The Turkish Bath

After posting last, I made my way down Van's main street to a Hamam (Turkish Bath) outside my hotel....after descending a staircase that could have doubled as a downtown skytrain entrance,  three kurds (the manager and two young dudes) met me at the door and boisterously escorted me into the waiting area...During the early stages of the trip in the west of turkey hamams were designed for tourists and quite expensive (25 million lira= 25 CDN) so i had put them off knowing the east would provide the real experience.......and what an experience.....

I started off in the steam room, much like our saunas except sans cedar (marble instead) and with turkish lemon tea....id have to say i like the cedar better, only for the fragrance....but whos counting?......After the steam comes the wash.....the two young guys (maybe 17 or so) sat me down and made me strike various poses as one of them proceeded to remove roughly 7 layers of my epidermis with a rough cloth.....2 months of the mediterranean sun had left me with quite the.......uhhhh......buildup........the whole time they would chatter at me in broken english....

Next came the razor and after many minutes of charades and broken english/turkish i managed to get across to them that i didnt want my chest shaved....so they settled for a beard trim and the armpits....i had to concede something.... The massage was definitely the most memorable though (if not painful)....they seemed to take some sort of sadistic pleasure in pinching the tenderest muscles or forcing most of the blood in my body to the tips of my fingers....and it went on forever....i got the feeling they were ensuring i got the full treatment due to my foreigner status...

And yes, at the start there is something strange about having two 17 year old boys washing you, but you get over it pretty quickly.....plus its turkish custom and the last thing you want to do is offend the bloody turks.... When i got back to my hotel at 9:30 my body was so relaxed i passed out immediately and slept for 12 hours straight...........12 million lira well spent

More to come.....

ryan