[size=150:gsrmbb4z]Scrub A Dub Dub!

Whilst living in Turkey for five years, myself and my friend Joe went and had a good scrub down in a Turkish Massage Parlour, that was a treat never to be forgotten and may be never repeated, we really went for a massage after both suffering an aching back for a few days.

“A massage will sort us out,” we thought, so off we went and into the changing room, off with the clothes and wrapped a very thin towel looking thing around our unsuspecting bodies, next a door opened and we were directed towards a wooden structure and before we could mention the word “massage” we ended up in a room with a stove mounted on a metal stand and a timer saying fifteen minutes.

I have known some heat here in Turkey at times after coming here for 14 years but this was something different, what seemed ages went past and we were having trouble breathing, well, at least I was, the walls were so hot you daren't touch them, "
sit up there"
says Joe, pointing to a high bench knowing the higher you go the hotter it gets, his suggestion was greeted with a suitable answer by me, a quick look at something resembling an egg timer told us we were only threequarters of the way through the gruelling 15 minutes and would we make it out OK, or will they have to scoop us up off the floor afterwards?

Then finally the door opened and we nearly fell out onto the floor in a slimie heap, bodies never having seen this heat before. Skin was now sweating at the maximum rate and any foreign body that may have secretly lodged itself in our now roasted carcasses was well and truly dead.

We were ushered into another room and lots of buckets of water were thrown over us and we were then waved onto the marble slab, this looks familiar I thought having worked as a Funeral Director, I have only seen motionless people on these things before, well never mind, lets get on with the massage! Whilst laying on the slab the slinky piece of toweling we were both wearing was ceremoniously folded over until all it was covering was our “essentials”, then a sponge appeared looking like something between a Scotch-Brite pad and a wire brush, this was swished over our now very numb bodies for 5 minutes (back and front!) and then it was back onto the sit down bench and more buckets of water thrown over our bodies.

Whilst sitting there and thinking this is nothing like a massage we were summoned to lay on the marble slab again, good God what's happening next we thought!! Then the soapy sponge thing appeared which looked like a pillow full of soap suds, Fairy Liquid has nothing on these things, this was slid up and down over our now very fragile bodies for another 5 minutes, then back onto the sit down slab for what was probably another 12 buckets of water, half of my body seemed to be missing now and I felt like looking down the drain to see if I recognised any bits of me in there.

Next, we were ushered out the wet room, “thank goodness for that I thought,” a body towel was produced, together with a head towel and wrapped around our now virgin-like bodies, the head towel was tied into what looked like an Arabs turban, I glanced at Joe and he appeared like a Sheik, a rotund one that is, his 40 something waist was stretching the towel at full tilt! Ten minutes passed and we were then shown to the changing room to get dressed, what happened to the massage? You tell me, I still have an aching back!

So the morel of the story is sort it yourself

I am doing too much DIY to worry about my back living over here.