Reflections Enroute » adventure

Being Pampered at the Hamam

corinne — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:00:15 +0000

With the girls in Turkey, I had to take them to the hamam (Turkish bath). Devon actually went twice; but they both loved it. After having been indoctrinated into the world of public bathing in Japan, both of them thought this was much easier and much more comfortable. That might have something to do with the fact that everyone thinks we are Turkish until they try to talk to us…so less staring.

The changing room at the hamam.

What to bring:

1. Money. It’s not as cheap as it used to be…just to enter is around 15 Tl., then they charge you for each additional service ie. waxing, hair dye, getting pealed, and massage.

2. Your toiletries which must include soap, shampoo, a kese (scrub pad – but you can buy this at the hamam if you need to), and a washcloth (Turkish washcloths are knitted.). Of course, you can bring any other toiletries you would like, but the attendent will want to use these items on you.

3. A hairbrush and an extra pair of underwear. Why? Because you wear your panties in the bath and they are soaking wet when you are finished.

Other optional items would be a bathrobe, your own towel (for the final drying), and flip flops or shower shoes (so you don’t have to borrow theirs).

How to hamam:

1. After arriving, usually someone will claim us and tell us where to find an empty changing room. There we are provided with a hamam towel and shower shoes. We undress and make our way to the bath or to get waxed. (Remember to leave your panties on, if you are a woman.)

Note: You must not get wet before you are waxed. If a waxing is on your agenda, make sure you find out where to go and be prepared. If the attendant gets a little too rough, just say “Yavash”, which means “slow”.

Preparing to splash, splash, splash before the pealing, wash, and massage.

2. Go straight to a marble basin where there is piping hot water as well as a cold tap running. Take the plastic bowl and splash it on all of your body parts for at least 10 minutes. At this point, do not use any soap or shampoo, just lots and lots of water. It is to soften you up.

3. The attendant will come and get you. Follow her to a marble slab and lie on your stomach. The first part of the routine is the “pilic” or scrub or peal, whatever. The attendant will scrub off your old skin.

4. After she is finished with the pealing, she will either order you to go rinse, or she will splash you with buckets of water, both hot and cold.

5. Now it’s time for the wash and massage. The attendant will wash you like you haven’t been washed since you were an infant. Don’t worry about those pesky panties, she will pull them, roll them, make them into a thong…whatever is needed to get to those grimy spots. While washing, she will give you a somewhat mild massage. Just go with the flow and turn over when she slaps you.

6. The attendant is all finished with you, now it’s your turn to wash again. You go back to your basin and scrub, scrub, scrub. This should take a minimum of 30 minutes.

Please remember that at all times, you should never put any of your body parts into the basin. Only dip the plastic bowl in there and do everything with the bowl. It is especially important to keep your hair away from it.

7. When you are all finished, tidy up your area by splashing it down, grab your stuff and head to your room. Here you can take a nap or just change back into your regular clothes.

There are many great old hamams in all the cities. Understand that if they have the word “spa” associated with it, it will cost at least triple for the same services!

Hope you enjoy!

Hamam towels hang to dry.

8. Have a cup of cay downstairs with the other ladies, pay, give a decent tip, and away you go, feeling better than you can imagine.

Freezing on the Top of Nemrut Dagi

corinne — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:49:14 +0000

A small site in the Anti-Taurus mountains, the tumulus at Nemrut Dagi is supposedly at its best either at sunrise or sunset. Since we missed the sunset, we chose to rise early and watch the sunrise. Honestly, I’m not sure what the allure of going to the top of a mountain at sunrise is, but this seems to be a common theme all around the world…one I usually could have done without, and this is one of those examples.

Nemrut Dagi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987, is a small site that hosts the tomb of a little known king from the little known kingdom of Kommegene. King Antiochos I (69-36 B.C.) is buried here, although no one has excavated his remains at this point, and besides the impressive statues, there really isn’t much to see. Apparently Aniochos’ kingdom was quite impressive in its day, but he obviously liked to abuse his power, because he didn’t have to drag those stone to the top of the mountain. He had plenty of slaves to do that for him, a great example of abuse of power. If all the rulers were as self-indulging, it’s no wonder the Romans were able to conquer the kingdom and annex it to the Roman province of Syria around 69 A.D.

Luckily our guesthouse was right outside the gates to the national park, so it took us only about 10 minutes to drive to the parking area. This added up to at least 30 minutes more sleep than the other poor souls had, and for that we were grateful. However, once you get to the parking area, you must climb over very uneven, rocky steps to reach the peak, where it was windy and cold! As the sun had not yet risen, it was extremely difficult to take photos, then we find out that there is no way to take photos of the statues in the sunrise. Why did we get up so early?

Once the sun was up, there were so many people milling around, it was still difficult to photograph, so I just went from grumpy to grumpier. We ended up with some decent shots, but unless you are a sunrise fanatic, I would skip the sunrise altogether. It just wasn’t that magnificent, and I would have rather been there in the in-between popular times to have had a better chance at getting great shots. However, the site is so small, it doesn’t warrant going more than once, so what I have is what I have.

If you, like us, tend to try and hit the World Heritage sites, I would think twice about this one. There statues are big and different. I love the big heads; who wouldn’t, but really, for the distance you have to drive to get there, I’m not sure it is really worth it.

Fairy Chimneys and Ancient Churches

corinne — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:00:37 +0000

Fairy Chimneys in Cappadocia

Fresco in Rock Chapel at Goreme Open Air Museum

A tourist’s dream, Cappadocia has much to offer you no matter what your interest is. To hike, to photograph, to eat good food, what else is there to life?

Cappadocia evokes a romanticism of the Crusades. In its unique rocks, eroded over millions of years in a region that is extremely volcanic, people have carved whole cities in which to live and hide for centuries. Today, most hotels are built into the sides of these rocks to form cave rooms or shops for the millions of visitors that come here each year.

The main attraction is the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Goreme Open Air Museum. This particular area is host to a concentrated amount of churches in which much of the interior wall paintings have survived. You can come here and be completely satiated with cave paintings, but if you have more time, there are plenty more to explore. To really get around, it would be best to take one of the tours offered at the guest houses, or even rent a car or bicycle for a day or two. There are plenty of free maps of the area to show you where to go.

Some things you can do in Cappadocia:
•Ride a hot air balloon over the fairy chimneys
•Rent a four-by-four or go horse-back riding – although these are more for fun than seeing out of the way churches
•Hike in many of the valleys to see out-of-the-way churches and monasteries (two of the most popular are Rose or Pigeon Valleys)
•Stay in a cave hotel
•Shop, shop, shop – Cappadocia is one of the most prolific carpet areas in Turkey

Time-Lapse Mongolia

jim — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:47:55 +0000

Riding shotgun...

This is a note I wrote for a friend regarding his planned trip to Mongolia. It’s been a year since we went but the info and advice is as valid today as it was then. The trip in question was a nine day steppe, Gobi, wilderness road trip in a 7 seat, 15 year old Russian military van. We booked the trip through Bobbi at the UB guesthouse in Ulaan Baator (UB) via email. She was extremely helpful and tailored our trip to our exact requirements. For instance, we preferred staying in a hotel before and after the trip so she arranged that as well as the airport transfers. Typically, the van trip requires 5 people which allows for a driver and a guide and the passengers. We were able to set the trip for our group of six and one driver who acted as our guide. The driver, Jack, was phenomenal, he really made the trip for us. Your trip cost is based on the number of passengers, if you are travelling alone or with a friend, Bobbi will pair you up with other travellers to fill a van and you then divide the total cost among all passengers. So even if you wanted to go with only one or two other passengers you could, provided you pay the total cost of the van between you.

We stayed with families that had a few extra gers (aka yurt) they use for travellers. It was a fantastic experience and we really felt we were getting to know a little about the people, customs, and traditions of the nomadic people of the steppes and Gobi. We went on the trip in mid June with a limited amount of time so the Lake regions were not an option. On our next trip, we’ll plan on spending more time in central Mongolia and then into one of the Lake areas.

One thing many people are concerend about when contemplating this trip is safety and security. I really don’t think you need to worry about being kidnapped or anything like that. Everyone we met along the way was curious and friendly; or at worst, too busy to pay us any attention at all. You will have at least one vehicle break-down in one of the most remote spots on earth, and you may wonder just how long it will take the vultures and wolves to find you, rip the meat from your limbs, and leave your bones to dry and bleach under the relentless sun and blowing sand. But don’t sweat it, go for a little walk, and give the driver time to work his mechanical magic. Even if he can’t fix it (which would be rare indeed) another van, horse, motorcylce, truck, or whatever, will come by sooner or later to offer assistance. If you still think this trip is for you read on for further advice and notes from our experience.

If you go on the same route we took then you won’t be washing clothes anywhere along the trip and you won’t even be washing yourself very often. Shower houses are only in the large towns and there aren’t many towns (large or small). We had a shower stop about every third day, I can imagine that is what you should expect. It is basically camping so you should consider bringing your sleeping bag, too. None of us did and it wasn’t a real problem. The families had blankets for us at the gers but Corinne and I were very happy to have brought along our own silk sleeping bag liners, they made all the difference. Clothing wise, anything you would wear camping is good. A good idea would be zip off pants/shorts because it will get hot during the day and it will definitely get cold at night. So a decent light jacket (or windbreaker with a fleece) and good layering will be needed. Additionally, a good hat and sunglasses/sun screen are a must.

The families will feed you a small breakfast (tea and cookies) and a hearty dinner of meat and noodles or meat dumplings and of course more tea. We were on our own for lunch, though. We brought a good supply of trail mix, beef jerkey, granola bars, and dried fruit. Bring a decent size bag of stuff like that and maybe some extra for sharing with the driver/guide and families along the way. Your van should stop on the way out of UB at the grocery store where you can stock up on a few snack things and some other items to supplement the dinners if you want it (canned fruit/vegetables, other snack items, etc). But most IMPORTANT, buy a case of water there. Oh, and maybe a roll (or two) of toilet paper if you didn’t bring any…

You will need water. The families we stayed with boiled water for tea and we used it with no problems but aside from that you will need to bring water of your own. Don’t worry too much about the food, don’t think about what animal the meat is from, try things and share with the families, and you will have a fantastic time! Oh yeah, I would recommend bringing some small things for gifts for the kids. Small toys, small writing pads, pens, pencils, color pencils, toiletries, hair ties, berrets, bracelets, beads, magazines (there are a few teenage girls along the way that were surprisingly western savvy and they begged for fashion magazines or catalogs). Use your imagination but be careful not to pass it all out at once! We never ran in to anybodby who was demanding or pushy about these things, but they definitely loved getting the few things we gave out.

Don’t be shy about asking the driver/guide to stop when you see soomething interesting. If it has been a while he’ll probably be grateful for the cigarette break. Remember to smile at everbody, be friendly and sharing and they will treat you the same. Be careful in the city/towns, they have a real frontier feel about them, I think you’ll pick up on that. Hopefully your companions will be fun and adventurous and friendly. Most of the other groups we met along the way seemed like decent people, I don’t think too many jerks like to travel to out of the way places like Mongolia so there’s probably a natural selection process going on in the background.

The Phrygians – Part II

jim — Sat, 30 May 2009 11:30:47 +0000

Gordion may have been the capital city of the Phrygians, but this valley held their most sacred temple. This is labeled on the map as King Midas’ tomb as well, because some of the inscriptions mention King Midas, but he is not believed to have been laid to rest here.

Phrygian road

Another beautiful day, we drove down to Eskisehir just to get out of the house. When we arrived, we found a nicely laid out city, but there was absolutely nothing to do. Taking a look at our guidebook, we discovered that a whole valley of Phrygian ruins lies just east of there.

The site is much more extensive and interesting than Gordion. There is no museum, but there is a trail to follow that leads you around the temple grounds. We enjoyed seeing the temple stone faces, many stairs and tunnels, some tombs, and even an ancient Phrygian road carved out of the tufa and complete with wheel ruts. The sites were some of the best preserved that we’ve seen. It took about an hour to walk the path around all the sites. The ticket taker also provided us with an informative brochure written in both Turkish and English.

The temple and its surrounds was only one of about six sites, but it was the only one our car could get to. The others, four castles and some more tombs, were all off the paved road. It has been raining a lot here, and there was too much mud to risk it. If you plan on going, try to go in a very dry season or with a four wheel drive vehicle.