FEELING HOT, HOT, HOT

Two weeks ago, I had the privilege to visit Istanbul. TeenE’s high school music group was doing their spring “music tour” there, and some of the parents decided to tag along.
I made my own air and hotel arrangements. I wound up paying more for the air fare on BA, rather than Turkish Air. TA had just had an “incident” with a plane down, and I felt more comfortable flying BA. My hotel room wound up costing considerably less than the ones that the kids and chaperones were in, so I more than made up for the difference in air fare. I stayed at the Hotel Ibrahim Pasha, and although my room was small, it was just me in it so it really didn’t matter (see photos).
The location of the hotel was about as good as it gets: on a hill overlooking the Blue Mosque and the Hippodrome. The hotel’s roof deck was a great place to sit in the sun and take photos of the Blue Mosque. A huge “Turkish breakfast” buffet was served every morning. The choices included fantastic coffee, a baked spinach pastry, a potato pastry, plain yoghurt, several flavors of preserves, white and brown “French” bread, four kinds of cheese, some kind of pinkish cold cut, probably “head cheese”, olives, dried apricots and dates, muesli, fresh squeezed orange juice,
Highlights of my trip were visiting the 6th century AD Roman underground “cistern” or reservoir, having dinner with the other parents at the Restaurant Beyti (thank you, Hassan and Farrah), and having a Turkish Bath at the Cemberlitas Hamam, a 16th century bathhouse. This was in addition to visiting the Big 3 Historic sites of the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and Topkapi palace.
You can find photos of these sites here and in many other places on the web. What you cannot find anywhere else is a description of my two hours in the Turkish bath.
WARNING: The following passage contains descriptions of female nudity and should be avoided by anyone who might be easily offended or who knows the writer personally and who cannot stand the thought of nudity happening, such as the writer’s children or brothers-in-law.
My guidebook mentioned the Cemberlitas Hamam as one of the Top 10 things to do in Istanbul. I would concur.
The bathhouse was constructed in the 16th century by the wife of a Sultan as an investment vehicle. Of course, she got a wonderful place to bathe, as well, in the days when no one had indoor plumbing.
The facilities for men and women were separate, but equal. I bought a token for the bath part, and another for the oil massage. I figured I may only be in Istanbul once, so I’d better get the real deal.
After paying and buying a chilled bottle of water, I was ushered upstairs to a modern spa-like locker and changing facility. The guidebook had said that after renovations, the women’s area lost space so that women now changed in a corridor. I did not find this to be the case. There were small private areas of lockers where one could change out of street clothes and into the flimsy cotton sarong that was issued. The biggest decision I had to make that day was whether to go commando or not. What is the point, I thought, of going to a Turkish bath to get all steamy and scrubbed clean if you’re going to wear your underwear? In a very un-American move, I chose to go with just the sarong. (I note that American women, for all their obsessing about their bodies, are not as comfortable with their own nudity as European and especially Scandinavian women. I learned this in the Blue Lagoon changing room in Reykjavik, Iceland. )
“Crocs” were also issued, and were mandatory, although they created a hazard for those of us with narrow feet. Half of my feet stuck out of the toe area of the Croc sandal. It made going down the spiral staircase quite difficult. One passed through the “Cool Room”, where a cool marble slab was surrounded by seating areas. Women sat in small groups, sipping their freshly-squeezed pomegranate juice out of clear glass tumblers.
I couldn’t wait to get into the steamy part, so I skipped the “Cool Room” entirely. I made my way boldly into the “Hot Room”, which was octagonal in shape, vaguely steamy, and contained a large raised octagonal slab of marble in the center. Arrayed around this slab like the petals of a flower were women of all ages, shapes and sizes, in various phases of undress and in various “trim types”. The ones that had been there for a while upon my arrival looked well and truly sweaty. One could tell, because in order to lay on the hot hot marble slab, one had to remove the flimsy cotton sarong and spread it out underneath. The stone would have been too hot without that thin layer of cloth between it and skin, and so modesty was sacrificed for safety’s sake.
Most women would rather reveal their backside to total strangers than their front side, so new arrivals would eventually peel off the sarong, and depending on how brave or oblivious they were feeling, spread it out and lay face down upon it, without revealing so much as a glimpse of anything below the bustline. Surreptitious peeks around revealed that most of the women who were there when I arrived were either American or Scandanavian. Some women, like me, had come alone, but most were in pairs and their chit-chat revealed their nationality. Later on in the proceedings small knots of Turkish women arrived, and would be addressed in Turkish by the Bath Attendants.
Around the rim of the room there were marble “sinks” on pedestals that were fed by spigots. There were also several more private gated “niches” where one had a choice of three sinks, containing cold, warm or hot water. Each sink held a silver bowl. You could pick up the bowl and pour its contents over you to adjust your body temperature.
After a while of laying on the stomach-side, I got just too hot. Even sitting up and sipping my cool water in a modest pose would not allow sufficient cooling, so eventually each of us had to come to grips with the idea of turning over and laying there frontally exposed on the slab. And you know what? It was so much more comfortable than propping your head on your hand while laying face-down. I wondered why I had thought it would be so psychologically uncomfortable. At some point you just get so hot that you forget you don’t have anything covering you, or if you do remember, you are glad of it. You also cease to care who may or may not notice your six-inch scar from gall-bladder surgery.
Being an observant person, I could tell who had come into the Hot Room before me, and who had arrived after me. There was the opportunity to check out the other bods and do a few comparisons. This one is older, that one weighs more, this one weighs less, that one is hairier, that one surely needs to eat more, and why the heck does she still have her bra on? Surely most of us are never going to see each other again. I’m also a bit of Type-A, and started to become indignant when the Washer Women would take someone ahead of me who had CLEARLY come into the room after me. I decided that it was just time to “Chill” and let them do the choosing.
When it was my turn to be washed by an attendant, one beckoned me over and showed me how to lay out my sarong along one of the edges of the octagon. Good, I got the one who was wearing a bra in addition to her panties. I had been taking mental notes during their previous washings, so knew that if I had been assigned to the other one, her pendulous Earth Mother breasts would be swinging about me as I was washed. One less distraction to have to attend to. First, my Lingerie Lady poured a bowl of cold water over me. Waaah! Then she unwrapped my personal bath mitt and proceeded to scrub the living daylights out of my skin with the rough side. I could feel streamers of dead skin being exfoliated off of my upper arms and legs and, well, you get the picture.
I was led to a side niche and rinsed with several bowls of warmish-hot water, my sarong was rinsed, and the slab where I had been so thoroughly exfoliated was rinsed off, too. I was then led back to the same spot and spread out on my sarong face down while the bather used the mitt to work up a huge ball of lather. I don’t know how she did it, but within about a minute she had formed a foamy lemon-scented mass twice the size of a basketball, and then distributed the lather over my entire back side. I was completely engulfed in bubbles, and had to clear a space near my nostrils in order to breathe comfortably. The heavenly-scented lather was then massaged into my skin. Normally I can take a foot massage without feeling tickled, but somehow the addition of slippery bubbles made it unbearable. The poor woman had to skip my feet as I was writhing with tickles. A few bowlfuls of really hot water rinsed the suds off the back side and got me ready for the front. Boy, did that front get really clean. That’s all I’ll say in that regard.
My washer then asked “Shampoo”? Yes, of course. So, she stood in front of me and pulled my head forward until my forehead was resting on her ample bosom, thankfully encased in white polyester, and I received a shampoo and rinse. One more trip over to the niche for more bowlfuls of hot water, and I was released back to the slab. My washer pointed out the deep baths for soaking: one warm, and one hot. I read the sign which proclaimed “Bathing nude is prohibited”, and guessed that was why some of the women still had on their panties, so they could take a dip in the deep bath. Without the use of any English on her part or Turkish on mine, my washer and I had the following conversation:
“Do you have your panties with you?” “No, I left them upstairs in the locker”. “Well, you can just wrap your sarong around you and go in anyway.” “No, thank you, I’d rather not if stuff is going to be floating around in there…”
So I laid back down on the slab (face up, in case you were wondering) and waited my turn to be called for my…. oil massage. The masseuse eventually arrived and beckoned me into a separate room. There were four massage tables lined up assembly-line style. Three of them held glistening women with towels draped strategically over them. I was invited up on the fourth massage table, and was soon in the capable hands of “Anna”, who worked every last kink out of my tourist-weary frame. Pure bliss.
Getting back into the Hot Room in oily Crocs was a feat in itself. By now two thirds of my feet were sticking out the front of the plastic sandal, the toe area of which was eating into my arches. But is was forbidden to remove them!!
I had to soap up three times and re-shampoo once to remove even a tiny portion of the oil slick that I had now become. I repaired to a private niche and took my time, as I knew I wouldn’t have time before the parent-group dinner to go back to the hotel and shower. Who would want to shower off a Turkish Bath, anyway? So I slithered my way back up the spiral staircase in the wide Crocs, laughing at almost certain death. I was relieved of my damp and clingy sarong and issued a towel. The changing facility even had hair dryers, so I attempted to fluff and buff the hair, although the roots still had a bit of oil there. A quick stop in the gift shop (of course, there had to be one, right?) allowed me to score a couple of bars of scented olive oil soap, and I drifted back up to the street level in cloud of lemon fragrance.
That night on the bus to dinner, I described my experience to the other mothers who were riding near me. The cry was universal: “Oh honey, did you hear that? We have to do that tomorrow!!!” I’ll never know whether the husbands were embarrassed by, or grateful for their wives visitation to the Cemberlitas Hamam the next day.