A Turkish Bath

The hamam, or Turkish bath, has been part of Turkish culture for years. (As always, you can read all about hamams on wikipedia here). Hamams are in every guide book as something that must be done in Turkey, and there are hamams in every neighborhood. Generally they are divided by genders and are visited naked, but to appeal more to tourists, co-ed hamams exist with special cover-ups provided to give modest foreigners the cover they need. Guide books recommend these tourist-friendly hamams over local ones, and these charge upwards of 35 Euros plus a tip for the masseus to visit. Usually a hamam experience includes the bath, a scrub and a massage.

My parents came to visit for a week and a half and my mom was very keen on getting a real Turkish bath experience. We searched online for a co-ed one so my parents could go together, but the one that sounded best, the Süleymaniye Hamam, was closed for renovations to prepare it for unveiling for the 2010 Istanbul Capital of Culture. She decided she'd just go alone since my dad wasn't so eager to go with a group of non-English-speaking men, and I found the closest one to my house, the Büyük Hamam in Kasimpasa, the neighborhood of Istanbul where I live. We had read some reviews online, and one woman wrote that she had a rather negative experience. Here's an excerpt:

I was told that this would be the best scrub ever, that it would be hard and my skin would feel softer and more invigorated than ever. Much to my chagrin, the scrubbing was light, the soap was the cheapest liquid, most obnoxious smelling Proctor & Gamble nastiness. I was reeling from being washed by a topless woman. And, yes, I was worried that I’d be taken advantage of. It was a very sexual thing for me. I was scared. When it was time for me to flip over, she just smacked my thigh. There was one moment when my clit was grazed and it just felt awkward. I wondered if they were going to wash my private parts, which, by the way, were left unrinsed.

My mom isn't swayed by negative reviews so we went anyways. My dad and I planned to wait for her in a cafe, but when we walked in the 6 Gypsy women convinced me that I should go too. We left my dad to wait for us in the nearby park.

The Büyük Hamam was designed in 1533 by Mimar Sinan, probably the busiest architect in Turkish history. It seems like every building in Istanbul was built by him! It was staggering to think of all the naked bodies that had lain on the same marble slab in the more than 500 years' of the hamam's existence. (If you look closely you can almost see butt imprints :) )

My mom and I were shown to a lockable changing room and were given a plaid cotton cloth to use as a cover-up. We disrobed and were led into a hot room, with marble stones and basins and small skylight windows to let natural light in. Here, one of the large Gypsy women filled one of the basins with hot water and gestured for us to sit down. She then tossed water on us using a plastic bowl. She mimed that this was how we were supposed to wet ourselves, and then demonstrated that we were to lie down on a big marble slab in the middle of the room. The slab was somehow heated from below, so it was toasty warm (almost too warm!) She left us to relax for a few minutes and then another Gypsy woman came in, clothed in just a lace pair of briefs and a faded floral headscarf. At first we thought it was just another hamam-goer, but she made it clear that she was the masseuse. Another woman, similarly dressed, soon followed who was to be my masseuse. They first used a Brillo-pad-esque washcloth glove to quite roughly scrape all the dead skin off. By the time she was finished, I looked like I was recovering from a horrible peeling sunburn. She then squeezed a huge dollop of shampoo onto my stomach and began the soap massage. She focused extra well on hands, neck and feet and it was quite funny to be covered in soap suds from head to toe. She then led us back to the marble basin and again tossed hot water on us.

Neither woman spoke any English beyond "very good" and "tip." My Turkish is surprisingly slightly conversational, so we were able to talk about our families- one woman said she needed a tip because she had 3 children, and I explained how I have one brother but he wasn't visiting Turkey because of university. The women brought us nice fluffy towels and the hamam time was finished. We were the only women there the whole time other than the 6 women who either all worked there or just enjoyed hanging out.

We got dressed again and were invited to drink tea with the women. I managed to converse in Turkish about a variety of things including why I'm in Turkey, what we think of Obama, why Turkish tea is better than American tea, and if we could take the masseuse to America to work there. The women were all very interested in chatting and it was great fun to see how much progress my Turkish has made, even against my will. (I haven't taken any Turkish lessons and had been actively trying NOT to learn Turkish because my Russian will suffer as a result. I learn it from my students regardless of what I want, and now I'm starting to grow interested in it. My Russian is fading anyway.)

Even though the idea of a hamam had never really interested me, it was a nice experience and the women were so nice that I'd like to go again. For a total of 37 TL each (including a generous tip for the masseuse), it was half the price of a tourist hamam with much more local flair, even though I thought we were still overcharged. Lying on a hot block of marble while getting my chest soaped up and my thigh smacked by a large naked Gypsy woman while hearing the call to prayer blaring from the mosque next door is an memory that can never be recreated in America.