My First Bath (Turkish)
By: Patricia

We all have great travel stories, but there's always one there that we never forget....This is @1000fights's Favorite Travel Story!

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Author: Mike Willits

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

Twitter: @1000fights

Blog: www.1000fights.com

(1000 places to fight before you die)

An experience that is difficult to fully describe. We chose theCagaloglu Hamami or Turkish bath. It is medieval design. The CagalogluHamami is probably the world’s most famous Turkish Bath. It’s featuredin the 1000 places to go before you die book, and is reputed to havebeen visited by King Edward VII, Florence Nightingale, Tony Curtis andCameron Diaz and now my wife Luci. You walk in and are greeted by two“bath guys” they give you the run down on the different bath options.We chose the bath and massage. We put down our green backs, picked outour soap and soapmit. Luci was whisked away to the women side. Fromwhat she described, I should of followed her.

Ok, they give you the key to your “compartment” and in you go.Directions from the aging gentleman were simple. “take off clothes,put on towel”. No welcome to the bath, no: you may be concerned aboutmodesty etc… now the mens waiting room is right in front of the mainentry way. So I walk out and some French girls are pointing anlaughing at me. I think they thought something was funny with mytowel…I don’t know.

You are escorted into the back, which opens into a huge domed roomAt center is a huge marble slab. It is about a 1000 degrees. 10bathers total. One of the employees (blue towel) says: go to hotroom. I am thinking, this is fairly hot. I head to back. Hot roomwas an understatement. I sit down careful to keep knees together.How do you girls do it? I cook for 10 minute, then my “man” comes.“I am Ali” I said, yes you are. “come”. Ali is light on words andheavy on pounds. Ali looks to be expecting twins, and has the hairfrom planet apes. He directs me to lay flat on the center stone. I do.Enter Turkish massage. A lot of chopping, and pulling muscle frombone, which is not as pleasant as it sounds. Ali is ingueiness inusing elbows, and knees to knead soft tissue. At one point, knee isused to “soften buttocks area”. This was the most unpleasant portionof the adventure as marble was not very forgiving of my reverse side(enough said).

Once my entire body has been stretched, pulled and properly kneaded.Ali explained, “now wash”. I was directed to one of the side marblebenches. being completely washed by another man is not something thati do on a regular basis. Ali puts on a sandpaper glove and begins tomethodically remove 1 inch of my skin. He keeps showing me the glove.It is completely covered in skin removed. I nodded like this wasgreat. Then he took his finger nails and removed the top layer of myscalp for 10 mins.

Enter more soap, more scrubbing. At last I look like a drowned cat.Ali says: “done”. I can’t move. I finally find my way back to mycompartment and change. I take a pic with Ali. I tried to wish himluck with the twins…it didn’t translate well.

It was a once in a lifetime experience (I hope!)