Soaking it up in a hamam

Istanbul, Turkey – One of the highlights of my short trip to Istanbul was a visit to a traditional turkish steam bath, or hamam. I use traditional in the loosest sense of the word, since it was located just outside the entrance to the Grand Bazaar, a major tourist drawcard, and the customers were almost all foreigners like me.

Nevetherless, it was quite an expeirence to lay on the enormous marble slab in the middle of the steam room and look up at the domed ceiling high above. A series of small portholes in the roof let in shafts of filtered light. As I lay there, sweating out the Efes beer and doner kebabs from the previous night, I liked to think that I was doing what Turkish men had been doing since the hamam was built in the 16th century.

Mind you, none of them were likely to have been brutalised personally by Ahmet, who introduced himself as my bath attendent by tapping the sole of my foot. He fitted my stereotypical ideal of a Turkish male nicely: mustache, pot belly, with legs and arms as thick as tree trunks.

He brusquely motioned for me to lie down while he poured a bucket of hot water over my chest to start proceedings. He then began a perfunctory scrub down accompanied with a few massage-like techniques. They were certainly effective in getting the knots out, although it bordered on the sort of almost unbearable pain that makes you count your breaths until it’s over.

Then he motioned for me to roll over onto my front and started on me again. He seemed unconcerned whether I was enjoying myself, let alone relaxing. An upturned metal dish I had been using as a head rest was flung aside as he manipulated one of my arms. I tried keep my face out of the half- inch deep layer of suds on the marble stone but was mostly unsuccessful as he pummeled my back.

A nearby bucket went flying as he started on the other arm. Then I felt my self slipping off the stone and it was all I could do to hold on with a toe and left arm. Ahmet didn’t seem to notice my perilous state and simply continued on with the treatment.

Suddenly I was sitting up while he shampooed my entire head. This mostly consisted of pulling my ears and pushing my head onto my chest. A couple of hot and cold buckets of water later and it was all over.

Ahmet slapped me on the back in a kind of ‘no hard feelings’ kind of way, made sure I understood how best to tip him at the front counter and pushed me in the direction of the steam bath for one last soak.

Mosque-hunting in Istanbul

The Grand Bazaar

Istanbul, Turkey – If I had wanted a laid back, hippy-trail experience in Istanbul then I was about 20 years too late.

Driving into Turkey’s largest city I got the feeling it was no longer a chilled cross roads where East meets West. The traffic was absolutely incredible. All blaring horns and aggressive hand gestures from the macho taxi drivers. In between weaved the police cars who used their horns and sirens – not because there was any emergency to attend – but as a way of navigating a little more effectively through the congestion.

On the dry Mediteranean hillsides squatted hastily constructed apartment blocks in hues of red and orange and pink. The only decorations were random sproutings of satellite dishes and the odd Turkish rug hung over the balcony to air. The apartments had been put up so quickly that roads, drainage and footpaths had yet to be built around them.

I was staying, like most tourists, in the historic area of Sultanhamet. The backpacker strip still organised tours to Cappadocia and sold cold beers to an international band of travellers, just like it had probably done since the 1970s. But now the tours were more likely to be in fully air conditioned buses and the beers cost almost as much as they did in London.

The New Mosque

Big ticket sights
Staying in Sultanahmet, a thumb-shaped peninsula of land beside the Bosphorous channel, gave me easy access to Istanbul’s big ticket items. The impressive Hagia Sophia was just up the road. It was truly massive; an enormous dome surrounded by imposing arches and towering minarets. It needed to be huge too, given the number of package tourists that packed into the church cum mosque cum museum shortly after it opened at 9am . Crouching to take a photo of the dome, I had to dart out of the way before I was crushed by an umbrellla-touting guide and his army of sightseeing Americans.

Opposite was the Blue Mosque, but unlike the Hagia it was still a working mosque. Worshippers fought their way past the crowds of tourists for some not so quiet communication with their god. The chirp of digital cameras echoed between the arches.

A slightly more relaxing experience was deep under the old city in the Yerebatan Sarnici, an underground cistern built around 500AD. Strange, ghostly-white koi swam in the dimly lit water of the cistern in between the more than 300 supporting columns.

The calm before the storm

Looking for adventure
I teamed up with two young Finnish lads and a Yorkshireman who shared my hostel room. They were coming to the end of their respective backpacking trips through Eastern Europe and were keen to celebrate with a few mugs of Efes beer – the only beer on tap in Istanbul that we could find.

Working against us was the holy month of Ramadan. I got the sense that the Turks weren’t big beer drinkers anyway and Ramadan had encouraged the remaining social drinkers to give up as well. Which meant we spent Friday night drinking at a succession of quiet bars in the modern city area around Taksim. There were plenty of Turks out and about all right, it’s just that they seemed to prefer a glass of Turkish tea – served in the ubiquitous tulip-shaped glass – and a game of draughts.

Things got really dire when we were the only people in a disco sipping beer while the lone DJ played Love Shack.

Fortunately, salvation was at hand. We stumbled into a backpacker hostel to ask where all the action was. After being told nowhere before midnight we were persuaded to stay for a beer. Which is where we met Ville.

Ville, who looked like a slimmer, more youthful but equally as intoxicated version of the late Dom Belushi, introduced himself in broken English and insisted we come with him to his local bar. To seal the deal he shared what remaining beer he had in his mug by pouring equal measures into ours. Er, thanks.

His local was a low ceiling tavern style joint just off the Taksim main drag. Young Turks, both men and women, sat around tables smoking and drinking and grooving to the Doors and Rolling Stones and whatever else the bar tenders fancied playing through the laptop on the counter.

Ville continued drinking like a fish. His favourite party trick was to stand in front of us and drain his beer in one gulp – with half of it going down his front. Meanwhile one of the Finnish boys was talking to a muscle shirted Turk about the merits of Western women. The Turk insisted that they were so easy one had only look at them and they’d willingly follow you to bed. The Fin nodded politely.

Eventually the bar started to wind down. Ville was being propped up at the bar by two friends who held onto him from opposite sides to control his swaying. We finished our mugs of Efes and ducked out into the chilly Turkish night. Now all we had to do was survive the erratic taxi ride home.

Click here to check out the Istanbul photo album on Flickr.

Backpack Storybook tip: I stayed in the Metropolis Hostel just behind the mosques in Sultanahmet. Great value at £13 per night for a four bed dorm room. Clean, modern and run by a great bunch of brothers. Whatever you do, however, don’t use the Sabiha Gocken airport, its fucking miles away.