Hamams and Bathhouses

By Chris Sarcletti

Cities: Istanbul and Budapest

Bathing is a part of everyday life in many parts of the world. Some people are more fortunate than others and have the opportunity to take a nice soapy bath in a large tub almost every evening. In stark contrast, others may stand in the banks of a muddy river where crocodiles loom and pour buckets of water over their bare skin. Whatever the form, bathing is undoubtedly a part of every culture. For the more fortunate, bathing takes place privately in a home or apartment. However, in many other cases, bathing takes place in a more public setting, which could be a river, health club gym, fountain or a bath house.

From my perspective, I don’t put a lot of thought into bathing. Typically, I stand under a shower at my health club or at home for about five minutes and do a bit of a scrub down before professing to myself that I am clean. I guess I am one of the lucky ones who take this luxury for granted. Maybe that is part of the reason why I was interested in having a different type of bathing experience when presented with the opportunity while traveling to Istanbul, Turkey.

In ancient times, before running water was plentiful in private homes, bath houses were relatively common and served a useful purpose as a place to go to keep clean and relax. Bath houses were common in many cultures, and to a much lesser degree, still are today. According to the Turkish Daily News, “Going to the hamam once upon a time used to be an outing for the women and young children of the family in Turkey. Dishes such as börek (pastry with various fillings), dolma (stuffed peppers), fruit and sweets would be prepared and then it was off for a day of bathing and massage, eating, singing, dancing and gossiping.”

While some of these venues are still frequented by locals in Istanbul to this day, most of Istanbul’s residents have bathrooms with showers or baths inside their own homes. As a result, many of the still operating hamams are frequented by tourists looking for an “authentic bathing experience” using the same procedure that have been used for centuries.

From the minute I started to research Istanbul in anticipation of my trip there, I was determined to visit a Turkish bath. It sounded like such a unique and interesting experience that I was pretty insistent that this constitute part of one of our days in Istanbul. After doing a bit of research, Martin and I decided to visit the Cemberlitas Hamam, a historic bath house that is thought to have been one of the structures built by the architect Sinan in 1584. We saved this experience for the afternoon of our last day in Istanbul. After a long day of sightseeing, Martin and I were looking as forward to visiting a Turkish bath as our tummies were to having our first shawarma in Istanbul a few days ago. As much as Martin and I thought we were ready for the experience we were about to have as we walked into the hamam, we really had no idea what to expect. We were like young children again getting ready to experience something for the first time.

We walked into the Cemberlitas Hamam and immediately paid the attendant that greeted us. As to what exactly we were paying for, we weren’t sure. In circumstances like these, when you don’t you know anything and are full of nothing but questions, I find that the best approach is to just follow everyone else. We walked into a locker room of sorts and saw both men and women sitting in what appeared to be a waiting room. We looked around and really didn’t know what to do. After surveying the environment for a moment or two, we made the determination that the 4 or 5 hairy, shirtless Turkish men were the people we needed to talk to. After all, who the hell else could it be? They were at least interacting with some of the people who seemed to be waiting for whatever was to come next. They noticed us approaching and tossed Martin and I each a towel, handed us a key and pointed to the staircase that I assumed would take us upstairs to some rooms where we could change our clothes. We walked up the stairs and just looked around, having absolutely no idea where exactly to go. There were rooms to our left and rooms to our right, kind of like a hotel. All we knew was that we had a key to a room and it had a number on it. Eventually, we found our changing cabin. We entered, stripped down and wrapped ourselves in our towels. We were leaving our valuables in the cabin and were hopeful they would be there when we returned. Martin and I looked at each other and smirked as we exited the cabin and nervously went out in search of what was surely going to be a new experience. To be honest, it was great to be so immersed in the moment as we really had no other choice. There was nothing to contemplate or think about since there really was nothing in our past that would prepare us for whatever was about to happen next.

Again, we were pointed in a specific direction towards a door by one of many hairy Turkish men. As we walked towards the door, I was kind of nervous as I really had no idea what was going to happen to me on the other side of the door I was about to open. I opened the door and walked into a steamy room that had piles of towels stacked in a few different spots, bathing attendants engaged in various sorts of activities and fountains with water running through them. Apparently, this was some sort of staging or waiting area because we were then led to another room. I assumed that we were now in the actual “bath” where things would really get going. Through a combination of some broken English and a lot of finger pointing, we were directed to lie down on a circular, heated marble platform in the middle of the room where a bunch of men were already lying. We found a spot, lied down and waited. As I lied there, I leaned up a few times to survey the room. In addition to the hairy Turkish men who seemed to be tapping people on the shoulder (or slapping them on the feet) when they were ready for them, there were many interesting facets to the room. There were small, circular windows all over the domed ceiling that was above me. Through it shined rays of light that reminded me of the light that beams through the windows in a church. In addition, there were small faucets with running water coming out of them around the circular area where I was sitting. It seemed that there were quite a few men using these faucets to bathe parts of their bodies. It appeared that the room I was in was the primary bathing room, but there were many rooms to the left and right that branched off of this room. From what I could see inside these rooms, there were several faucets and small tubs in each room. The floors of the room were broken up by a few large crevices that acted as drains. The water that had flowed over the side of the tub or off of someone’s body onto the floor emptied into these crevices. There was running water everywhere. I saw people come and go from these rooms, always with a bathing attendant. It appeared that part of the bathing experience definitely involved the use of these rooms. One thing I saw inside one of these rooms created a bit of apprehension for me. I saw a man lying on the ground on his stomach. He wasn’t just lying there though, as one of the bathing attendants appeared to be slowly walking across his back. That was all I could see and I am not sure I wanted to see much of anything else. I put my head back down and told myself to just go with the situation and take it all in. I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen next.
As I sat there with Martin and waited, I realized just how hot it was in the room I was in. It was almost like being in a huge steam bath. As Martin and I lied there and waited, we began to move towards the middle of the platform. Our heads were pointing towards the middle of the platform and our legs were sticking out towards the open floor. Everyone else laying there and waiting with us assumed pretty much the same position. It almost seemed like some type of ritual and I certainly didn’t want to be the one screwing it up. One by one, a man was selected and told to come to the outskirts of the platform where he was guided through the next step in the bathing process.

I must admit that it is peculiarly interesting watching hairy, and in most cases large Turkish man with only a towel covering their privates, rub down, douse with water and scrub another man while at the same time attempting to make small talk with their customer. To be honest, after watching this procedure unfold before my eyes again and again, I didn’t know whether to describe it as interesting, strange or disconcerting. In cases where the customer isn’t Turkish, I would imagine that the conversation part can be a bit complicated. In any case, after watching the whole process go on again and again for about 20 minutes, I heard somebody yell something. Since the room was filled with men and I don’t understand a word of Turkish, I really had no idea that this “call” was directed towards me. I found that out quickly enough though when a rather large man walked in my direction and slapped me on the bottom of my feet. It appeared that my time was up.

Nervously, I moved to the end of the platform as I was directed. I was then told to lie down horizontally near the edge of the platform. I lied down as instructed and waited. After a couple minutes, a diminutive Turkish man whose chest could have been mistaken for a rug made eye contact with me and motioned to me to sit up. After I figured out what he wanted me to do, I did just that. Sitting up now, he came at me and dumped a pretty damn hot bucket of water over my head and shoulders. As I sat there stunned, the man walked up to me and guided me back down until I was lying on my back again. He then put on a pair of gloves and began to give me a very thorough rubdown. After several minutes of intense, yet relaxing massage, my personal attendant began to try to talk to me. This was a tough proposition for each of us as he didn’t speak much English and I speak no Turkish. Nonetheless, I was able to understand a few things. Actually, there were two things I could clearly understand. I was able to comprehend that the man rubbing my body’s name was Mimic and I understood that he was interested in negotiating the amount of tip I would give him for his services. For a service like this, I assumed that I would give him a decent tip, but I guess he just wanted to come to terms on an exact number. I just kind of shook my head and smiled but he continued to badger me while he massaged my body until we agreed on a 5 million lira tip. This was the equivalent of 8 USD which is a pretty decent tip on a $13 massage. I didn’t mind though as Mimic was doing a great job and I was hoping that the already established generous gratuity would result in even better things to come in terms of the massage. During the negotiation process, Mimic had indicated that this would be the case. It was a relief to have this issue out of the way and to not have to worry about being badgered anymore during my massage and bath.

Approximately two minutes later, my massage took a drastic turn. I was now lying on my stomach and Mimic was driving his elbow into, and up and down, my back. If I could see the expression on my face at that very moment, I imagine that I would wonder if I was enduring agonizing pain or ecstasy of another kind. Maybe it was a bit of both but it felt good, really good. While it didn’t hurt, it had that deep tissue feel that is somewhere between feeling wonderful and feeling painful. At this point, he stretched my legs and arms out and, one by one, pulled them in the direction of one another until they almost touched. He then went right back at my body and attacked every part of it with great fervor and intensity. He rubbed my arms and legs so hard that every bit of tension inside me must have escaped via my toes and fingers and yes, he massaged those too. Feeling as relaxed as I imagine I would feel after walking out of an opium den, I had time for only a few deep breaths before Mimic told me to turn over onto my back again. I did just that and this is where the bath began.

First, my entire body was doused with warm foamy water. After some tossing and turning from front to back on my part and lots of Mimic’s scrubbing, my soapy body was sitting up again and I was feeling about as clean as I could ever remember. Mimic then came towards me again and doused me with 2 successive buckets of much more comfortable warm water, in contrast to the very hot water that he hit me with earlier. I was pretty sure that this was the end of my bathing experience and I felt clean, relaxed and satisfied. There was only one problem; my Turkish bath and massage was far from complete.

Mimic looked at me and then pointed at one of the adjoining rooms I saw earlier. No words were needed as I knew where I was headed. I walked on cautiously in the direction of the room Mimic pointed towards while he followed behind me, albeit slowly. I was now standing in the room without a clue of what to do. Mimic was talking to someone so I was just standing there waiting for him. Standing in the middle of this room by myself, I felt quite self conscious. This is probably because I knew I should be doing something other than just standing there. Knowing that whatever I did would be wrong without the direction of Mimic, I decided to take things into my own hands. There were small pales of water everywhere so I began to fill the pales and rinse myself. I am sure that anyone with Turkish bathing “experience” who witnessed my actions said to themselves, “What the hell is that guy doing?”

Eventually, Mimic appeared and from the look on his face, it was pretty evident to me that the reason I was in this room was not to pour buckets of water on myself. He pointed to a seating area in the middle of the room to which I walked towards and sat down. He then proceeded to wash my hair and face and then gave me a very thorough scalp massage that felt absolutely wonderful. I was feeling satisfied and was pretty sure that the massage was over. Once again, I was wrong. Mimic pointed to the ground and told me to lie down in the crevice into which the water drained and which also divided the floor. I was pretty sure that I knew what was going to happen next. It must have been close to an hour ago when I saw another man in a similar predicament and for some reason that I cannot quite explain, I was subconsciously hoping to be in this same position. Well, Mimic stepped onto my back and began to walk back and forth. He dug his heels into just the right places and at times made me nearly gasp for a breath of air. As I lied there on my back, it was hard not to laugh. I was half naked in a bath house in Istanbul and there was a Turkish man in a towel walking on my back. Boy, did it feel good though. Mimic instructed me to rise and this time my intuition was right, the bath and massage were over. I thanked Mimic and gave him the tip we agreed upon before heading back to my cabin to meet Martin. After a wonderful glass of fresh orange juice and 15 minutes of “resting” time, we were back on the street. Martin and I recanted our experience and laughed. I felt clean and refreshed and sore. However, it was a good sore, the kind you get when a Turkish man walks on your back.

Let’s imagine that it is over 6 years later and I am in a different city in a different country with a different group of people.

It is September, 2006, and I am in Budapest. The sun is slowly setting and I am strolling up Andrassy ut with my Dad and Uncle. Andrassy ut is another one of Europe’s marvelous boulevards and is Budapest’ grandest avenue. As rays of sun broke through the trees onto the wide sidewalks, we stopped at a gelato shop for a sweet treat. Gelato in hand, we continued on as we had a while to ago before we would arrive at our destination, the Szechenyi Baths. We were all excited to visit one of Budapest’ most famous bath houses for a soak in their thermal waters. Eventually, we walked past the monuments that populate the massive Hero’s Square and then on through Budapest’s City Park. As we entered the park, we looked right at the “Disneyworldesque” castle and then back to the left where we located the green domed bath house that was our destination.

As we tried to figure out which door was the primary entrance, I found myself repeating the same three words, “I don’t know”. That is the response I continued to give to my Uncle Bob as he asked me numerous questions. “What are we supposed to do after we get the ticket?” “Will our clothes and valuables be safe here?” “Which door do we enter through?” “I don’t know” is all I could come up with because for me, just like Bob, this would be my first experience at a Hungarian bath house. After stopping for a moment and watching others enter the bath house, we followed their lead and walked through the entrance to the Szechenyi Baths. The next step was to approach the counter and buy a ticket. While this should be a simple task, nothing is easy when you are full of uncertainty. I decided that it was best to use the tried and tested philosophy of following the lead of others when you don’t know yourself. After all, this is all part of the fun and adventure of traveling.

After paying 2500 forunts (12 USD), we were handed a plastic card that granted us a 3 hour stay in the bath house. With the card in hand, we surveyed the entrances and had our first decision to make. It seemed that everyone was entering through the sign “Noi” as opposed to the sign “Ferfi”. See, Noi means woman and Ferfi means man. I did see a couple people leaving through the Ferfi sign but most people seemed to be entering and exiting through the Noi sign. Knowing that this could turn out to be an embarrassing situation, I reverted back to my inclination to follow the crowd when in another country and we entered through the entrance marked “women”. At least we could feel comfortable knowing that we weren’t the only men walking into the bath house through this entrance.

I have to take a moment to indicate just how much I hate following the crowd just to follow it. That whole philosophy bothers me because, in many cases, the crowd or populous or majority is wrong. In any case, I listened to my better judgment in this instance and that is what he (or she) told me to do. It was a good decision.

We slid our card over the turnstile like you do when entering the gym (actually the attendant did it for me because I couldn’t figure it out) and walked into what seemed to be oblivion. We walked left and then we walked right. Eventually, we went up a flight of stairs and met a serious, but friendly red-haired woman who spoke a little English. It appeared that this was the person we needed to talk to. After a few quick inquiries, we figured out that this was the person that would ensure that we had a private cabin to change in and store our valuables. In addition, she was also the person we needed to pay to rent the towels that we didn’t bring with us. At this point, Bob had additional questions for me regarding the safety of our valuables to which I responded, “I am leaving them in the room like everyone else, but you can do whatever you want.” We handed the woman 700 forunt to rent the towel and she handed us what looked more like a large sheet than a towel and pointed us in the direction of our changing cabins. We quickly changed and walked out back into the hallway to continue the adventure. We looked at each other and smiled. We were all in bathing shorts with the only things in our hands being our towels and the keys to our cabins. My Uncle Bob made sure to ask the woman working if she would double lock the door and we then began moving down the drab, locker room (or prison like) hallway towards the stairs we came up. We went down the staircase since that was the only direction we could go. After reaching the bottom of the stairs, there were many options as we could go straight, right or left. We had no idea what to do. At this point, we were just trying to find a way to get outside to the main, large pools and figured that this couldn’t be too difficult to figure out. Not surprisingly, we were wrong. I walked one way, Bob another and my Dad yet another. After each of us determined individually that we didn’t know where to go, we returned to the place we left from and decided to proceed on as a group. We first headed through a row of showers into an area that had bathrooms. Actually, that came in handy as I needed to use the washroom, but this was not where we needed to be. At this point, the only light that I could see was the light shining through the windows and that was telling me very little regarding my question as to how to get outside. Since I don’t speak Magyar at all and I didn’t really want to berate the people I encountered with questions, I decided I was going to figure this out for myself, no matter how long it took. I don’t know if my Dad and Uncle were in agreement with me regarding this approach, but they followed my lead nonetheless. After weaving in and out of different rooms that had showers, a sauna, steam rooms and hot pools of thermal water that ranged in temperature from 38 to 40 degrees Celsius, we finally found a staircase that proceeded upward to daylight. We went up the stairs and were finally outside. We were rewarded for our efforts as what lied in front of us was quite an impressive site. The pool area in the center of this complex amounts to nothing less than a museum of statues, fountains and domes. After examining the area and taking a few moments to appreciate what our eyes were seeing, we decided to dip into the pool closest to us.

The first pool we entered was the warm pool. With a temperature of 30 C / 86 F, sitting in this pool was extremely comfortable. This was a great place to wade in and relax for an extended period of time. It wasn’t so hot that you were biding your time until you “had” to get out and not too refreshingly brisk, which is nice for a while but doesn’t lend itself to extended periods of slothful behavior. In the middle of this large, circular pool, there is a small pool where the water is moving at a feverish pace as children and adults alike smile and run around in circles creating a whirlpool affect. I joined in the whirlpool for a few minutes before I started to get dizzy and moved on. On the outside of this smaller pool is a large, intricate fountain that is well worthy of a picture. However, there would be no picture as my camera was securely tucked away in my cabin. All I could do was face outward from the fountain and let the water that flowed from the fountain’s many spouts spurt onto the back of my head and neck for a few minutes that seemed like an eternity. I got a wonderful water massage that was much more rewarding than any picture. As I continued to relax in the pool, I looked around in astonishment at the many impressive aspects of the spa that surrounded me. To be honest, the Szechenyi Baths are much more than a bathhouse; they are an impressive architectural masterpiece that would warrant a look even if you never set foot in one pool. The spa construction was completed in 1913 in a neo baroque style and there are Corinthian columns, porticoed walkways and mustard colored walls to keep your eyes as mesmerized as your body surely is. After standing over a water jet that emerged from the bottom of the pool and streamed water between my legs, I was feeling very good. In fact, we were all feeling so good that we decided we’d better move onto the next pool or we would never make it any further.

To be totally accurate, we didn’t move onto the next pool as we decided to skip the cooler pool and let the healthy lap swimmers have the cooler pool to themselves. After all, we didn’t have swimming caps anyway and while it was warm, it wasn’t warm enough for us to feel the need to be refreshed in the brisk waters. Instead, we headed straight for the warmest outdoor pool. The temperature of this pool is 38 C / 100.4 F and this pool is used for seriously relaxation, and what looks to be, some pretty serious chess playing also. As enjoyable as the last 30 minutes had been, I quickly wondered what I had been doing in that “other” pool as I slowly moved into this one. It felt almost like a hot tub but was a bit cooler and therefore much more comfortable. It was comfortable enough that I dove underneath the water and immersed every square inch of my body in the warm, thermal healing waters. That is something I would never consider doing in a hot tub. Within a few minutes, my head, shoulders and neck were relaxing beneath another fountain whose waters numbed me to the point of complete abandonment. I just sat there in a near meditative state staring into oblivion. Actually, it wasn’t really oblivion I was staring into. It was a statue of a woman and a goose with the goose’s long neck curving around the woman’s supine body up to the nipple on one of her breasts. In the cooler lap pool next to us, there are three massive fountains that fill the pool and stun the eye. The sculpture in the middle is particularly tantalizing with a woman in the middle standing proud over two naked women below her. The whole experience is truly a grand one. To be relaxing and wading in thermal waters amongst a setting of domes and statues is like swimming in a museum. The minerals in the water are believed to be effective in healing dermatological problems, gynecological disorders and diseases of the nervous and digestive systems.

There is much more than just pools here though as I can see Magyars lounging with drinks bought from the cafes under the porticoed walkways. Above and behind these cafes are private cabins for deep tissue massages if the water ones weren’t enough. After some more time lounging, we decided to head back inside to the steam baths we had passed before. Bob and my Dad and I scalded ourselves for about 10 minutes in a room so thick with steam that you couldn’t see the person next to you or the walls in front of you. The heat effect from my wet bathing suit on the wooden benches in the steam room was so excessive that I had to stand up. As we exited the steam room and headed for the showers, my uncle said, “Is sitting in a steam room supposed to be fun?” I just laughed as he had a point. Feeling refreshed after exiting the showers, we had a much easier time finding our way back to our changing cabins. Soon, we were back in our “civilian” clothes exiting the spa through the same women’s entrance that we entered through. It is hard to believe that we even got a refund because we stayed for 2 hours and still had another hour that we had paid for. Budapest is undoubtedly a grand city and lounging in the wonderful Szechenyi Baths is one of the grandest of experiences Budapest can offer a visitor. It is a unique experience that I highly recommend to anyone looking to hang with the locals and see swimming and lounging by the pool in a whole different light.