Today I went with a couple of friends from class to a Turkish Bath. Called in Turkish a "hamam", these are traditional parts of Turkish culture and old bath houses can be found dotting Turkish cities. Hamams are divided by sex; a couple of female students had gone a few weeks ago and had since raved about their experience, which seemed to consist of a lot of chatting in a sauna. The experience for us men was a bit different.
The hamam we went to was in a traditional building. It was 30 TL for what we were told at the door was "everything": "sauna, shower, massage". We first changed in private rooms in the entry room, a carpeted and wood paneled room, where the bath attendants sat watching an old Turkish movie. From there we were led into bath area, consisting of several marble rooms, which must have been several hundred years old. We started with about 7 minutes in the sauna, which, if the thermometer was correct, was 110 degrees celsius. The rest of the bath complex consisted of three or four showers and and a whole bunch of sink/basin things lining the wall with an uncertain purpose. Unsure of what to do next, we took showers and went back into the main room. The next step soon revealed itself when two bath attendants entered, dressed in Hamam garb--shirtless with a towel wrapped around the waist and legs--and carrying pillows and towels. Quickly we found out what the massage consisted of. Lying down on a raised area in the center of the room, the bath attendants first scraped the dead skin off our bodies with gloves, that had a sort of emery-board like palm. After another round of showers, they gave us a very vigorous massage and then soaped us down. The bath attendants poured water over us as we sat at the basins that lined the walls.
All in all it was quite the interesting experience. While I felt afterwards very clean and relaxed, hopefully I'll never have another shirtless Turkish man tell me to lie down on my back in a gruff voice.
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