Turkish Bath

No vacation to Turkey is complete without going to a Turkish Bath. The Hamam is the place where you can totally relax both body and mind, do not try to rush though, allow yourself plenty of time to enjoy and revitalize both your body and mind.

Every Turkish town will usually have a “Hamam” and in the Cities you will find many. The public bath in Çesme is close to the caravansary and many of the larger hotels also have private baths. However note that most public baths segregate the sexes, although in many of the larger hotels mixed sessions are normal. Either way you should check before you visit.

The origin of the Turkish bath is Roman and was later refined by the Ottomans and normally has 3 rooms for you to experience.

1. A steamy hot room, for a warm up and a scrubbing. Taking away any ingrained dirt and any layers of dead skin from your body.
2. A warm room, for soaping, washing and perhaps a massage.
3. A cool room, for resting, recuperating or just glowing.

As you first enter the Hamam you will be given a pair of wooden sandals (Takunya) and a linen towel (Pestemal) which you should fashion into a sarong to cover your modesty. After changing into the sarong and learning to balance on the sandals, you can enter the steam room. The idea here is to warm yourself up, open the pours of your body and begin the cleansing process so just sit and relax by one of the marble basins and pour warm water over yourself and gently raise your body temperature.

The next phase is the soaping and scrubbing with a "kese" a rough cloth mitten which removes loose or dead skin and any ingrained dirt. A word of caution – the “scrubbing” process can be somewhat vigorous so avoid going to the Hamam if you are a little “tender” after too much sunbathing.

Having got yourself thoroughly clean and relaxed you may wish to take a massage, experiences vary here, but it is fair to say that after a good massage all your body will be totally relaxed, so much so you may have difficulty walking. So simply sit down again by the basins and recover for a little while.

Finally you can move into the “cool room” where you can sit down, have a nap or a snooze and relax with a snack over a glass of tea or Turkish coffee before going back out to face the world completely clean, glowing, relaxed, refreshed and invigorated.