Turkey Slap

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.

A Bump in the Night

This is a story about my 2nd night in Istanbul, where I stayed in a hostel after my first unpleasent (understatement?) night which I've written about here:

A not so Turkish Delight

So after leaving my couchsurfing host's home, I checked myself into a hostel in the old city. As I settled in my dorm to gather myself and recover from the recent events, I met two of my roommates. Two Aussie blokes, one blonde and the other brunette. There were 3 bunkbeds in the room. I was on the top bunk of brunette Aussie, and blonde Aussie was in the bottom bunk opposite us. There were three Italians taking the rest of the beds, two ladies and a guy. The guy was in the top bed on blonde aussie's bunk. You'll see why I've explained this soon enough.

The Belly dancer with Blonde Aussie

I then headed out for lunch with my friend and did more sight seeing. It was a good day of happy snapping on my camera, dodging the local men asking me to have coffee/tea/dinner with them, and meeting some cool Portugese guys (both named Miguel) at dinner as we watched a local 'belly' dancer (she wasn't very good at all!) perform as part of the evening's attraction. I think the girl was working for the local mob or something of the like, as she had a handler who discreetly sat in the corner. Throughout her performance, the belly dancer would pull guys up to dance with her. Both Miguels got pulled up and later told me that the whole time they were dancing with her, she was saying 'Money! Money! Money! Money!' and wouldn't let them sit back down until he gave her money. She would then look over at her handler for permission to stop dancing and wait for the cue.

As I was tired from the previous nights events I went to bed at a reasonable hour only to be awoken a few hours later by the sound of our drunk aussie friends coming back from their night out. Brunette basically passed out on his bed but Blonde had decided to bring someone back with him. A girl!!!

'Oh dear lord,' I thought to myself, 'This is gonna be the first hostel dorm sex encounter I'll be exposed to.'

Blonde and his friend get into his lower bunk bed and start making out. I try to block it all out and go back to sleep, but was unsuccessful. I can hear them shuffling and moving. I can hear sucking noises and soft moans. At this point, I can't help but wonder if they're rooting or not. I try to block it out again and go to sleep. Minutes later I decide the effort was futile and decide to check my mobile for the time. It was 5am. I put my phone back down and what happens? It falls down the side of my bed and under Brunettes bed with a great parading clatter of noise against the wall and onto the floor. Great. GREAT!! Blonde and his friend stop for a few moments probably to look to see if I'm awake. I lay still and pretend I'm asleep, asif I had knocked my phone off my bed in my sleep.

Soon they are at it again. I roll around and face the bunk they're in. Yes, I admit it, I tried to take a peek in the dark. I was curious. Shoot me. It was too dark to see anything though, which was a good thing. What I did see though, was that Mr Italy was awake on the top bunk. The poor guy!! The bunk bed was moving and squeaking as the horny two were at it, and he was in the top bunk feeling it all!

At this point, we can hear them whispering. Skanky girl must be getting cold feet. I couldn't hear the conversation clearly, but I did hear skanky girl say 'No. I can't. We shouldn't.' Eventually they went back to fooling around and then finally went to sleep.

The next morning, the Italian ladies are the first to wake up having no idea of last nights events. They shower and get dressed. Once the bathroom is free, Blonde gets up and goes to the bathroom. The Italian ladies look at him strangely. Blonde has a bandage wrapped around his whole head! As he shuts the door to the bathroom, the ladies notice there's still a body in his bed. Mr Italy is awake now, so they ask him what's going on in Italian. Mr Italy retells the events in their language and the ladies burst out laughing. They look at the bed, then at the bathroom, back at the bed and then again at the bathroom. Blonde comes out of the bathroom to meet the stares of the Italians.

'Oh, it's not as bad as it looks,' Blonde remarks. The Italians look at him quizzically.

'My head.' He continues to explain. 'It's just a small scratch. I bumped my head when we were out last night and it started bleeding. This was the only way to keep the bandage on, so I had my whole head bandaged.'

Awkward silence.

'But I'm ok. Nothing serious.'

'Next time you want to FUCK,' Mr Italy angrily remarks in his thick Italian accent, 'GET A FUCKING HOTEL ROOM!'

Yes!!! You tell him! OMG this is HILARIOUS. The dumbfounded look on Blonde's face as he realises that he wasn't as discreet as he thought was pure gold. He gives Mr Italy a sheepish look and apologises, then crawls back into bed with skanky girl who is hiding her face under the blankets in shame.

The Italians finish getting dressed and leave the room. I jump down, crawl under brunette's bed to get my phone and go to brush my teeth. As I look into the bathroom mirror brushing my teeth, I see the reflection of skanky girl walking past to leave the room. We make eye contact through the mirror as she walks out redfaced and embarrassed.