So, there were these two English girls...

We decided that Saturday was going to be a real chill-out day and so we decided to treat ourselves to a Trukish Bath at Cagaloglu Hamami which is 300 years old. All seemed to be going well until we were conned into paying 10YTL for a hand mit, but as we'd been pretty savvy up until this point, we just put it down to experience. However, I do clearly remember asking if we needed to wear costumes and being told that no we didn't and that robes were provided, which we could see from the picture, all the women wearing. So there we were in our cubicle, modestly wrapping what felt like far too small a sheet round ourselves, then having to put wooden shoes on and waddling like ungainly geishas to the baths themselves. So far so good. Once in the baths however, we saw lots of naked women and this Turkish woman, with only a sheet covering her lower half told us to take our towels off. I don't think Lucy or I have ever shared such identical looks of horror. As we couldn't get out of it, we just had to go with the flow and tried to hide inconspicuously in a corner. No chance. The same woman thrust metal bowls at us and started using them to tip water over us and gestured that we should do the same. Thankfully, then we were left to get on with it for a while and regain some composure. The room itself it circular, with a big marble slab in the middle and lots of little marble sinks with warm and cold water running into them all around the outside. Being very British, we tried to pretend that we weren't completely starkers, but it didn't last long. Back comes the first woman, putting a bathing suit on and hauling Lucy onto the middle marble slab, where she proceeded to scrub Lucy with the over-priced mit. I thought I should just wait my turn, but suddenly this rather large Turkish woman came over to me wearing only knickers and told me to lie down next to Lucy. On went her swimming costume and I was duly scrubbed. At that moment, I really did understand the sentiment behind 'lie back and think of England', this woman could have easily had me for breakfast. After washing again, we were both massaged, which was actually incredibly relaxing and had our hair washed. By this point we were both quite used to being naked and toddled off as instructed to the hot room. More chilling out on the marble slab ensued before we finally emerged attempting to look elegant in our little robes (which suddenly felt much bigger). I don't think we succeeded, but we've certainly bonded...

After that little experience we were both completely comatosed, and just chilled for the rest of the day. You'll be pleased to note that there are no accompanying pictures.