NAKED (July 30, Part II)

I made you curious with that title, huh? Yep, it means just what you think.

We had checked out Turkish baths in the morning since we heard they were a MUST DO. We weren’t told much about them, because it would “ruin the experience.” We figured it was some sort of massage or something, and a big bath you could go in maybe. Some girls wore bathing suit bottoms, but a few of us didn’t because we figured you could just keep your towel on at all times if you wanted to. We were in for a “treat”……and here’s where the “naked” part comes in.

It took us forever to try to find the Turkish Bath. We had our map out and were looking for it, but as it turns out the name of the particular bath we were going to was also the name of a small district within Istanbul. So when we said the name (to 4 different people as we asked directions), people would point us in a direction that we followed…and ended up at a junction of 3 streets. Apparently we were “there.” We found one last person to ask and he understood we were trying to go to the baths, and thankfully he pointed us in the right direction. We finally got there! The baths were actually pretty expensive. The prices were in Euros. In other words, a lot more expensive than they seemed. We heard it was definitely worth it and an experience we had to have, so we all sucked it up and paid for just entrance to the baths and a massage. We could get the exfoliation if we wanted, and much more, but we just stuck with the basics and really wanted massages! Back massages, that is…

We were given receipts and pointed in the direction of the women’s section of the baths. We walked in, handed the receptionist our receipts, and were shown to our changing rooms upstairs. We all had our own room with a massage bed, so we sighed a sigh of relief that the massages were in there and we could probably stay covered with our towels. Turns out we were wrong—very wrong.

We changed into our towels, put on our wooden clog shoes (so hard to walk in!), and headed back down to find the baths. As I walked by the entrance door to the baths, I looked in to see a completely naked woman laying down with her hands up, being scrubbed by another woman (who worked there). NOOOOOOOOO. Oh no. This wasn’t real…this wasn’t happening. What happened to it being a big bath? Why was everyone naked?! We all kind of freaked out and hesitantly walked in…we found a little empty alcove and all plopped down. CULTURE SHOCK. There was no “bath” in this large, overheated sauna room. There was a giant round marble platform. Naked women were laying along the rim of this circle and were being scrubbed and massaged- face up and face down. We were all still FREAKING out, and decided we would just use the little faucets and “bathe” ourselves…really, we just wanted to get out of there ASAP. Mid freak-out, we were approached by a woman who worked there. She took one of the keys from the girls and told her to follow her. Uh oh. We were all scared for her. She hesitantly followed. She was told to take off her towel and lay down. Could she keep her towel on? NO! Oh….kay…she was the first one to brave it. We stopped watching because we didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable…so we all just looked at each other panicking and still freaking out. I’m not talking feeling awkward…we were freaking out, freaking out. We were NOT planning on being stark naked in a room full of women. Yes, it was only women, but STILL! We were seeing more of these women than we ever wanted to see, ever ever ever. And everyone in there just acted like it was just no big deal at all! I thought they were CONSERVATIVE in Turkey! Apparently just for the men!

One by one, women who worked there came and got us. One of the girls asked if she could only have her back massaged. Darn communication barrier. The woman didn’t understand and flipped her over anyway. When she tried to stop her, the woman wouldn’t have it. She paid for a massage, and a massage she was getting.

Finally it was my turn. And so proceeded the most awkward 20 minutes of my life thus far.

There was no room on the platform, so she grabbed my towel off of me (as I gracefully—not—attempted to cover myself), laid it on the ground near the rest of our girls who were waiting, and motioned for me to lay down. I looked panicked but she didn’t care, she wasn’t very patient. She grabbed me and started pulling me down so I finally just laid down. There was no such thing as conservative anymore! I started on my back. They don’t have any privacy rules apparently with this massage. She stayed away from my biggest “no-no zone,” but apparently to her the rest of my body didn’t have any more “no-no zones.” Massage meant full body. She kept telling me to relax but there was no relaxing! I would relax when she flipped me over! Boy, was I glad I didn’t sign up for exfoliation as well! That’s all the detail I’ll go into here. When she finished with the massage, she told me to sit up and face the other way. All of the sudden I was being doused in water and couldn’t breathe! No warning?! I thought maybe she’d rinse me with big pans of water a couple times. No, this went on for about 5 minutes. DUNK, gasp for air, DUNK, DUNK, DUNK, gasp for air. Then she washed my hair (I think with just soap) and proceeded to dunk me all over again. DUNK, gasp for air, hold breath, DUNK, soap in eyes, DUNK, DUNK, DUNK. Finally the dunking stopped. Finally I would get my towel back!! Nope, wrong again. She then made me sit there for 15 minutes to “dry naturally” and refused to give me my towel back. She just walked away with it! The other girls got to put their towels back on! Finally after about 5 or 10 minutes of sitting there, I asked (on the verge on demanding) for my towel back. I think she realized that I REALLY did want it. I was finally decent again and happily scooted in my wooden clogs back to the girls. All of us were still in shock. One of the girls came back all bundled up in warm towel- one for her body and one for her hair. No fair! Where did she get those?! She took us outside the bathing room and we discovered the warm, dry towels (rather than the drenched towels we had laid on, got soaked, and put back on)!!! Hallelujah! AND we were officially out of there! Well, it was quite the experience…to say the least. We sat out in the waiting area to let our hair dry some and saw that there were menus on the tables. We decided that after that experience, we DESERVED to treat ourselves to chocolate milkshakes. After waiting about a half hour, we received our chocolate “milkshakes”— milk + Hershey’s syrup. Yeah, they probably “shook” it but that does NOT count as a milkshake in my book! We finally changed and left, and took the tram back to the ship. Apparently, though, it’s obvious that women have come from the baths when they walk around with wet hair. We got just gross comments from men on the streets telling us that they’d be better at bathing us, and it would be better if they could join. Thank goodness we’re getting used to these comments and can now brush them off as perverted. That’s one thing I do miss from the US—the fact that you can walk all the way down a street and not get hit on about 1000 times—in disturbing ways, not flattering ones. Yeah, maybe you’ll get a whistle from a car going by or a honk, but it is nothing like Europe. That’s for sure. Anyway, we braved the trams again and finally got back to the ship.

And then we all showered after our Turkish baths. We did NOT feel clean after that experience! We met up on deck again when it got dark and enjoyed the best view in the city for a beautiful and relaxing end to a very Turkish day.

And that concludes today’s post. :)