Over the past six months, we’ve used AD75s to make more than one weekend trip to Europe, often very last minute. It’s not unusual on a Wednesday evening or a Thursday morning for us to log into our Galileo flight booking system and check the flight loads (the volume of booked and unsold seats) on a particular route. Travelling on an AD75 means you only ever have a stand-by reservation and will always be the first passengers to be bumped off if the flight is overbooked. A very common, if unpopular (and some might say unethical) practise by all the major airlines. Being bumped on an outward journey only means you have less time when you arrive at your chosen destination but being bumped from the last flight back to Heathrow on a Sunday night, means you're potentially stranded and late for work the next morning, something that we would be disciplined for. So it’s just not worth the risk, which is why we always check the loads and choose a destination which shows lots of open availability and is therefore unlikely to sell out. So far, we’ve spent weekends together in Dublin, Nice, Strasbourg and not surprisingly Amsterdam with a large crowd of our work colleagues, enjoying the culture and the coffee shops!
“How about Istanbul this weekend?” Mel asks, looking over to me from the top of her monitor one Thursday morning. “The loads look good and the flight times work well. Leaving tomorrow night and returning late on Sunday.”
“Istanbul?” my voiced raised, surprised by her curious, if not obvious, choice. “I’ve never even considered it before, but why not. I bet it’s really interesting.”
Thirty-six hours later Mel and I arrive in Atatürk airport and grab a cab to our hotel - a cheaper option further out of town on the outskirts of the main tourist area. It’s very late when we arrive so rather than head out now to explore, we decide to get our heads down and get up early to uncover what Istanbul has to offer.
The next morning after breakfast we jump in another cab and get dropped off near Sultanahmet Square in the oldest part of the city. I’m hit instantly by the noise. Car horns honking, people chattering in small huddled groups and the sound of the Adhan calling the city to prayer. The city even smells different. A mix of hot dust, exhaust fumes and exotic spices. The early morning March sun already warming up the temperature. Looking around, taking in our surroundings, I can already sense what an interesting and eclectic city this is. The streets appear to have been saved from the influx of western brands that have infiltrated most cities in the last decade. It irks me that so many places in the world are becoming carbon copies of each other, each street littered with the same branded fast food chains and barista coffee shops, so I’m pleased to see that at street level, at least, this city feels exactly as it would have done 100, even 200 years ago. It’s easy to imagine what living here would have been like in ancient times when the city was known as Constantinople or Byzantium before that.
I know almost nothing about Istanbul, other than what I’ve absorbed from ‘A’ level geography at school which centred mostly on the geographical formation of the city, rather than the culture or the people. Geographically, the city is split into three by the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. The enormous Bosphorus divide runs more or less north/south and is where the Black Sea flows down into the Sea of Marmara then on into the Mediterranean. To the west the famous Golden Horn, is the primary inlet that flows into the Bosphorus, splitting the western part of the city into two. This indent in the earth’s crust has long been labelled as the exact point where Asia and Europe collide. The west side of the Bosphorus is considered Europe, the east, Asia. Therefore, I’m hoping this cultural mix will also be represented in our experience, a collision of eastern promise and western influences. The most famous architectural icon is of course the Blue Temple with its six, distinctively fluted pencil-shaped minarets that surround its large central dome and forecourt as it stands proudly on the South Western peninsula looking out over the Bosphorus towards Mecca.
Feeling a bit weary after our long week at work and late-night travels, Mel and I decide to go for a traditional Turkish massage first, or what’s known as a Hamam. This, we surmise, would be a great way to start our Turkish adventure before we explore the markets and the Grand Bazaar later.
We ask a few people who are milling around and who look local, where they would recommend for a Hamam. In broken English and using lots of hand gestures, we stress that we want a traditional experience, not some trumped up over-priced nondescript spa experience aimed only at tourists. A local gentleman points down an alleyway where the buildings overhang reaching inwards towards each other blocking out almost most of the light. He mimes that we should walk down there and knock on the unmarked door we’ll find at the end. Melanie and I look at each other, unsure whether this is a good idea or not.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she says, shrugging her shoulders.
“Come on then,” I link my arm through hers and lead us down the twisting alley before knocking on the heavy wooden door at the bottom.
A small trapdoor opens in the centre of the door at head height, revealing a woman’s face. She’s looks about 40 years old. She’s scowling, an expression of deep disgust etched into her face, making the hard, leathered lines on her skin deepen further, ageing her by at least another ten or so years. She looks Mel and I up and down as if trying to decide our motives. What she sees appears to displease her and she shouts something in Turkish that neither of us understand.
Leaning back towards Mel, I whisper, “Ever had the feeling you’ve just walked into a Monty Python sketch?” Mel sniggers under her breath which the Turkish women notices, endearing us to her even less.
“Two massage?” I gesticulate. “Yes?” pointing back and forth between Melanie and myself, the upward inflection in my voice I hope conveying the question I’m asking.
“Evet, gel,” she replies sternly, which we assume is some form of greeting. She opens the door, her face still scowling her disapproval. Moving aside, her hand outstretched inviting us to step across the threshold.
Inside the confined entrance hall, our shoes click-clacking on the marble floor, another woman is sitting behind an encased cashier’s desk separated from us by wire mesh that encloses her workspace. She writes on a piece of paper the cost in Lira and slides it under the wire towards us. Mel and I look at each other in amazement as the cost is the equivalent of £2.50 in sterling.
“Well either we’ve stumbled upon the absolute best bargain Hamam in town, Vicky, or we’re about to be led into a dungeon and sold as slaves, never to see daylight again!” Mel says as she pays her money through the wire mesh.
“Here goes nothing,” I reply as I too give the women the measly fee and am handed in return, what can only be described as a small linen tea-towel, along with a locker key and a bright orange circular token. The towels are made of pure white linen, nothing like the fluffy bath towels you would use back home and must be only about 20 inches square. Clearly not enough to wrap around you and if you were to hold it in front of you, you would have to choose between covering your modesty or your chest as it is not big enough to cover both.
“Mel this is getting weirder by the minute,” I giggle as the scowling woman points for us to walk down the marble corridor and through a door at the end.
Behind the intricately carved wooden door lies a changing room. Old metal lockers lean against the walls of peeling plaster, and bare wooden benches run in a line down the centre of the room, down at the far end a circle of local Turkish women, chattering away. The volume is incredible. The sound bouncing around the walls and off the high ceiling of the sparse room which acts like an amplifier. They sound like a gaggle of geese all talking over the top of each other. Most of them are naked. One rather large woman with enormous heavy breasts that hang down to her waist, is wearing a pair of black lacy knickers that have a massive hole on one side so that dimpled flesh from her right buttock bulges through. Despite their obvious lack of clothing, they all appear very comfortable in their own skins and each other’s company. I assume they must all be friends and
come here regularly.
The temperature and humidity in the enclosed space is unbearable, having risen what seems like 15 degrees from the cool corridor outside and I’m already beginning to sweat. Mel and I take our clothes off, folding them and putting them in our respective lockers. We’re both naked from the waist up when Mel turns to me and says,
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” whipping her knickers off and throwing them into the locker with the rest of her clothes. Chuckling to myself at the madness of what we are both doing I quickly follow suit. Completely starkers we attempt to hide our modesty with the inadequate linen tea towels as best we can.
We follow our noses through the only other door out of the changing room, located to the side of the room leaving the local Turkish women to continue jabbering away. We step through and enter another world that neither of us could have anticipated or imagined.
Behind the door lies an enormous cavernous enclosed chamber, hexagonal in shape and at least 15 or 20 metres in height. The room is dominated by a large circular marble slab in its centre which is about five meters in diameter and raised up from the floor to about thigh height. Mel and I have no idea what we’re meant to do, but there are two other women in the room, also naked, who have thrown their own tea towels down onto the marble slab and are lying prostrate on top.
“When in Rome ‘n’ all that,” I say to Mel, as we throw down our tea towels and copy the other women who are lying flat on their backs, eyes closed, seemingly enjoying the experience of being naked in a room full of strangers.
It’s only when I too lie down and look up, do I appreciate the design and structure of the building. The large domed ceiling, painted in the traditional vibrant blues and golds, is perforated with a hundred or so Moorish crosses, providing the perfect amount of ventilation for this hot Turkish bath. The heat, I’ve worked out, rises up from the marble slab in the centre of the room, escaping out of the building through these holes in the ceiling. The air shimmers with pendulous water droplets that hang like suspended stars, giving the whole space a magical quality.
As I lie on the warm marble slab I appreciate its heat, warmed from a fire below, and I soon begin to sweat. The high humidity restricting the evaporation of moisture from my skin as it warms. Despite my nakedness, surprisingly I feel very relaxed, the tension of the previous week draining easily from my muscles.
“We’d never have found this place in any official guide book,” I whisper over to Mel.
“Do you reckon we’ve just happened to stumble into a women’s only Hamam, Vicky?” Mel whispers back. “Or do you think that side door is going to open and any second now a deliciously ripped, tall dark handsome stranger might just appear?”
“...or a horrible hairy old bloke - knowing our luck,” I add as one of the other women looks over in our direction. Our childish giggles disturbing the peace and tranquility of The Warm Room. “If you could guarantee the former, I wouldn’t mind him throwing his towel down next to mine,” I say, patting the area on the slab next to me, “or he could just forget his towel altogether and just lie on top of me,” I add dryly, ignoring the hard stare from the other woman who has now rolled over onto her front in disgust. I’ve assumed she doesn’t understand English, but it’s possible she’s understood every word and therefore my disrespect for this sacred space and its rituals.
Just then the side door bursts open but rather than a tall handsome stranger, in walks one of the naked Turkish women we’d seen earlier in the changing room. She strides purposefully towards Melanie, who mouths,
”What the fuuuuuuck?” back over to me.
“Jeton,” the woman barks.
Assuming she’s just asked for the orange token we were given when we arrived, Mel dutifully hands it over. The woman then signs for Mel to roll over onto her front, to which Mel complies. The woman then rubs some oil onto her hands and begins to massage Mel’s back.
A-ha, I think to myself. This is the massage bit of a traditional Turkish massage. My mind flicks back to the gaggle of women we first saw in the changing room, as I now realise that they were not visitors to the Hamam but in fact all work here. I wonder who my masseuse will be, I ponder, trying desperately to remember what all the women looked like. However, the only woman I can remember clearly is the fierce buxom women with the enormous heavy breasts and lacy knickers.
Not big boobs and ripped knickers - please ... not big boobs and ripped knickers, I repeat over and over in my mind like a mantra. I have a feeling she would pummel me like a slab of meat at the butchers and I may not survive. I hear the side door burst open a second time and indeed Big Boobs and Ripped Knickers strides over purposefully towards me, holding what looks like a bowl of warm water. I silently groan as I prepare to be annihilated.
“Jeton,” she barks at me and I dutifully hand over the token before she also gives me the signal to roll over onto my front.
One hour later, any misgivings I had about this whole experience have vanished, as Betty Big Boobs, (as I’ve affectionately now named her in my head) has just given me the best massage of my entire life and I’m now completely chilled out and thoroughly relaxed.
First, she massaged my entire body. Pulling my limbs with one hand, whilst massaging my muscles under tension with the other. Her hands moved around my body, stretching sinews that had now softened in the heat and humidity. She dug every part of her hands, fingers, elbows and arms into my flesh, thoroughly loosening any knots and releasing any tension she found. She worked her hands all over my body from my scalp to my feet, asking me to turn over so she could repeat the whole process down the front of my body. Despite my initial reservations of being so exposed and naked - a masseuse in the UK would cover you with towels and only work on the part of your body that is exposed - never have I had an experience where you’re lying completely naked in a public space with another human being touching you. But hey, I figured, I’m never going to come here or see these people again, so how they judge my physical form will remain with them once I leave, and so I reluctantly complied.
Once sufficiently limbered, stretched and loosened she picked up the bowl of warm water, agitating it so that the liquid frothed with large moisturising soapy suds. In the bowl lay a large muslin cloth which she lifted over the centre of my back, squeezing the cloth vertically, releasing the soft, warm, soapy water onto my skin.
She slid her hands into two large exfoliating mitts, that looked like oversized oven gloves and proceeded to rub my body vigorously. Holding each limb in turn so she could exfoliate each arm and leg. My skin tingled as she expertly moved around my body, moving up and down and then once again as I rolled onto my back, all around my torso, skilfully avoiding any erogenous zones.
Once this stage of the process was completed, she gripped my arm firmly gesticulating for me to stand. I had absolutely no idea what she had planned for me next, yet I followed. She led me off the marble slab and into one of the anti-chambers that line each side of the main hexagonal room. The anti-chambers are still open on one side to the main room, but they are smaller and slightly cooler. A marble seat runs around each of them. As I followed Betty I saw one of the other women from earlier also seated in the marginally cooler air. In the middle of the anti-chamber was a stone-carved fountain with running water. She led me over to the front of the fountain and using her bowl, filled it three or four times with fresh water before tipping it over my head, rinsing my body of all the residual soap and oil and presumably anything that has been left by the vigorous exfoliation.
The whole experience was so unexpected but gloriously indulgent. My skin is glowing, and my body felts so rejuvenated as a result. Once I’d been sufficiently rinsed, and before she led me back to my spot on the central marble table presumably to relax and sweat it out some more, she’d smiled kindly, revealing a wide gap in the front of her gnashers.
In her broken English she said, “Very nice.” Her hand gesturing up and down my body, as she admired my physical form. Her words were not sexuall
y motivated, rather just one woman paying a simple compliment to another fellow female.
It seems so odd and unexpected to have someone comment about my physical shape, let alone give me a compliment, that I didn’t know what to say in return. I’ve received so few in the past that I’ve grown up with massive body insecurities that make me constantly compare myself to others. I’m always thinking my thighs are too big or my boobs too small, so even if I have received any compliments in the past, particularly from anyone of the opposite sex I have become deft in batting them away before deleting them from memory.
No one has ever seen me naked like this before, brazenly walking around starkers in bright light and in such a public place. So to hear this compliment from a complete stranger, who I expect I will never see again, somehow it manages to penetrate my hardened outer core and even though I still can’t fully accept it, I ponder her words as I continue to lie relaxing on the marble slab, my skin radiant, and my lips break into a small florid smile.
“Well, what did you make of all that?” Mel asks as we drink our Cay tea in a cafe around the corner to rehydrate after sweating so much.
“Unexpectedly amazing. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget it and my skin feels gorgeous,” I reply, stroking the top of my forearm with my hand noticing the smoothness of my own flesh. “Where to next? The Grand Bazaar?”
“Gotta be done.” Mel drains the last of her tea. “Come on, let’s go.”
Belonging: Two hearts, two continents, one all-consuming passion. (Victoria in Love Book 1) Page 5
