Rest day in Istanbul. Julia heads for the Hammam (Turkish Bath). If anyone needed a Turkish bath it is us after 8 weeks driving from Kenya there is plenty of dirt accumulated. After reviewing the list of options she selects the Luxury full treatment. Any possibility for extras? Yes, the clay face mask – She'll take that too. Stanley's only comment before leaving is "why am I not surprised?".
Julia's Hammam
You leave all your clothes in the 'locker room', take a cloth wrap and enter into an enormous domed steam room and lay on a massive warm round marble slab. I lay there relaxing for a while until I heard someone barking in Turkish and looked up to see a large half naked woman with 3 teeth shouting at me. In other circumstances I would expect she might be mugging me but she obviously had no weapon and I obviously had nothing to take. This must be my bath attendant. She scrubbed and soaped until what I thought was my hard earned tan was almost completely gone. When she finished she said "wax?". Ok, I could use a bikini wax, I guess. We leave the bath area, I get wrapped in warm towels and she tells me to lie down. She comes back kneeding something that looks like a cross between tree sap and silly puddy. The she starts to "wax". It is the most painful process ever. She basically uses this sap to extract the hairs one by one and as she does it stretches into a long strand. When it gets to long she retracts it in a nun-chuck maneuver and goes at it again. The practice of Hammam is centuries old and this must be their primitive waxing treatment. Luckily I survived. Then on to the oil massage, clay mask and then back into the steam room for some more relaxing. After a couple of hours I am cleaner than I have been in months and very relaxed. My next point of business is a haircut. The wind, sand and general lack of frequent showering has left my hair in a state. I go to a salon around the corner from the hotel. The stylist asks me what I would like to do – in perfect English. I make an explanation and point out some pictures in the magazines. Little did I know that "what would you like to do?" is this guy's ONLY English. The result is a very short haircut. Niels thinks Stanley and I now make the perfect couple with our cheap, road trip, marginal quality haircuts. Unfortunately, both of them are so short there isn't much we can do but wait for them to grow out..!
Niels, Eowyn and Stanley stroll the grand bazaar in the morning hours: kilometers of small shops that sell everything that tourists potentially could buy from fine silk to carpets, from copperware to quartz vases, and from Turkish delight to shish kebabs. The small alleys made that we got lost quite rapidly, but that is exactly why we brought the GPS. Eowyn got bored rapidly and did her morning nap while seated in the rucksack.
In the afternoon we meet up for some shopping. There is so much on offer in Istanbul but it isn't cheap. We wander around looking at carpets, ceramics and trinkets. In the end Julia and Stanley end up with a carpet and by the time that is done it is almost time for dinner.
In the evening Niels went to the Hammam for the Luxury package (didn't go for the mud addition). It was just perfect to relax and it was nice and quite except for the loud echoing sound of the metal bowls falling on the floor… When everybody left it was just perfect!
