My Istanbul adventure. An unintentional weekend of sexual mishappens. After having a good laugh at the expense of my red-faced horny hostel roommate, I begin my last day in Istanbul.
After going out for some breakfast and a walk around the old city, looking for last minute souveniers, I find myself back at the hostel with 4 hours to spare before I need to head to the airport. Looking at my options, I decide to try out the local Turkish bath house. It'll be a nice pamper and relaxing treatment right? Hmmm only time will tell.
I book myself in and 30 minutes later, a taxi pulls up outside to pick me up.
What exactly does a Turkish bath house treatment involve? I had no idea. I figured it would be something like spring baths where we bathe in spas or natural pools.
I get dropped off in a quiet part of town and the driver points to the stone building we're next to to indicate this is the bath house. There are seperate adjacent bath houses for men and women. I enter the building and find inside a large foyer like area with a large pit in the centre of the room. Couches are scattered around the place, and there are small booths lined up around the pit. There is an old turkish woman tidying up the couches in the pit.
She looks up and waves hello.
'Hi. I booked for the Turkish bath. My name is Ronda.'
'Ahhh come come. Take towel. This key is to lock the door. Leave your things inside.' The woman replies, as she hands me a key hanging off an elastic band. She leads me to one of the booths and leaves me to get undressed.
Once done, she takes me through to the bathing area. Walking through the door between the front foyer and into the bathing area, you are immediately hit with a wave of heat and the smell of dampness. Running water can be heard and there is a sense of muffled seclusion. As I am lead through a maze of hallways, I can feel sweat trickle down my back. We end up in a large stone room. This is the bathing room. All around the walls, there are numerous taps which run water into the trough which lines the wall. In the middle of the room is what looks like a large stone alter/table.
The room is empty bar ourselves. The woman takes me to one of the wall taps, turns it on and instructs me to pour water over myself and wash up. She then leaves.
Following her instructions, I sit on the edge of the stone trough and start ladelling water and pour it over myself. Is this it? I wonder. Not sure what to do, I keep pouring water on myself for about 10 minutes. Thinking this is it, I wrap myself up in the towel and head back out. Just as I find my way back to the foyer, the lady sees me and tells me to go back inside and that she'll be there soon.
I head back and start pouring water on myself again. Shortly after, the woman returns. Naked, except for her underwear. Her breasts are sagging down to her stomach and flops back and forth as she walks. In her hands is a bar of soap and shower puff. She instructs me to come lay on the stone table face down on my stomach. I do so.
What have I gotten myself into?
A bucket of water is thrown on me and soon she starts scrubbing me from head to toe. She leans over me to reach the areas further away from her. The bar of soap is rubbed on and then scrub scrub scrub. As she's scrubbing away, her naked breasts are slapping against me. Skin to skin. Slap slap slap slap slap.
Once she's done, she instructs me to turn onto my back and the process of rubbing soap and scrubbing begins again. Slap slap slap slap slap.
I feel slightly disturbed by this. I also found it quite funny. But most of all, I felt like a child being bathed by her mother. Even my hair and face was scrubbed (yes, by the same bar of soap and shower puff).
Once she was done with me, she had me go back to my tap in the wall to cleanse. I was advised that I could go to the sauna when I was ready and stay there for as long as I liked.
As I sat against the wall pouring water over myself, I decided this was not the relaxing bath house experience I was expecting.
Istanbul, it's been an interesting weekend. I think next time I come to visit, I'll be bringing friends.
