Have You Ever Been to a Turkish Bath?
If you have never been to a Turkish bath, on your next visit to the country you should certainly put this on your to do list. Not only are you experiencing something which is historic, but it is a great, fun experience, and it is also something which will leave you clean, and feeling very fresh indeed!
A Turkish bath is also called a hamam, and it stems from the Arabic word ‘hamma’, translating as ‘heating up’. When you look into the actual process then you will understand where the name came from.
Turkish baths are found in all major towns and cities across the country nowadays, but it is was the Ottomans who brought the process to the masses. Prior to this time, these types of baths were only really found in Istanbul, and only used by the rich and prosperous. Baths were also separated in terms of gender, whereas nowadays that isn’t always the case. You can find a Turkish bath easily when you visit any beach resort or city in the country now, and trips can be arranged via street vendors, which can be very low in cost. For the experience, the cost is super worth it!
A Turkish bath is very loosely based on the former Greek and Roman bathing process, but it has its slight differences to explore. There are three main rooms within a Turkish bath, namely the cool room (sogukluk), the tepidity room (ikiklik), and the hot room (sicaklik). The more touristic types of Turkish bath do have big differences to the more traditional types, e.g. they have extras being sold, such as pedicures and manicures, and they also have photographers, which is inevitably to sell a little more and bring cash into the building. You can’t blame them for that!
Overall however, the experience is going to compose of three stages. The first stage is the sauna-type experience. You will head to a space to get changed, and you will be given a locker to store your things. From there you will be led to a sauna, and a group of you will go in there for around ten minutes. This is to hep your body sweat out the impurities, and this encourages your body to open its pores. You can get a really deep clean from a Turkish bath, but this stage is vital. Not everyone can stand the sauna for the full ten minutes, but if you can, try and stay in there until the end.
From there you will walk out into thankfully cool air, and you will enter the bathing area. There are stone seats all around the edge of the room, like a bench, where you will wait until it is your turn. There is a huge stone slab in the middle of the room, and when it is your turn to be scrubbed to within an inch of your life, you will be asked to lay down on the slab, on your back. This slab can usually accommodate between 2 to 4 people. Yes, you will have to lay down next to someone you may not know, but they do try and keep couples and groups together if at all possible, to avoid awkwardness.
The cleaning process is a combination of being almost beaten with a foam-filled balloon, and intense loofah scrubbing. It’s not painful, don’t worry! There will be soap suds, lots and lots of suds, and these will leave your skin feeling silky smooth and sofa. The loofah part is obviously to remove dead skin cells from your skin’s surface, to allow the cleaning suds to penetrate deeper.
Once you have been cleaned, you will be given a towel to wrap around you and then you will be lead outside, where you can sit and relax. The cooling effect of the air conditioning is wonderful! There is likely to be a massage that follows this, if you have gone to a touristic Turkish bath. This is included in the package, however the staff will try and sell you those aforementioned extras. After your massage, you’re free to get dressed and head off on your jolly way!
It is a good idea to have your bath on the first day or the second day of your holiday. This is because your skin will be clean and free of any remaining dead skin cells, and your tan can build up on an even surface, without having it shed too soon, leaving you wondering if you ever went on holiday at all!
