hot). Then I laid down again and he got a big tub of soapy water into which he dunked a big sock-like cloth made of a permeable fabric that looked similar to cheesecloth. He filled it with bubbles and then wrung it out over my body several times, covering me with bubble bath-like suds.

Then came the washing and massage. He proceeded to scrub my whole body clean and massaged it for around 20 minutes. To the best of my recollection, this marked my first real massage. After this, he rinsed me again with the semi-cold water and led to me a washing station where he washed and rinsed me again. Then he gave me a fresh towel, dry loincloth and bar of soap and told me I was free to continue bathing, sleeping, relaxing - whatever I wanted - for as long as I wanted.

I returned to the marble slab for a bit, then went into the pool room, where I relaxed in the cool water of the chest deep pool. After that I returned to the marble slab, then rinsed myself in cool water, then showered off, got dressed and left.

The much-anticipated Turkish bath, long expected to be a highlight of the trip, lived up to its expectations fully. It is definitely an experience!