Turkish Bath - Istanbul

I had accepted an invitation to rendezvous with my aunt and uncle in Istanbul, Turkey (the largest city in Turkey and the only city in the world built on two continents, it is officially located in both Europe and Asia). The flight time and cost is comparable to traveling from NY to FL, so it was pretty much a no brainer.

After a couple of days of traveling around Istanbul - Topkapi Palace, (where can be viewed the extravagantly jeweled encrusted Topkapi Dagger and Spoonmaker's Diamond, the fifth largest diamond in the world - diamonds are a girls best friend), Bosaphorus Boat Tour, Grand Bazaar (fabulous!), Blue Mosque, etc., Susan and I agree to cap off our stay with an authentic Turkish Bath experience - it's just one of those things on the list of 'to see or do before you die'.

After reviewing several brochures we chose the one who boasted the loudest of offering an authentic Turkish Bath experience - Cagaloglu Hamami - "If you haven't, you've missed one of life's great experiences and never been clean!" Cagaloglu is a Turkish bathing temple, over 300 years old, built by a Sultan during the Ottoman Empire, located in the Old City of Istanbul.

So - we start off by entering the baths main lobby and were greeted (generous use of the word "greeted") by greasy, middle easterner looking fellows - chain smoking and givin us the 'up 'n down'. When we decide on the package we would like (we really had no idea - the man said do this one and so we said 'ok') we are then escorted (again, generous use of the word 'escorted') by a man who walks us to the women's entrance of the bath and explains where to go. Even in his broken English, my gaydar is alerted and recall the reputation of the baths in San Francisco (I wonder - maybe its one of those places?) and oddly feel a sense of calmness - a queen - something I'm familiar with. Once my sense of familiarity regained, I felt comforted. We walked into the womens waiting room, there are about 4 women (Gypsy women, smoking their faces off) wrapped in towels - we weren't sure if they were bathers or work here (?) Finally a woman approaches us, leads us to a changing room, hands us towels and we are to meet her after we've undressed. She then escorts us into the bath, where I find one woman being shampooed and 2 others hanging out. With the exception of the woman shampooing the other, they are all buck-ass-naked.

Still a little timid and trepidations, Susan and I are seated next to a sink with 2 faucets of running water, and then are instructed in a combination of broken English and pantomime to use the pans to wet ourselves down. As we claim our faucets and begin to soak ourselves with the pans and running water, Susan complains of the cold temperature of the water, my water temperature is fine, if not pleasant, and shrug it off. It occurs to her first that one faucet runs cold, while the other hot - she is the one fitting the bill, so that was even more unfortunate for her. After we had resolved the water temperature and are efficiently wet, we are left to wait. Not really sure what we are supposed to do or exactly what we are waiting for...at present, I am sitting naked next to my 64 year old aunt, watching a few other women get lathered up, not really knowing what is in store for us.

Then the woman returns, towel wrapped around her beautifully plump belly, totally topless and cheerful. She gestures to Susan to come to the middle of the bath where there is a large octagonal marble slab for all to lie on. Susan is contemplating what will be a polite way to bring her towel to lie upon, but doesn't get the chance. Off she goes, her naked bod sprawled along where many naked women have lied before. Considering the bath is over 300 years old, I don't want think about the math and the amount of bodies...

My turn - a slightly smaller woman, who did not speak any English, she would just gesture and poke at me when it was time to flip. Her smile was missing a few teeth and occasionally she would spit on the bath floor as she was exfoliating me. Throughout this moment, I contemplated which of my girlfriends would embrace this experience and which ones are way too OCD to ever step a pinky-toe in a situation like mine.

As we are being exfoliated and then sudsed up, the Gypsy women begin to sing, what sound like folk songs, sounding harmonious and simply fun. Sprinkled in between, sounded to be gossip (it's universal) and giggling (they could have been talking about me for all I knew) - I'm guessing this is how they pass their time while scrubbing down naked, strange women from all over the world.

Again, as I receive all of this unfamiliarity, I looked around to see the many other naked women, thinking of the woman who was bathing me and how many others she had scrubbed down with her bare hands as she is doing to me...it is raw and just great, it is hard to explain why but was liberating

As we left, Susan and I had a glow and like school girls giggled over our experience. No matter what, we will always have the Turkish Bath in Istanbul.