A real Turkish bath

They wouldn't let me take any photos inside the Cemberlitas Hamami, but this is what it looked like--minus the attractive women.

On Friday, I told Sidar I wanted to go to a Turkish bath. “Yes, this is no problem,” he said. “There is one in your hotel.”

No, I said. I didn’t want to go to a hotel Turkish bath. I wanted to go to a real one. “A hamam. An old one. Someplace the Sultan may have gone.”

“You want the real thing?”

“Yes.”

“Where they pound you and beat you and make you scream?”

“Yes.”

“Listen, my friend,” Sidar said, putting an arm around my shoulder. “Even I do not go to a traditional hamam.”

“Why not?”

“Because they scare me.”

I had heard this before. Last year a friend of mine from San Francisco went to a traditional hamam in Istanbul and said the old man working on him beat him so hard he started to cry. “And I haven’t cried since Patrick O’Rooney stole my bike in fifth grade.”

But here is my philosophy about travel: Wherever you go, you have to eat the dog. And in Istanbul, eating the dog means going to a traditional Turkish bath and getting the shit pounded out of you.

“I want to go to a real hamam,” I repeated. Sidar sighed and said he would make the arrangements.

And so, Saturday morning, shortly after 6, Sidar showed up at my hotel, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed, to take us to one of the oldest Turkish baths in Istanbul, the Çemberlìtas Hamami, an ancient bath establish by Nurbanu Sultan, wife of Selim II and mother of Murat III, in 1584. Now that’s what I call a real Turkish bath.

When we walked in to the hamam, the only person there was an old man sweeping the floor. “What kind of treatment do you want?” Sidar asked me.

“What are you getting?”

“I’m going to go get a coffee,” he said. “I’ll come back for you when you’re finished.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “I’m not doing it unless you are.”

Fine, Sidar said. “Although I’m really not looking forward to this.”

We looked at a chart on the wall listing the various treatments and decided we’d either go for the traditional bath or the luxury bath, the difference being a “special” 30 minute oil massage at the end of the luxury treatment. “I think we should do the traditional,” Sidar said. “Less time for them to hurt us.”

So that’s what we went for.

Now, before I take you into the domed hararet, or hot room, where, clothed only in a simple cloth wrap, called a pestemal, I would lie on a steaming hot round marble slab feeling like a piece of meat being slowly braised, waiting for the old men to come in and pummel us, I want to say something about the photo above which is of the Çemberlìtas Hamami. You’ll notice there are women in the hamam. You’ll also notice that they are very attractive. This is not my photo. And the only women we saw at the hamam were the two 20something American tourists who walked in shortly after we did and were told that while, in fact, women were allowed in to the hamam (for which there were separate facilities), there were no women staff members there at the moment and wouldn’t be until late in the day. “You must give notice first,” the women were told. So although I wish the Çemberlìtas Hamami looked just like the photo above, it didn’t. And I doubt if it ever does (if the age and looks of the two guys who worked on Sidar and me is any indication). But the cloth wrap and the marble slab are accurate.

To be continued tomorrow…

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