Scrub-A-Dub-Dub

The hamam, or Turkish Bath, is widely known around the world, but most people know it by name only. Not many people know exactly what goes down inside a hamam. After visiting the baths several times, I want to share my impressions of the experience.

To begin with, most of the really traditional hamams were built by the Ottomans. And yes, they still exist, and they look just the same! The same buildings have been used for centuries. Maybe there is a little bit more modern plumbing (this is just a maybe, though), but both the exterior and the interior look straight out of Ottoman times. The one I have been to here in Adana was built in the 15th or 16th century. Located in "Eski Adana"  ("Old Adana"), it is a marble construction topped with several domes. Sounds like it would stick out, right? But you could almost miss this building, which is nestled into a crowded and bustling older neighborhood, between tiny kebab restaurants, tailors, small hardware stores, and a small yet lovely mosque and park. The Big Clock (the tallest clock tower in Turkey!), one of Adana's landmarks, stands just down the street, within view from the entrance.

The hamams have separate days, or times of the day, for men and for women. On one of my recent visits, I came bright and early on a Saturday morning with my friend Charlotte and her host mother and sister. We brought with us the necessary towels (one big one for the body, one small one for the head), terlik (flip-flop-ish shoes), shampoo, conditioner, soap, a loofah, and a change of undergarments. Upon arriving, we were ushered into a large changing room where women in various stages of undress mill around, chatting, drinking tea or water, and preparing to either enter the baths or exit the building. We took of our outer clothing leaving only our undergarments on. Some women choose to wear bikinis, but most just wear their underwear and an optional bra.

Let me just take a moment to correct what could be a possible misconception: the women who go to the hamam are generally not harem-like, youthful, buxom beauties. They are mostly older women. Let your mind imagine what it will. You must be ready to shed all preconceptions of body image or modesty before walking into a hamam!

Well, when we finished undressing, we left our clothes and towels hanging on a hook on the wall and walked up a couple of stairs, through a door, and immediately cascaded into a hot, overwhelmingly humid room. The huge room is made of white and cream marble. The domed ceiling lets in light through small holes. All along the walls are giant marble sinks with faucets running water. Off the large room are many smaller and more secluded rooms where there are more sinks. We perched ourselves in one of the smaller rooms and turned on the faucets, one for hot water and one for cold water. We let the sink fill with warm water and used small plastic bowls to dip out water and pour it onto ourselves, fully wetting ourselves from head to toe, letting our skin relax and pores open.

After a few minutes of this, we walked out and up a couple more stairs into another room, where a giant marble slab lay in the middle of the room, under the biggest dome. We lay upon the heated slab, looking up to pinpoints of sunlight coming through the dome. Occasionally warm drops of water would plop down from the ceiling onto my forehead. Women are always talking as they lie there on the slab - gossiping, story-telling, and sometimes attempting to arrange marriages. In previous times, women would go to the hamams to find wives for their sons. It makes sense - they really get to see the entire bride-to-be! Some women still do this today, or at least semi-joke about it. I actually had a pretty convincing offer from one woman, who described to me her son - his education, his job, and told me he had lots of money, a car, and a summer house! Alas, I declined...maybe next time I visit.

Now we move on to the scrub-down. I walked back into a large room I'd passed through on my way to the marble slab. In this room hamam workers take complete control of you, and what interesting characters these hamam workers are! They are middle-aged and older women who spend all their time in the hamam pretty much naked, scrubbing down the women. Two words come to mind when describing them: gruff and saggy. One took me by the hand and told me to sit on a plastic mat on the ground. I removed my bra and the scrubbing began. The woman took a special, rough cloth out and began grating it against my skin, beginning on my arms and working her way all over my body, leaving basically no area untouched. The first time I had this done, I felt pretty violated. After it was over, though, it was amazing to see how much disgusting, dead skin had come off my body. I was left feeling extremely smooth, especially after rinsing myself off once more in the sinks. That's when we took out the soap and shampoo to finish washing ourselves. After washing myself, I was ready to get out - the heat and humidity take a toll after awhile. I left to go out into the cool dressing room, where I sat for a little while in my towel drinking water before changing back into my clothes, feeling clean yet exhausted.

The whole experience lasts about forty-five minutes to an hour and costs, I believe, eight Turkish lira for the entrance fee and five or so more for the scrub-down. All in all, it's about ten American dollars. The traditional hamam is no deluxe spa. There are more modern, fancier spa facilities in town, but I prefer my hamam to be traditional - full of women of all shapes and sizes doing what they've done, their mothers, their grandmothers, and so on have done for hundreds of years.