When you walk in, be sure to take off your glasses because they will steam up.
Ladies are naked. Quite naked. Not a scrap of clothing. You collect a bucket from the locker woman, take off your clothes, and in you go.
Three large high ceiled rooms, each hotter than the next. In the hottest room the floor is hot, like in Dubai in the summer when you come out the pool in the sunshine and have to hop on the slabs so the soles of your feet don’t burn.
So there is a special kind of natural soap that you use, you just take it off and it dissolves into foam in your hands, and you rub it all over your body. Sit and stew in the heat awhile, then wash the soap off.
Now is the good bit. Now you scrub at your skin. Slow, deep scrubs until grey spaghetti starts to form. So much grime and dirt crawling out of your skin, and you scrub and scrub, and you scrub another lady’s back and she scrubs yours. All over your body until you are sure all your spaghetti grime has come out of your pores, and then you wash again.
Wash your hair, wash your skin. Then gather all your stuff and wrap up warm and out you pop.
Breath of minty fresh air hits you, making your skin prickle in satisfaction.
So light and clean. It’s wonderful.
I feel so relaxed. Drowsy. I could comfortably fall into a deep sleep now. The sign over the baths said in Arabic “Hammam Turkiyya” which means ‘Turkish Baths’ so maybe it’s a Turkish bath? Either way, it’s the best wash I have ever had, ever. It’s like a cleansing massage.
Will I go again? Hell to the yeah! I don’t like being naked in front of everybody though. I’ve never been able to do that. I wore a bikini but even then it was mighty awks. I guess I’m just never gonna be comfy showing skin. THAT much skin anyway. But once you’re in its not really an issue and you kind of forget because you’re so engrossed in getting rid of your spaghetti insect dirt!
Ocean Bream 