Hamam heaven

Airbnb host recommendation: Visit the old hamam in Selcuk for the authentic experience.

Other guests' appraisal: Wonderful! A real highlight in our visit to Turkey.

My decision: Do it! Expunge the memory of hamam hell.

So, I took a 30-min (5TL) dolmus ride from Kusadasi to Selcuk and found:

 

Recognisable from outside by its traditional domed roof

The cool calm when I entered the building was re-assuring but, again, I found myself the only client in the establishment and the manager was lying down, asleep, on a bench seat in the reception area. "Hello," I said three times before penetrating his slumber. Unprofessional and un-slick? Good! I didn't mind.

All my valuables - the entire mass of them, were deposited in a locker and the key was put around my wrist on an elastic hair tie. Then, in a change room immediately off the reception area, I stripped down to knickers and wrapped myself in a cotton towel, which stayed on for the whole procedure. (A bikini would be more practical.) When I emerged, I was led to the Turkish bath room with the domed roof and, on entering, immediately felt like I'd come home. (Maybe it was humidity....) I love that feeling when a place just matches up with something inside you and you feel like you are a big YES.

It was a large space, lit naturally and gently, by many circular holes in the domed roof. One of them was dazzling, where the sun scored a direct hit; others dazzled to differing degrees, like stars in the night sky. The light and steam gave it a surreal, twilighty atmosphere. There was a continuous marble bench around the outside and a large, octagonal, heated slab of marble in the middle, occupying most of the floor space.

I was soon to realise that silence is an essential part of the experience; but contrary to my first hamam experience, the silence here was gentle and respectful. Interesting how silence can be all things from hostile and cruel, through indifferent, disengaged and distancing, to restorative, intimate, comforting - "golden". I guess it depends what the various parties bring into the silence. The attendant who looked after me was a paunchy, moustached man, probably in his late forties, and he communicated with me by touch and gesture: patting my arm gently when he had an instruction to communicate, and signalling with his hand "Sit up, roll over, go there".

First, I sat on the marble bench and was doused in warm water; then I was "told" to lie on the heated marble slab. He left for ages and I relaxed into a meditative state, aware only of the space I was in, the silence and stillness and how good it felt to be there. At some point I heard the splashing of water and only vaguely registered that another client had arrived.

Eventually, the attendant returned and I was led back to the marble bench for the body scrub. And this time, it was not a painful experience. (The amount of sludge-coloured grime produced from my body was astonishing.) Then came the foam massage - again, not painful and a rinse-off with basins of warm water. Finally I was told to shower (cold, but actually welcome in that hot space) and given a new dry towel to wear.

Back in the reception area, I sat, wrapped in towels to keep warm, on the bench where the manager had been sleeping. He brought me some tea and I sat there feeling totally relaxed and peaceful as I drank. Then, in my own time, I got dressed, retrieved my valuables and left - so glad to have this new impression of the hamam experience, to cancel the conveyor-belt-style experience in Bodrum. Indeed, that was the treat I'd wanted for my body, and my soul knew it....

The cost? 45TL. For an extra 15TL I could have had an oil massage, but I chose not to as I loved feeling so clean.

 

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