The Middle East Part 4: Hamam...um?

Having voyaged all the way to Istanbul, Val and I were determined to participate in full cultural immersion (which I defined as anytime I found myself in a room where the Turks outnumbered the European tourists - I know, not a very sophisticated metric.) As part of this cultural immersion, no inch of culture was left untouched...quite literally.

After becoming well acquainted with minced meat, mosques and minarets, Val and I took our cultural immersion to a more intimate level by going to a hamam, or Turkish bath. Having done our Lonely Planet research, we elected to go to Cemerlitas Hamami, where the C and s were appendaged with hooks for which pronunciation eludes me, since my 4-night stand in Istanbul did not translate to Turkish fluency. Alas, we settled on this bathhouse because of its perceived ability to handle tourists.

As the wet relative of the sauna, a hamam is intended to be the trifecta of hygiene.

Step 1: Relax in the warm room, also known as a sauna, allowing the bather to perspire freely.

Step 2: Perform a full body wash and massage to cleanse the body.

Step 3: Retire to the cooling room for a period of relaxation.

Well, after paying, I was directed to my private locker room, where having done my research, I knew I was supposed to strip naked and wrap myself in the Turkish terry cloth. Private is a relative term in Turkey; as my locker was simply a confining space with a glass door overlooking the atrium. I was then directed by a series of grunts and finger pointing and thrust through a fortified wooden door. Finding myself alone in the large domed sauna with a huge slab in the center of the room, I sprawled out to fulfill step one. I found myself short of breath, not sure if my elevated heart rate was attributed to nervousness, liberation, or just my body adjusting to the new struggle to take in oxygen.

Just as I was getting comfortable, the calm was irrupted by a chanting man who came in and forcibly began to drown my body with water, rolled up my terry cloth, and aggressively scrubbed and massaged me cap-a-pie.

One important note: I'm certain that the use of the terry cloth is simply to trick the mind into the false perception that the body is clothed. I'm also certain my mind was not deceived, as I was well aware of my exposed flaccidity.

Step 2 ended just as brusquely as it had commenced. All of a sudden, there I was, still sprawled across the stone slab, with nobody instructing me on the next move. Check mate? Alone in the sauna, I couldn't even put up a pretense and imitate a more experienced bather. Instead of retiring to the cooling room, I found myself excessively sweating and beginning to feel rather dehydrated. After waiting another 10 minutes to make sure I got my money's worth, and now feeling less clean then when I arrived, I proceeded back to my locker and changed into my clothing.

I walked in the front door prepared for an unobjectionable experience and left through the same door, feeling like I had been Istanbullied around.