Yesterday morning, we took our time getting up. Mike and I went to Starbuck’s just to treat ourselves to a taste of America. I can’t say it was the greatest thing as my tastes have changed. Drinks I used to enjoy are much too sweet now. At 11 we were to meet David Parks who I mentioned earlier as a volunteer from our group, from our training village in fact. We go way back.
We started out by getting some lunch/ breakfast. Not exactly brunch because it was more lunch time, but it was the first meal to me. So it would probably be better just to say “we had lunch”. David ordered me some kind of toast. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t that good either. It was good because it cost less than two dollars and that was fine with me. We then walked down the street to a hookah bar that David raved about. It was as good as he described it. On the seventh floor, it had a clear view of the harbor area and the Asian side of Istanbul. Really nice view. Ryan came after he finished his dealings with the New Zealand Consulate.
We then walked down to the harbor and decided that we wanted to try a Turkish bath. If you don’t know what it is, don’t worry, I didn’t either but will gain an insight to what it is in my upcoming words.
Ryan left us and Mike, David, and myself, we had to figure out how to get across to the Asian side and find this Turkish bath or Humemi. I don’t think I spelled that right but its close enough. No one spoke English. We got on a boat and it took us straight across the river. As in from one side of the bridge to the other. A five-minute boat ride. Everyone got off. We didn’t know what to do so we got on another boat. Five minutes later we were on the same side we started on. We didn’t have a clue which boat to take. Since we lingered on the boat, it had already started to pull away from the dock. The boat had to pull back to the dock rendering it necessary in the boat pilots mind to let us know of our error by blaring the horn right as we were getting off. Thank you.
After several minutes of pantomiming, a boat attendant figured out what was going on and told us which boat to get on. It took us back to the other side, where we were not more than twenty minutes prior. Everyone got off. We followed the herd and ended up going the right direction; about 45 minutes behind schedule and now having traveled the same boat route three times.
We arrived at the Asian side. We had received some instruction from Ryan on how to get to the Humemi. They proved to be fruitless. So, every 100 meters or so I asked a man sitting on the side of the street “Chilinli Humemi?” It worked as we finally got there.
The Humemi also didn’t have anyone who spoke English, which had somewhat of a calming effect. They gave us towels and pointed at rooms on the second floor. We went up there and changed into towels and came back downstairs. The man took us into the large marble steam room where we just sat there asking each other what the next step was with not one of us having a real clue.
A 250 pound Turkish man came in with a towel around his waist and told David to follow him. Another came and told Mike to follow him. We walked into another room with marble sinks no more than two feet off the ground. I watched. It didn’t look so bad.
It was my turn. The man told me where to sit. I sat down and with a harsh scrubber, jus went to town on my body. My whole body. I just had to block it out because coming from a western culture, we don’t just let any bathe us. This man did scrubbed my back, and then my front. He scrubbed my legs. I still had a towel around me but he managed to go up far enough to ram one testicle into pelvic bone. I went numb. Every once in a while, he showed me all the dead skin that came off, proud of his work. I was just grossed out. Five more of those and I will be back to what I was like two years ago.
We then went back into the stream room, which has a fifteen foot diameter marble table. I laid down on it as this man put soap all over me. It felt good to me, but Michael was screaming and squirming around. I don’t think he liked it as much. I was funny watching David because his body type and structure resembles Gumby’s. Since this was our first time, we just laid limply and let the barbaric man just move us in whatever position he needed us to be in.
Overall a really good experience and you do feel a lot cleaner, like your skin can breathe again. I am not as tan anymore….
Since we went way out of our way to get to this bath, we saved about 60 Lira. This place had no tourists and is where the Turkish men go.
We took the ferry back to the European side and randomly met Ryan by the road. We were going to have a barbeque on his roof. It was really nice. They got fish to grill and we had that with an assortment of vegetables and sauces. It was a nice way to spend our evening.
We went back out that night to meet up with David and hung out in the area.
Today, I just hung around the house trying to catch up on work. There really isn’t too much left to see since we sprinted around trying to cover all the tourist spots thinking we wouldn’t have the time. Eh. It has been fun just hanging out and talking with Ryan and Yagmur and their other guests who are from Turkey and Australia.
Until next time…
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