Scrubs

The famous hamam experience finally. After a forgettable rip-off in Istanbul, I gave it another try at the Gungoren Hotel, a beat up old place too honest to charge more than stated in the guide book, despite my turning up without a reservation. It housed a hamam in its basement.

After you change and lock up your cubicle, you enter the hamam. The classic old ones are circular with a nice dome rising up above, the walls lined with marble (what else) benches, with a basin in the middle of each, which you fill up with warm water, which you then splash yourself with. In this case, it was a rectangular tiled room, but with marble benches nevertheless. Shortly, the burly mustachioed man approaches, gives you a thorough scrub down with a coarse glove; followed by a soap-off. There, you are done. There is also the option of getting the suds-off lying on the circular bench in the middle of the hamam, but this is tricky when the man drags your body to the right spot - if you are a man lying naked face down getting dragged so, marble or not, you'll agree this is, ahem, tricky.

What followed was interesting. As I was swathed in towels and led back to my cubicle - roughly the size and ambience of a prison cell - and plied with chai, I peeked outside.

The burly man, who reminded me of Thomson (or perhaps Thompson) from Tintin, and who had made various exclamations as he was scrubbed down earlier, lay like a beached whale on one of a row of elevated mattresses. He was swathed in brown towels, and his head was exquisitely wrapped in a red one. Periodically, he'd take off the red one and rather daintily fan himself, hands held high and focusing on specific areas that needed cooling down, like his mustache etc. Imagine a mother fawning over her wretched child high on fever, you get the picture. I could almost imagine the ooh and aahs. His rotund persona and earnest demeanor made this quite the spectacle.

At the end of the day, I am not entirely convinced why you'd want sweaty men in towels scrubbing you down unless you are an invalid. The culture box has been checked, so that's it. I do want to try a good Turkish massage, gotta figure that out next.

Sent from outer space.