Just Ice and Whiskey: Marmaris Turkey: Day 2

June 17th

Dan had to work today, so I wandered off to see what all was here.

View from our hotel in the hot blazing sun of 7 am.

Our hotel offered a Turkish Bath, so I went to investigate. They had a two hour, three hour, or five hour option. I thought Dan would be done in the early afternoon, so the five hour option was out. I tried to do the two hour option, but got talked into the three hour option.
The Turks are very persuasive.

Here is the very weird experience that was the Turkish Bath.
(Keep in mind I was wearing a bathing suit for this.)

Stage 1: Sauna

This was nothing weird. Just hang out in a sauna for 30 minutes.

Stage 2: Rinse and Mud

I was escorted into a tiled room with a large marble slab in the middle and large faucet and basin in each corner. It was nicely decorated in white and blue tile, but I couldn't help thinking it'd be a great place to murder someone.

A large Turkish man, wearing only a towel wrap, (let's call him Emir) took a bowl and rinsed me off from the sauna. He then covered every part of me that was not covered by bathing suit in mud. I then had to let the mud dry. This involved going outside of the spa and walking around the pool deck area of the hotel. It was awkward. The ground was hot and I may have burned my feet. I was not so much a fan of this.

Stage 3: Rinse and Exfoliation

Once again I went into the "Turkish Bath"/murder room and Emir rinsed me off. This time it took longer because he had to get all the mud off. I then lay down on the slab for the exfoliation bit. This involved Emir rubbing me down with a towel mitt thing. It was weird. He exfoliated my butt. It was weird.

Stage 4: Foam Massage and Rinse

Next was the Foam Massage. This was so weird. Emir takes what looks like a pillowcase, dips it in a bucket, takes it out of the bucket and swings it around filling it with air, and the squeezes the pillowcase out creating foam. This was repeated until I was covered in foam. It was weird. I was torn between "nope, to weird, I'm out of here" leaving the Bath covered in foam and "maybe let's just see where this goes." I then received a quick massage from Emir. And then I got rinsed off again. And towel dried. It was weird.

Stage 5: Relaxation

Relaxation involved sitting in a lounge chair drinking Turkish tea for 15 minutes. This part wasn't so bad.

Stage 6: Massage

A new person got to manhandle me now, this time a woman. The massage portion was fine. It wasn't the best massage I've ever had, but it was fine.

Stage 7: Facial

I had my eyes closed, so I'm not 100% what all happened here, but I think they did everything they had done to my body, but now to my face, and in reverse order. I had three or four things applied and removed; I had some sort of massage; and I had "relaxation" again. I may have fallen asleep, so I couldn't have been that traumatized by the whole experience.

All in all for the price/time allotted the Turkish Bath was totally worth it.
However, a lot of it was weird.
Like, I wish someone else was going through this with me so we could laugh over how weird it was. I'm not sure what else would have happened to me if I had done the five hour option.

ANYWAY, time to explore Marmaris.

Most of the streets looked like this.....

...or this.

Turkish Delight! Yes, Please. I bought a log of Turkish Delight for 4₺ (Turkish Lira) or about $1.50.

About this time Dan called to say he was on his way back. Since I had the only hotel key I decided to go hang out in the hotel until he got back so he could change.

The we went off to explore Marmaris together.

Water toys and boats.

Dan ruining my photo. Just kidding. But he did walk into the shot. Boats!

Grrr! Poseidon mad!

Or maybe he's power walking. Who knows?

This is the Grand Bazaar.

It's hard to look at anything without having someone try to get you to buy it.

Window shopping is really hard.

I may have looked to long at some jewelry and despite Dan's efforts, he ended up buying me a necklace. Not because of me, but because the Turks are very persuasive.