My Turkish bath

One of the things I promised myself was a true Turkish bath. What better place to have this treat than near Heiropolis, the place where people have treated themselves to spas for a very long time. I read about the Turkish baths online at home, so had a general idea what to expect, but it still was an experience I wouldn’t have wanted to miss.

Here at the hotel, they have big fat Turkish terry bathrobes for everyone, and people just walk around in these robes, padding through the lobby and halls on the way to the spa. The spa is filled with cute little Turkish guys very skilled at selling you all the treatments, but I still managed to stay within my budget with a bath and Auyervedic massage.

I walk in, feeling a bit awkward in my robe, but my cute little Turkish guy leads me to a dressing room and then on to another room where a very tiny girl leads me to the bath. She will be my massage therapist as well, so she is my guide through the process. The bath itself is made of marble, with a huge marble slab in the middle of the room and deep marble basins with old copper pipes along the sides. It is quite dark and very steamy in the room, and very warm. She gestures to me to remove my robe and has me lie on the slab. I am the only one in the room besides her, so it is little less uncomfortable lying out there on a marble slab face up in my birthday suit. Hmm.

Next thing I know, she is running the faucets and filling two large metal bowls with very hot water and pouring them on my body rhythmically in pairs, arms, legs, sides, back, pouring over and over. The sheer volume of water and the height from which she pours is an experience in itself. Then she begins to scrub with a small loofa, until I have no skin left. I think, gee maybe enough in that spot, and just when I think I might have to say something she moves to another spot. Then more water, huge volumes of water again. Silence. Steam. Then she is back doing something strange with a Turkish towel and bubbles. I am on my stomach by this time so I can’t actually see what she is doing, but suddenly I am enveloped in thick, foamy, whip cream textured bubbles. She turns me over and covers me in more foam, soapy foam, again from the towel where she makes the bubbles somehow. The foamy bubbles as they hang over me from the towel are a huge clump about 1 foot in diameter and 2 feet high. They are warm as they fall on my body. Then she rubs in all the foam and in the dim light I look down at my foam covered body and the foam covered slab and laugh to think this is the best bubble bath I ever had! She then drops bubbles in my hair and washes my hair. Finally more water, many bowlfuls of water to get all that foam from my body and I am cleaner than I think I have ever been.

Wouldn’t have missed this experience for anything! The massage was wonderful, with hot oils and chakra balancing, gentle massage just firm enough to heal, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t felt before. Huge clumps of bubbles falling from the sky on my body is definitely something I haven’t felt before. Great end to a relaxing day in Pamukkale.!