I knew I had to experience a Turkish bath at least once on my travels to this country. My sister insisted that I do it since she had such a hilarious experience when she visited the country involving a fat Turkish man, scrubbing her clean with cold water.
We arrived at the local, non-touristic hamam, where men and women are in separate rooms. We each got our own small cabins where we undressed and wrapped a cloth around our bodies to cover ourselves. Afterwards, we headed to a huge hot room, like a really big sauna, with a marble platform in the center of the room, and sinks around the perimeter of the room for people to use to cool off from the heat. The room was not nearly as hot as a sauna, but you are expected to sit there for a lot longer. We sat in their for about 30-45 minutes. I was fine at the beginning, but the heat was getting to me near the end of it and my heart was beating so fast! I used the sinks to douze myself with cooler water so that I could tolerate the heat.
Around that time, I was already cleaning the nasty dead skin cells off my body, but when I was led to the adjacent room by a portly Turkish man, that's when all the (Mr. Clean) magic happened. He used a scrubbing towel and basically rubbed copious amounts of dead skin cells off my back, chest, legs, ankles, neck, and arms. It was incredible the black rolls of skin cells that fell off my body. I don't think I've ever exfoliated my skin that much, and as much as I would like to blame it on my travels to smoggy and polluted countries in South East Asia, I think the same amount would have been removed if I did this same procedure prior to traveling. Who knows?
After the scrub down, the Turkish man took me back to the large room, where I was given a massage on the marble platforms, before being washed with soapy suds and rinsed clean. I felt like a baby getting cleaned by my mommy .Maybe not nearly as hilarious as my sister's experience, but still an interesting one!
We arrived at the local, non-touristic hamam, where men and women are in separate rooms. We each got our own small cabins where we undressed and wrapped a cloth around our bodies to cover ourselves. Afterwards, we headed to a huge hot room, like a really big sauna, with a marble platform in the center of the room, and sinks around the perimeter of the room for people to use to cool off from the heat. The room was not nearly as hot as a sauna, but you are expected to sit there for a lot longer. We sat in their for about 30-45 minutes. I was fine at the beginning, but the heat was getting to me near the end of it and my heart was beating so fast! I used the sinks to douze myself with cooler water so that I could tolerate the heat.
Around that time, I was already cleaning the nasty dead skin cells off my body, but when I was led to the adjacent room by a portly Turkish man, that's when all the (Mr. Clean) magic happened. He used a scrubbing towel and basically rubbed copious amounts of dead skin cells off my back, chest, legs, ankles, neck, and arms. It was incredible the black rolls of skin cells that fell off my body. I don't think I've ever exfoliated my skin that much, and as much as I would like to blame it on my travels to smoggy and polluted countries in South East Asia, I think the same amount would have been removed if I did this same procedure prior to traveling. Who knows?
After the scrub down, the Turkish man took me back to the large room, where I was given a massage on the marble platforms, before being washed with soapy suds and rinsed clean. I felt like a baby getting cleaned by my mommy .Maybe not nearly as hilarious as my sister's experience, but still an interesting one!
Don't I look lovely after my Turkish Bath?
Agata and Bartek, CSers from Poland, making us some Polish soup!
Find Ryan Gosling's interview with Jimmy Fallon where he describes his experience at a Turkish bath...it's really funny and he's super hot!
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