Hidden Secrets in the Hammam

We had been away from England now for seven weeks, and I was starting to looked a bit like a raggedy, wind-swept sailor. My longer, shaggy hair always shows up greyer, like my un-shaved chin. That was the first thing Mum said to me, on the last FaceTime call. “You’re going grey!”

So, to the Berber in the Fish Market, I must go, on Monday! And seeing as there is also a Hammam along the covered street, I decided to treat myself to a Turkish bath, and a full body massage as well. I knew that I had been to this same hammam 30 years ago, as part of a scuba diving trip to Fethiye, but I could barely remember it.

Hammam - Female and family side...

The barber experience was uneventful, and I was spared the full-wax, and flaming-alcohol treatment. But when I walked to the baths, they were still closed for morning cleaning. I decided to hike up the rock tombs behind modern Fethiye, at the location of the ancient city of Telmessos. It was a hot morning and a stiff walk, so when I returned, I definitely needed a rub-down.

It didn’t start well. The female manager had to rush to stop me entering the female side of the baths. She escorted me into the male entrance, handed me a small lightweight tea-towel, and pointed a small locker room with swinging, saloon-bar doors. She said to put on plastic sandals, pairs of which were scattered on the floor. I worked-out that the tea-towel-cum-head-scarf was my formal, required attire from hereon in.

She ushered me into the main room, which had a domed roof, sprinkled with many star-shaped holes letting in some rays of daylight. There were two or three niches – or side rooms - with showers, esle small granite sinks with large wooden ladles.

The main room was warm, and dominated by an octagonal, marble table/slab. There was a large, blond-haired German, lying face-down on one half of the slab, being attended to by an attractive, olive-skinned, Turkish girl. OK. 

And then my masseuse arrived, and told me to lie on the slab. I say masseuse, I mean masseur. He was about 5-feet tall, the colour of a chestnut, scrawny as an old chicken, smelled of stale tobacco, and had - albeit only occasionally - a smoker’s cough…

He left me lying on my back to sweat for a bit. After a while he returned, folded my pashmina back to an almost immodest amount, and started to scrub me with an exfoliating mitten. Then onto my front and repeat. 

My eyes were closed. He stopped and I could hear the soft pad of his feet on moist stone. Eventually a sluice of hot water sloshed over my lower body. Then feet padding away and back, followed by a similarly, warm wave that sluiced my upper half.

He rolled me onto my front, and I waited. It’s surprising how hard and unforgiving marble is. I kept shifting my knees about to get comfortable, but never totally succeeded. 

And then a wonderful feeling. My eyes were still closed as it felt like I was being consumed, bodily, by the lightest, fluffiest marshmallow Willy Wonka could have dreamt up. I squinted open one eye, to spy him squeezing what looked like a white pillow case, from which oozed voluminous amounts of soft, frothy bubbles. Nice… A nice spongy soap down in the prone position.

He told me to get up and led me to one of the niches, where he filled a basin with hot water from the tap and ladled it over my soapy bits, blithely manoeuvring my tea-towel out of the way for me.

I felt slightly weak and feeble as he led me out to the foyer, with my head wrapped in a turban-like white towel. German chap was having a massage from Turkish girl in a side chamber. My man left me sipping an iced-tea, because he had to go out for his next ciggy break. Eventually he returned, coughing feebly, and made me lie on the next bed face-down with my face in the customary hole, so that I could stare at the floor.

No words...

The next hour's pummelling was firm, but not excruciating, like the odd Thai one I’ve had, where I have had to bight my lip to stop from squeaking out in pain in front of the girl.

I did wince out loud, once when he massaged my arthritic finger joints, but to be fair he learned quickly and only did it once.

And after a time, it stopped. Nothing happened. All was silent. I open my eyes, to peer around. My diminutive friend was gone. I presume he had gone to find another pack of woodbines.

I stood up, padded limply to the locker room, discarded my sandals and costume and pulled my shorts and t-shirt over my oily body…  

According to the literature, Turkish baths like this date back 600 years, having been introduced to Anatolia by the Ottomans. Although they could be for public use, they were closed to the public when a royal entourage was in town.

One important tradition of the hammam was its role in pre-nuptials. Once a Turkish girl was to be wedded, she visited the baths some days prior to the big day. She arrived with her relations, and they were entertained by musicians and singers.

Mothers - who were searching for brides for their sons – also visited these occasions. It was an opportunity to inspect any potential bride in the flesh! If there was any bodily deformation, it would be plain to see, and any post-nuptial problems thus averted.

Anyway, if any of this match-making examination is ongoing today, it would have been happening next door, and I wouldn’t have seen a thing.