After 8 months of being on the road, a Turkish Bath or hammam was just what the doctor ordered! When we learnt that Damascus was a great place to try one, Emily, Yvonne and I decided it was time to give it a try!
The ritual of the hammam has been a part of the culture here from the eighteen hundreds. It was how the women of the cities bonded and spent a girls day out together. Many wealthy families might have had their own private hammam built into their houses but most people would use the public baths. It would have been the place where women socialised and where prospective mothers-in-law would check out suitable spouses for their sons. While there weren’t too many opportunities for men to get to know the young girls in their cities, their mothers having checked them out in the hammams would then play a big part in the negotiations between the families when it was time for their sons to choose a bride.
For the modern women of today, it is just a great social opportunity to chill with their girl friends. A time to catch up on what’s going on in each others lives and the local gossip. You might 
even have an entire bridal party come to a hammam as part of their hens night or day out. think it is much more fun to do this together with the girls, rather than on your own.
While having lunch at a local boutique hotel, we discovered they had a private hammam so we made reservations right away and here we are. 
After stripping down, we are given pestamals or sarongs to wrap around us and led down to the steam room. The steam is swirling around us and I have flashbacks to Petra Inn (where we were caught in a mini fire). We sit around a marble bench and feel all the toxins slowly seep out of our skin. It is a great feeling but occasionally the steam gets so thick we can hardly breath and we crouch down to get cool.
We are then led one by one to a second room. One of the ladies at the hammam asks me to lie face down on the marble floor, where she has spread my sarong. She then begins to scrub my body from head to toe, peeling off layers of dead skin from many months on the road. This feels good. She then shampoos my hair and works on my head. After a complete exfoliation process, I am led to another room,where I lie face down once more (on a bed this time) for an amazing massage. I am not sure what she rubs on my body, but it smell and feels wonderful.
The last step in this process is a shower. I am led to one of the individual basins that line the room and warm water is first poured all over me and then finally a bowl of cold water which really wakes me up. I am then wrapped up in more towels and led upstairs to the reception area where a cup of tea and my friends await.
I have not felt this good in a very long time. I feel incredibly clean and my aches and pains of backpacking around the world for 8 months have been scrubbed and massaged away. We lounge on the sofa, sipping hot tea before changing back into our clothes and walking out to their gorgeous courtyard, where a feast off fuul (bean salad), hummus, yogurt, pickles, rice and bread await.
We sit here in complete contentment and feast. A a special treat in a special city. 
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
C. S. Lewis
No comments:
Post a Comment