I’m somewhat appalled that I’ve forgotten how to sweat profusely with nonchalance. Or, more specifically, I’m not yet at a point of ambivalence when I realize there’s sweat pooling in the front of my sports bra. Apologies to those of you who just visualized that. But walk half a block in the streets of Istanbul in August and ‘soaked’ is a perpetual state of being.
I’ve taken to carrying deodorant with me everywhere I go, and putting it to use when a code red status is reached. (And honestly, I wish the average Turkish man would follow my example on this one. I will say no more.) One of our favorite rituals is finding the side ‘porch’ of mosques (yes, atrocious, but I’m unclear on the correct architectural term), modestly whipping up the back of our skirts, and cooling our thighs on the shaded marble. It’s debatable whether we covet our morning stops at Starbucks more for the caffeine or the temporary oasis of air conditioning it provides. Ice-cream is consumed on a daily basis for it’s ability to chill the brain temporarily, and I don’t even feel guilty about it. (Some of you will understand how huge this is.) And at the end of the day when we return to the hotel, we examine that day’s wardrobe for the inevitable salt stains that will act as a reminder of how hot it really was that afternoon.
So, maybe you’re catching on. We sweat in Istanbul, we sweat a lot.
We’ve tried to put a positive spin on it. But I find you can only ‘glisten’ so much before you’re repulsed by yourself.
So given all of this, its somewhat surprising that yesterday afternoon, we paid money to sweat even more. After a frustrating morning battling wall-to-wall tourists in Topkapi Palace, we retired to Cemberlitas Hamam in the Old Town, one of Istanbul’s oldest and most famous traditional Turkish bath houses.
I’d have to say we were fairly ignorant about the experience in advance, but in general I think that’s the best strategy because it keeps things interesting. We knew some scrubbing was involved, as a colleague in Toronto had advised visiting the bath-house before the acquisition of a tan. (A most definite check on that, as I’m still in possession of my ghostly pallor.) And we’d ascertained that said scrubbing would be performed by a female. But beyond that, we were clueless.
Upon entry we were given scrubbing cloths, pointed in the direction of the change room, and told to take everything off but our underwear. Instantly flashing back to my ayurvedic massages in India where I was denied even the smallest scrap of covering, keeping my panties on sounded very generous.
We were then escorted to the main bath area, an Ottoman structure dating from the early 1500s, with a soaring dome-shaped octagonal ceiling. Beneath the dome was a very large slab of warm marble, and sprinkled upon the slab, visible through the steam, was a collection of pretty much naked women, also clad in their panties. This I had expected. More surprising was the state of undress of the attendants. In amongst the panty-clad patrons was a half dozen Turkish middle-aged matrons, uniformly kitted out in black bra and grandma panty sets or bikinis. I guess one could look at it as just one step past what I might see in a restaurant in Toronto, where black and scanty is the uniform of many young waitresses. But there’s a long way between being 21 and pouring yourself into a painted-on, butt-cheek-exposing skirt and gravity-defying halter top to serve cocktails, and being 45 and your work uniform being a bikini worn in 80 or 90 degree temperatures, while you scrub down sweaty foreigners.
Taking all this in and attempting to process it, Kristen and I were delivered to an open section of the marble slab, and told to lay down and relax until it was our turns. Easier said than done. It took me a minute or so to acclimatize to the idea, but then I dropped my towel and lay back on the marble - bits on display and already sweating copiously. Kristen was a bit more hesitant, but fair enough, I say. About 10 minutes later one of the matrons came and motioned for Kristen to follow her to a bathing area, really just a couple metres away on the slab. I continued to sweat.
Cracking an eyeball open as I heard Kristen being led away, I caught a glimpse of our bathing attendant. She was absolutely fantastic. I guess I have no imagination, but I’d never considered wearing a bikini top this way. It was upside down. Now I admit, me in a bikini is nothing to write home about. But part of my strategy is to actually wear the bikini top in such a way that I give gravity a boost, and the girls are given as much elevation as a stretch of spandex can enable. Our attendant had a different strategy entirely. Wearing a bikini every day for work, I’m assuming her approach was based on comfort, possibly to minimize chaffing. But the bottom section of a bikini top that would normally rest below the breasts was in fact above the breasts, and the large pre-formed cups hung upside down to oh-so-casually shield her fairly substantial pendulous breasts. The straps that would normally be tied around the neck hung loose, bouncing against her generous stomach as she scrubbed patrons. Pondering it all but not wanting to stare, I closed my eyes again, and returned to my sweating, my musings occasionally interrupted by a giggle or squeal coming from Kristen’s direction.
Fifteen minutes later it was my turn. Essentially the process is as follows. You lay sprawled on the heated marble slab. You are liberally soaped up, using a large linen bag that is dipped in soapy water then squeezed over your body so you’ve enveloped in suds. You’re then aggressively scrubbed with the abrasive cloth you were given on entry into the bath. As each section of your body is completed, you are doused with a bowl of cold water. Hence the squealing. Occasionally she would slap me on my pretty much bare ass cheek - my cue to flip sides. Not really what I needed, the sound of my cellulite being slapped echoing through the bathing chamber. They could probably hear the reverberations on the other side of Istanbul.
A squabble amongst another attendant and some patrons tore my attendant away for a few minutes. Unclear whether she was done with me, or whether we were just taking a hiatus, I just decided to lay there quietly and keep sweating. Five minutes later, I peered over. Three attendants appeared to be in a heated exchange with two patrons, and everyone was clearly frustrated. The nature of the disagreement eluded me. Perhaps some soap had carelessly been tossed in someone’s eye, or the scrubbing had been too aggressive? As they gestured I realized that despite the bikinis and grandma panty-sets, they were really no different than the clusters of women we’d see every night on front stoops in the neighborhood surrounding our hotel. My attendant seemed to be the chief communicator, but after much gesturing and rolling of the eyes the attendants conferred and my attendant was back, muttering ‘the Saudia Arabians, always the problems’. I smiled awkwardly and closed my eyes as she reached for the suds bag. My knowledge of the intricacies of Middle Eastern relations is rudimentary at best, and seeing these relations play out inside a Turkish bath, well, I felt completely unqualified to enter the debate.
Nearing the end of my scrub down, she started on my arms. Now I admit, I’m not great at helping along the natural exfoliant process. Like multivitamins, exfoliating is something I know I should do, but I rarely get around to it. So I’m appalled to admit that when the attendant started scrubbing my upper arms, what I can only assume was a concoction of dry skin, copious amounts of sunscreen, and a slick of sweat rolled up into a grey, sheet-like layer, that lifted with the scrubbing mitt. She clucked under her breath and asked me ‘where you from, lady?’ I replied ‘Canada’. ‘This Canada very dirty’. How mortifying. I felt somewhat compelled to defend my country’s reputation, and wracked my brains for rebuttals. Now I could have gotten into a debate over how the pollution of Istanbul had probably added to my apparent filth, but my argument seemed feeble in the face of such matronly clucking and shaking of the head. If I’d been capable of blushing in such heated conditions, I would have, but I just shrugged and let her wag a finger at me.
With a farewell slap on my butt cheek, she gestured towards a small door off the main bathing chamber. Inside I found two hot baths, similar to a hot tubs, but larger, and without the jets. One was large enough to do a mini lap, a couple strokes and then you’d be done, but it was feasible. There was an older women in the larger tub as I entered the room, so I relegated myself to the smaller one. Panties were still in tact, but to be honest, we’re still talking about getting into a tub with a pretty much naked complete stranger. Now for some people, maybe that’s the headline of a pretty fun evening, but for me, when the other person in question is a 65 year old woman, well, it’s just sort of odd. As I’ve mused before, perhaps this experience is not that different than getting into a hot-tub, but the protective spandex covering my bits is an important distinction. I left my hang-ups intact, and relaxed in my own private pool, and closed my eyes. A couple minutes later two more women enter, the younger, quickly dipping into the larger pool, but the older women paused to spit on the narrow pathway of pebbles that separated the two pools. Being pretty much at eye level with the spit as it found its destination, I reflected that perhaps I’d spent enough time bathing, and it was time to move onto the final stage of my experience, the oil massage.
There’s not a lot to tell about the oil massage. I was close to being unconscious throughout the whole thing, so yes, it was incredibly relaxing. I was pretty much a walking oil slick at its completion, and struggled to place one foot in front of the other as I ambled out to the sitting room, totally and utterly relaxed. I emerged to find Kristen seated on a bench with a cool drink in hand, massage oil having turned her hair into, well something best not captured on film, but a giant smile on her face. Relaxed? Check. Exfoliated? Check. Returning to my shower at home would be downright pedestrian after this. But as I left the hamam I stopped to purchase a scrubbing mitt from the gift shop. A little bit of Istanbul in my bathroom in Toronto. A melding of cultures can happen anywhere, now can’t it?
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