We had an entire glorious, sunny day to spend in Antalya before we departed on the 10pm overnight bus to Cappadocia. We slept in, and lingered over breakfast in our guesthouse's poolside garden. At 10am, we decided to walk around and see more of the Old and New Towns.
We didn't really have an agenda today beyond relaxing, so we strolled Antalya's beautiful marina. It sits at the base of the Old Town fortress walls, at the bottom of over forty very ancient, very slick stone stairs (which I of course slipped and fell on). It's still one of the prettiest harbors I've seen.
As we strolled Old Town, we came upon a hamam (Turkish bath) that our guesthouse owner had recommended. Her foam-party hell-boat recommendation from yesterday notwithstanding, we decided to check out the hamam. It was clean and inviting and the owner seemed cool, so we booked two appointments. Matt chose the Turkish bath, peel, soap massage, and oil massage package; I chose a slightly shorter package, minus the oil massage. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of massages or strangers touching me in general, so I figured one massage would be my tolerance maximum.
Turkish hamams are gender-segregated, so I bade good-bye to Matt, and headed to the women's baths. Now, living as a foreigner in Europe, I am well acquainted with the experience of I Am Doing This Wrong, and Everyone is Watching. It doesn't even faze me anymore...which is a good thing, because I was the only non-Turkish speaker in the hamam, and I had no fucking idea what I was supposed to do when the heavyset older woman pointed to what looked like a supply closet.
Upon opening the door, it appeared to be a changing cabin. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to take off my clothes and wait for someone, or change into something else, or just sit quietly like I was being put in the Naughty Corner. I opted for stripping down, and peeking my head around the door for further directions.
The old lady was waiting for me outside the changing room door (wearing, I will note, nothing but a bra, ginormous granny panties, and a "what the fuck is taking you so long" expression), and pointed me to another door. This door opened into the hamam area, with air so hot and sauna-like that it was hard to breathe.
The entire room was tiled in gray marble, and along the walls were hot and cold faucets, sinks, and buckets. In the center of the room was a huge granite slab. There were two other women in there, bathing themselves by dipping the bucket in the sinks, and pouring the buckets over their heads. So I joined in; after about ten minutes I was both fully damp and completely alone. I wasn't quite sure if that was the entire hamam experience- if so, I think I needed about thirty-five of my forty lira payment back- so I decided to just splay out on the huge granite slab and wait until someone noticed that a small American was taking a nap in their hamam.
The old lady finally returned, and signalled me to lie on my stomach. She then began the "peel" treatment: Essentially she took the largest, roughest loofa I've ever encountered and proceeded to remove several layers of my skin and dignity. In the words of my father-in-law, who visited a hamam on a Turkey trip several years ago, "your skin peels off like Tootsie Rolls."
When I was fully molted, she dumped a bucket of cold water over me, and brought out the Suds Bag. What is the Suds Bag? Well, it's when you're sort of half-asleep on your back, and a large woman dumps an entire three-foot-long bag of soap suds on you without any warning. I felt like a soapy airbag had exploded on me. She proceeded to lather me up vigorously; I will admit that when one is covered in soap suds, it's hard not to play with the bubbles like a four-year-old. That's probably how I slipped off the granite slab, now that I think about it.
A soapy massage and another bucket of cold water later, she pointed me back to the faucets to rinse off, and return to the changing room. She offered me Turkish tea, which we drank in companionable, if not completely awkward, silence. When my teacup was empty, I headed upstairs to check on Matt, who was happily oiled and relaxed.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon by the pool at our guesthouse, reading and drinking Efes beers. At 8pm, we had dinner at a small cafe while we waited for our overnight bus to arrive. We have a nine-hour bus ride east tonight, arriving in beautiful Cappadocia at 7am!
Mark Silver
2018-05-04
Denise, LOVE the granny panties visual. Have fun!!