The Ottery
“If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it just simply won’t do it.”

Turkish Water Torture

September 12th, 2006

On the day of our Zeytinburnu adventure, we all felt like we needed some relaxation and pampering after our stressful transportation mix-ups: Prairie Dog chose to retreat to his hotel/burrow, I chose baklava, and K chose the Turkish baths.

Now, keep in mind that all the guide books—even the ones that warn you away from tourists traps—say that a Turkish bath is something you can’t leave Istanbul without. After having had a Turkish bath, however, I suspect that all the guide books are in the pay of the bath houses.

K wanted someone to accompany her, and I have to admit that the prospect of a warm bath with a massage afterwards sounded pretty good to me. We chose the “bath and 15-minute massage” option, which we interpreted to mean that we would be washed and then we would be massaged for 15 minutes. Wrong.

First of all, after disrobing, we located the bath room by the steam coming out of it. There was a huge circular marble slab in the center of the room, upon which naked women lay, while other naked or mostly naked women splashed them with water or rubbed them with sponges. I just assumed that the women being bathed had chosen the self-washing option and were getting their friends to wash them—I had somehow expected the official attendants to be wearing uniforms. Once a naked woman commanded us to sit, I figured out that it would have been highly impractical for the attendants to wear clothes, given all the heat and sloshing.

We took our places in the center of the slab, while the attendants washed the women on the periphery. We spread out on our towels and let the heat from the stone soak into our tired muscles. I drowsily thought about writing up the scene, describing the amazing variety of body types: flabby, muscular, bony, skinny, average, tanned, pale, shaven, unshaven. All of us naked and not caring.

Sweat was starting to bead on my forehead as the attendants all left the room. There were about four of us still waiting in the center of the platform. Oh well, I thought. They’re going to get a drink of water, and then they’ll be back.

Ten minutes passed. I was covered with a light layer of sweat all over now, so I decided to flip and let my other side get heated. The door opened, but it was just more bathees coming to lie down on the slab.

Twenty minutes, thirty minutes. I was drenched now, my hair completely soaked in my own sweat. My head was starting to hurt. “I’m getting dizzy,” I complained to K. “This is miserable.” I sat up so that as little of me as possible touched the warm stone.

There were maybe twelve of us waiting now. Finally, after K and I had been there for forty minutes, the attendants came back. I was panicking that they wouldn’t remember that we’d been there first. My face must have looked pretty bad, because as soon as one of the attendants saw it, she signaled me over to take my place in the washing line.

Once the washing started, it wasn’t bad. I wasn’t happy about the water that got in my nose and ears when the attendant poured a bucket of water over me, but at least I felt clean.

She finished washing me and called poor K, who’d still been steaming all that time, over. “Lie down,” she told me, pointing back up to the center of the slab. She let out a sigh, indicating that I was to relax. “No problem,” she said.

I was beginning to hate that ubiquitous phrase.

Just fifteen more minutes, and then we get our massage, I thought. I can take a little more sweating. It’ll all be worth it for the massage. But when K was finished, and no one ushered us into the massage room, we began to realize that our scrubbing was considered the massage. We would have had to get the more expensive package to have an actual, on-a-table massage.

Oh, the dismay. Apparently other people had come with the same assumption, because we heard the changing-room attendant explaining what we’d just realized to other disgruntled customers. We put our clothes back on, picked up our bags, and left. As we walked back to our hotel, I continued grumbling. K said I looked like a half-drowned, grumpy puppy. I had to be fed before I cheered up again. And my headache didn’t go away until the next morning.

So, ladies and gentlemen (ladies, anyway—I can’t vouch for what Turkish baths for men are like), don’t be snookered by Turkish baths. Save your money and your internal hydration and pay for a real massage instead.

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