The Hammam
Last week my sister Amy and I went to a hammam – a traditional bath house – here in Damascus. In a country where most of our washing consists of bucket baths and spit baths, it is wonderful to visit a hammam periodically for a deep cleaning!There are separate hours at the hamman for women and men – we visited one which is only open for women on Mondays. When you enter (through several layers of curtains and doors, meant to protect the privacy of the women inside), the first room is a covered circular courtyard with a fountain and benches for reclining. This is where you leave your things (you can rent a lock box for valuables), and relax afterwards. The services offered are 1) just the hammam 2) scrubbing and washing 3) massage. We opted for the hammam and scrubbing.
Clad in towels, we enter a side door which leads to the washing area and head straight for the steam room. In a society where women are generally veiled and always very modes
t, this is one place where those rules are relaxed and a sense of freedom prevails. Many women bring their children and are busy cleaning them, while others relax on the mosaic floor and granite benches. You can wear as much or as little clothing as you are comfortable with. Once we’ve steamed ourselves for about 10 minutes, we head to the main washing room, which has a series of granite urns along the walls (see the picture to the right – this example is from a museum, and sitting on it is one of the students from my English class). Above each urn is a faucet with hot and cold water, and bronze bowls which are used for washing. Using a special olive oil and laurel soap made in Aleppo, we scrub up, then get in line for our official scrubbing which comes at the hands of one of the hammam ladies. She uses a loofah to remove dead skin cells – this is when you start to feel really clean!
Once we’re finished cleaning, we sit in the steam room a bit more then head out to the main common room. After changing we sit with some tea and perhaps a narjileh. This is the social time – a great time to catch up with a friend (or sister!).
Finally, it’s time to go, so we wrap up (it’s cold these days!) and head back out to the street – already looking forward to our next visit.
posted by Elisabeth | 4:54 PM
2 Comments:
I enjoyed reading about the Hammam. Again, this reminds me of places I've been in Asia. Koreans were HUGE on their public baths, and they were so inexpensive. I would go whenever I could, as I loved the body scrubs, massages, and facials the women would give you "a la nude." In Korea they have huge rooms centered over natural springs that are believed to have some healing minerals in them. Men and women are in different parts of the spa (everyone is naked and wearing clothes or bathing suits in considered unsanitary), and the women usually have the children with them. There are various baths of different temperatures, from teeth chattering cold to scalding hot. You start by showering off, then go from pool to pool until you're fully relaxed. You can go into the sauna where you are provided with a warm brick or stone to use as a pillow, or you can go outside where there is often a man-made waterfall in an enclosed garden that has high walls to protect you from any peeping toms. Sitting under the waterfall and feeling the sun on my body in places that had never seen the sun was a strange but wonderfully freeing feeling.
I'm planning on going to the baths at Baden Baden here in Germany in a few weeks as a last hurrah before I head to Iraq, so I'll try and remember to add a comment later on how the Germans do things :-)
Quick addition on Baden Baden:
The baths are nice with large pools of warm water, but all are men and women together so we limited ourselves to the areas that you can wear bathing suits. The best part of the spa was an aromatherapy steam room that had menthol oil on the steam generator. They did do massages and stuff, but it was just as pricey as the States so we opted out. Still a very relaxing day.
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