Traveler’s Journal: Istanbul : Turkish Bathos : She wanted to find out what the celebrated Turkish bath experience was really like. Here’s the naked truth.

My wealthy Istanbul friend was appalled. “You’re not,” she demanded, eyebrows hoisting to her hairline, “really going to a Turkish bath a la Turque? “ I admitted that this was my intention. My friend grimly hinted at dire consequences (“Would it be clean?” she asked), while strongly urging me to go instead to the hamam (Turkish bath) at the fitness center at the Swissotel, to which she was driven once a week by her chauffeur. But I couldn’t see the pristine Swissotel, glassily luxurious on its hill in the smart district of Besiktas, providing anything like the ambience for which I was looking.

In fact I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect of a typical Turkish hamam, and in an effort to find out, I had read everything I could lay my hands on that described the experiences of others, some of them more than a little distinguished. But their impressions were bewilderingly different.

For instance, Mark Twain, visiting Istanbul in 1869, had no words bad enough to describe his experience. “The celebrated Turkish bath,” he fulminated in “Innocents Abroad,” “is a malignant swindle. The man who enjoys it is qualified to enjoy anything that is repulsive to sight or sense. It is tedious, and wretched, and dismal, and nasty.” And of the hamam he visited, he wrote, “The place was vast, naked, dreary; its courts a barn, its galleries stalls for human horses.” He complained that, after he had undressed, “an unclean starveling,” (his masseur), “wrapped a gaudy tablecloth about his loins, and hung a white rag over my shoulders,” and of having to rest on “rusty old mattresses, indented with impressions left by the forms of nine successive generations of men who had reposed on them.”

All distinctly discouraging. However, I fortunately then read the letters of a distinguished Englishwoman, remarkable for her courage, intelligence and insatiable curiosity. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to the “Sublime Porte of Turkey,” in 1717, and perhaps the nearest thing to a female investigative reporter the 18th Century produced, saw it all very differently. When visiting Sophia, which was at that time within the Turkish Empire and famous for its hot baths, she took herself off to the hamam at 10 o’clock one morning, by which time it was already filled with about 200 women.

She declared herself “charmed by their civility and beauty” and described the scene with keen interest. “ ‘Tis the women’s coffeehouse, where all the news of the town is told, scandal invented etc. They generally take this diversion once a week and stay there at least four or five hours.”

The hamam consisted of five rooms, some warm, some very hot and sulfurous, and two with hot baths. One very large room, paved with marble and containing four cool fountains, had two sofas of marble, one above another, running around the perimeter. “The first sofas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies, and on the second their slaves behind ‘em, but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in a state of nature, that is in plain English, stark naked.” Lady Mary wrote that she would “have been very glad to pass more time with them . . . .”

In light of such conflicting evidence, my curiosity was piqued. And so on a cool damp day last fall, which was less than ideal for sightseeing, I took myself off to the 300-year-old Turkish baths in Cagaloglu, in the old part of the city, not far from the great museum-church of St. Sophia.

The leaflet put out by the baths described it glowingly. “This magnificent monument was used only by the Sultans, important people of the palace and high class of society” (and to think the Swissotel was open to just anybody!). It listed among past visitors King Edward VII, Kaiser Wilhelm, Franz Liszt, Florence Nightingale, one of the Rockefellers, Tony Curtis and Rudolf Nureyev. How could I go wrong? It was described, rather vaguely, as having been built, “it is said” in the early 18th Century, one of the works “it is said” of Sinan (whose superb vessels of holy space, the Suleymaniye and Edirne mosques, made him the greatest architect in the history of Turkey). Sinan might have been surprised at the attribution, particularly as he died in 1588.

The exterior was less than distinguished, and I entered by a door that said “Women Only.” I was rather relieved. No Rudys or Rockies allowed in this section. Through a narrow entryway I stepped into a large dark room with a high domed ceiling, where five women in smocks lounged on seats in the center, watching television. Small cubicles with bunk-like beds covered in striped fabric opened off the central area, and a second tier of these opened off a balcony, above. Each cubicle door had a glass window with designs to obscure vision in the lower part (“latticed chicken coops” Twain had described them, “more suggestive of the county hospital than anything else.”)

One of the cotton-wrapped women detached herself from the television to attend to me and silently held out a card on which were listed the different treatments available, with their prices. It wasn’t particularly cheap, but I told myself that I was paying for the privilege of bathing where the likes of Rudy, Rocky and Florence Nightingale had bathed before.

Yikan , meaning “wash oneself”--a novel privilege denied most of us--cost about $3.60, and soap was included; “Keselenmek,” translated as “body rub with a hair glove,” cost about $5; Yikama ve Masaj” combined a self-wash and massage for $6; or for $7.25, one could have a hair glove rub and massage. Throwing caution to the winds I decided on all-out, self-indulgence and opted for the “Luks osmanli servisi, “ the Luxury Ottoman service, for about $10.75, with both soap and shampoo included. (Ooh the depravity of it!)

*

I paid my money, and another smocked woman heaved herself to her feet, selected a large pink towel from a pile, indicated a cubicle and told me to take off my shoes and put on the blue rubber sandals at the door. She also indicated, by pantomime, that I should take everything off. I did as I was told. Then, clad only in sandals and clutching my pink towel about me, I followed her as she opened a great arched wooden door on heavy black hinges, led the way through a warm, high-domed, gray marble room and opened an identical door on the far side.

A gust of hot air hit me as we went in. This room was much like the first but much hotter, very large, with a huge, high dome, pierced by glass-filled stars and hexagons and circles, supported by 15 marble columns. Filling the center of the floor under the dome was a huge, knee-level, 10-sided marble platform, which I recognized as the gobek tasi (or center stone), on which the massage took place. Just as in Lady Mary’s description, a wide, foot-high platform ran around the sides of the room. Rising from it was a low bench that ran between each of the basins against the walls. Set at intervals corresponding to the 15 columns, were marble basins with brass taps. Water overflowing from these basins would spill from the side platforms onto the floor around the gobek tasi and flow in rivulets to a dark square hole visible under the step of the door through which we’d entered. It all seemed very familiar from reading Lady Mary, except for one very major difference: Rather than being, as she was, in the company of 200 other women, I was the only person there.

The attendant turned on the taps and removed my pink towel. For a second I felt like a limpet that has lost its protective shell--a self-conscious yellow-pink blob. She handed me a pewter bowl and made water-pouring gestures over her head by way of encouragement. “Just water,” she said, and paddled off, leaving me sitting, as Lady Mary would have it, “in a state of nature,” on the marble bench . . . alone in the large, hot room.

I sat there a long time, simply pouring very hot water over my head and body. It was such a simple exercise, yet I found myself overtaken by a strange and wonderful sense of freedom. It was blissful. I began to feel like a warm, hedonistic cat, northern inhibitions rinsing away along with superficial dirt. The sensuous feelings briefly evaporated as the attendant trudged back in bearing a sign that listed Turkish tea or coffee or apple tea. The apple tea was brought in a little glass--delicious, sweet and piping hot. Mark Twain, I recollected, had been brought Turkish coffee. “Of all the unchristian beverages that ever passed my lips,” quoth he, “Turkish coffee is the worst.” He said it, not I.

After some time a bizarre creature entered the room: a vast pear-shaped woman, with great pear-shaped breasts and black briefs, her hair tied up in a scarf and gold earrings dangling from her ears. She had a strange, strong-jawed, small-eyed face. I wondered if she were another customer, perhaps a regular, as she seemed very much at home. I politely averted my eyes as she drew near but she, on the contrary, had no such qualms and I knew that she was staring at me boldly as she shuffled past. She then busied herself at a nearby basin with her back to me, running the taps and noisily splashing washcloths in the water. I concluded that she must be my masseuse. No starveling, she.

*

Big Pear was preoccupied in this fashion when I suddenly noticed, running toward me from the direction of the door, a small dark animal scuttling around the marble floor surrounding the gobek tasi. Then a second ran after it, and for the briefest instant they frolicked. Rats! Oh help! Oh Mary and 200 ladies! Where are you now? “OHMYGOD!” I yelled and rose to my feet dripping with water. The rats instantly evaporated in the direction from which they’d come, down the hole under the door. I stared wildly in the direction of Pear, but there was absolutely no reaction from that massive back. My call had been lost in the sound of the running, dripping water, and Pear, bent over her task, did not notice. Should I create a scene? Would she understand? Or should I save my breath and just calm down? What would Florence have done in my place? Probably said “Only two?” but reorganized the sewers. I controlled myself and sat down.

Pear now moved over to the gobek tasi and placed a small black pillow on the marble in the middle. She seated herself and indicated to me that I was to lie down on the platform beside her. There was something rather dismaying about all this. The dismal inhibitions started creeping back, but I meekly did as I was told. Then, with a rough luffa-like black glove on her right hand, she proceeded to go over my entire body, front and back, rubbing the skin with enormous vigor--the Keselenmek treatment, which Twain described quite accurately as “polishing.” My feelings of modesty quickly dissipated as I realized the years of naked bodies these gimlet eyes must have seen; among all the tall, slim beauties and walrus hulks like herself, I would be very forgettable.

I decided at this point that I would attempt to tell her about the rats, so I pointed over to the water exit hole, made a running motion with one hand, said “Squeak, squeak,” and held up two fingers. She stopped polishing and the gimlet eyes regarded me expressionlessly for a moment. She plainly understood. She then said something in Turkish and made two great chopping movements with her right arm. Was she telling me I should have killed them both? There was no telling, so I let the subject lapse. After this I was directed to return to my marble basin and rinse myself thoroughly. I came to notice that each time I moved from one area to another Pear would sluice the area I had vacated with a container of soapy water and carefully rinse it. It was rather less than flattering, but at the same time, reassuring.

I returned to the gobek tasi where Pear lathered me all over with soapsuds and massaged me mercilessly with fingers like brutal little rollers, up and down and round about, rippling over and into every muscle I ever knew I had and a great many I had no idea about, first on one side and then on the other. I am perfectly confident that she had never had a lesson in anatomy in her life, but each muscle got its moment of punitive attention. Periodically she would stop massaging and drum my muscles forcefully with the sides of her great ham-like hands. Tenderizing a steak was a comparison that came to my mind.

Again I had to be rinsed off, and the same procedure repeated with a mixture of lathering by hand and the rough-textured glove. One at a time she would pick up my arms--which were beginning to resemble limp lengths of rubber tubing--massage them, then put them down, and the same with my legs, and finally my feet.

*

While I was lying there, the door opened and another customer was led in, draped in a blue towel. She was an attractive small woman with well-cut dark hair. Feeling prudish is a pointless exercise in futility, lying spread-eagled on your back garbed only in soapsuds while being vigorously massaged. But for a moment I wondered whether to just shut my eyes tightly and pretend the newcomer wasn’t there or to show some sort of recognition. In the end I looked up and grinned, and the newcomer--soapless, so by now even more naked than I--grinned back. She turned out to be French, and as unfamiliar with the routine as I.

Once again, rather the worse for my pulverizing, I had to totter over to my basin to rinse myself, after which Pear seated herself beside her own basin and indicated that I should sit on the low platform in front of her. She produced a pumice stone with which she gently pumiced my knees, feet and elbows.

The newcomer had been engaged in pouring water over herself since she arrived. Now she called over, “How long do I have to do this?” “A good long time,” I replied. I also warned her about the rats and her eyes opened wide. I suspect Pear must have understood because suddenly she grasped my neck in her grip of steel, emptied shampoo straight over my head, and began massaging not just my scalp, but my face, nose and eyes, too, with her great penetrating fingers. I opened my mouth to object and a deluge of rinse water filled it. I was pulled upright and led over to my basin for one final rinse, and it was all over. Pear wrapped me up in my pink towel, and led me by the hand out of the room.

Perhaps I was meant to rest on the bed in my cubicle, but I didn’t wish to, although, in contradiction to Mark Twain’s description, it was spotlessly clean. I dressed, dried my hair with a blower and went out, feeling a great deal cleaner though somewhat filleted and wobbly kneed.

But what about the spirited Lady Mary’s own impressions of this intimate experience? Did it release any hidden libido? And how did she cope, the solitary foreigner among 200 Turkish women? Ah, here Lady Mary disappoints. Female adventurer she might have been, who loved wandering the streets of Istanbul (or Constantinople as it was then) in Turkish disguise, but for this remarkably enlightened woman it seems emancipation didn’t translate to public nudity.

“I was in my traveling habit, which is a riding dress,” she related, of her arrival among the women at the hamam, “and certainly appeared very extraordinary to them . . .” but they “would fain have undressed me for the bath . . . I was at last forced to open my skirt and show them my stays, which satisfied ‘em very well, for I saw they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed to my husband.”