Yesterday I went to a Turkish bath, or hamam, with Ümit's sister, Dönüş. I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't like the hamam in Van!
It's really just a big public bath filled with (mostly) older, heavy half-naked women dousing themselves with water and scrubbing their skin; furiously, vigorously, almost violently until it burns pink. There are all these marble basins constantly filling (and overflowing!) with water, each one with a ewer so you can pour the water over yourself. The din is astounding as all the woman yell and squint at each other over the sound of the water and through the mist.
Dönüş and I paid the extra to have the scrub and massage from a professional (otherwise you can just do it yourself). A heavy woman of about 40, wearing white panties scrubbed me down. She looked serious and a little tired, but nice. Her hands were all pruned from working in the steam all day, the rest of her skin looked soft. I was wearing a bikini, but she ordered me to remove my top and then had me lie, face up, arms over my head on a marble slab in the middle of the room while she scrubbed me down. I felt like a snake shedding her skin- almost painfully. Because of my little bike incident last week my legs are covered in bruises. This did not stop her from scrubbing those down too. I thought I might cry from the pain, but I just bit my lip and bore it. Then she had me flip over so she could do my back and then sit up so she could scrub my arms. The arms felt really great!
After being scrubbed/pumiced, I was told (with actions) to go rinse off while she did the same to Dönüş. Then I went back for the massage where again, she accosted my shins. While she was massaging my neck, her boobs were hanging in my face- occasionally touching. Really... a truly odd experience for me. I felt very clean after, if not a little abused. I'm not sure I dig the whole Turkish bath, but I'm glad I tried it.
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