turkish baths, round II

It is the Bayram weekend here in İstanbul, and this means that everyone has a day off and most people are out of the city. What a great time, I thought, to explore the city and see the many sights that I have neglected to do thus far. Things kicked off well with a party at a friends house where I met an ethnic Iranian Jewish Turk (tick!) and a Canadian juggler who made the entire party hold hands to channel some juggling-conducive energy. All good and in the name of fun, until I decided to drink a full glass of water straight from the tap, and so day one of the 'holiday' was spent lolling around on the couch and bathroom floor as my body attempted to rid itself of whatever is kept in the water pipes around here. Not quite the weekend I had envisaged. Just to keep things interesting though, there does seem to be a persistent shot-gun sound that occurs every couple of hours in my compound. No idea what this is, and respond in responsible-adult fashion i.e turn up the repeats of '24' on the telly.

Anyway, the bath. So a colleague and I pick a bath out of this coffee-table-style guide to the 'historic baths and culture of İstanbul', jump on a dolmuş to Sarıyer and hope for the best. As usual, my Turkish is completely inadequate and attempts to ask if we are in Sarıyer is are responded to with 'straight ahead'... so I guess we are going the right way. It is a little frustrating to spend three hours a week in language lesson and realise that the only thing people understand of me is the name of the place we are headed for... which was written on the bus anyway. However, I take heart from a story I heard recently when a man who has lived here for seven years went to an office and starting chattering away in Turkish... only to have the woman behind the desk explain that she didn't speak English. Te he he.

So the fun continues when we get off the bus and ask which way the bath is. Of course the answers that are given do not contain the words I know for straight ahead, left, or right. And so we just keep walking in the direction pointed until we hit another crossroad and ask someone else... with the same result. (Note to you all-- when someone asks for directions in faltering English, use SIMPLE words in your answer!)

Finally we 'arrive' at what looks like a tea house and is surrounded by old men, but is apparently the bath.... we walk up tentatively and step inside. No one around.... we walk back and ask the tea men.... yes it is open. Repeat times two. Finally a man ushers us through a curtain (at which point I realise I must have been walking around the mens area of the bath earlier-- but press on, since I saw nothing) and into a little room with change rooms inside. Due to the fact that the men are not supposed to be anywhere near the women's side, he wants to speak to us in Turkish through a curtain. Do you speak English? I say in perfect Turkish. No I don't speak English, he says in perfect English. Thus ends the usefulness of those phrases.

After a little pointless nattering back and forth and quite a bit of exasperated giggling, he finally gives in and comes through the curtain, knocks on the door to the bath interior and shouts. The door swings open and there, barking instructions in the friendly but brusque Turkish that so many women seem to adopt as the manner of choice, stands a woman about my mother's age, naked except for a saggy skin coloured pair of what looks like thermal undies. Rolled up at the sides, mind you, so the effect is somewhat like that of a saggy boobed baby. We have arrived.

The man steps away and we are shown that the deal is to wear only underwear-- no bras though. Western friend and I are suitably horrified but I decide to obey and come into the bath wearing only the warm plastic flip flops provided, my bathers bottoms and a stiff towel. Next instruction-- towels off!

I make a shamefaced run back to the change rooms where I re-dress into my bathers top.

Charissa and I sit down to be scrubbed, washed and massaged. Or as Charissa later puts it, violated. First we have the pleasure of watching a more-experienced bath go-er strip down and give (all of) her body a thorough once-over. This is confronting enough without considering that we are expected to do the same in a few minutes. And the bathers top doesn't last either. You try maintaining your modesty while a mostly-naked Turkish grandmother yelps at you to take it off. But actually, once we got over the horror of seeing each others boobs get a scrub with a large exfoliating mitt, it was pretty fun. Our bath attendant is unconcerned with our concepts of social niceties, but actually rather jolly in her own way. Learning that I am a teacher and from Reşitpaşa inspires the first slap on my nearly naked butt. And Charissa's nervous giggles inspire her to throw large containers of warm water at her when she's not ready. You kind of can't help but lose your inhibitions after that. She grunts and sighs deeply as she massages us but is undeterred by the digusting sludge that is scrubbed of our bodies in the first wash. And successfully asking her whether she was tired made me so happy that I didn't even flinch when she grabbed my foot and held it between her tummy and naked breasts to finish soaping my leg. Each sections' finish is declaring with a loud and triumphant 'TAMAM!' (ok) and by the end of it all we are both kind of freaked out but definately keen to go again. All in all, it was a great morning.