The Pleasure of the Pain

You like culture? Turkey's got culture. You like good food and quality shopping? It's got 'em. A rich and colourful history? Of course. Paying to have hairy old men inflict pain on you? Um, certainly, if that's your thing...

...And it IS my thing. For centuries, nay millenia, Turks and their predecessors the Greeks, have always known how to relax and bond, and get cleaned to within an inch of their lives in the process.

The turkish bath, or hamam, has a colourful history catering to everyone from the nubile members of the Sultan's harem where they idled away their off-hours getting rub-downs from Eunuchs. Or maybe the ordinary bloke who might have just returned from months on the Silk Road to sweat out all the dust he picked up along the way.

Either way, then, as now, spending a couple of hours in a timeless hamam is just about the best experience you can have, especially after spending just one too many days on a tour bus.

So why doesn't this marvellous experience feature on any travel itineraries to Turkey? Simple. Most modern day, hand-phone wielding softies would never survive it. It's a rite of passage; a trial by, um, steam, if you will.

But it's reasonably priced. The survivor gets to risk physical and emotional trauma for the equivalent of just RM40. And to prove my point, I recently took the most expendable member of my tour group there. I'll go ahead and tell you now already that John survived, but he reckons this 'cross-cultural experience' has shaved years off his life. So there.

A hamam is basically divided into three compartments: the changing room, the steam & massage room, and the ominously named 'cutting' chamber. The first one, the changing/lounging/tea-sipping/recovery/paramedic room is where you change into a starched, weather-beaten loincloth (and where you crawl back to when it's all over).

Next you shuffle through a door. A thick wooden door designed to muffle the cries of pain from within, I should think.

WHOOF!! Suddenly you're standing, nearly blinded, in a white cloud of hot, swirling steam. Let me qualify 'hot': you know when you throw something slightly wet into boiling oil and it hisses violently? You can hardly breathe.

Out of nowhere, a big hairy, fierce-looking man appears and tells you to move into the main steam room. He cracks his knuckles and asks who is getting the 'special massage'. John and I point at each other hopefully. I must have pointed more vigorously, as the big hairy guy looks at John and smiles. "I'll be with you shortly". Gulp.