hammam heaven - the full story

the entrance hall of hammam in aleppo feels wonderfully cool after the heat of the dusty streets of the old town. the hammam *concierge* gives me a checked sheet and asks me to wait until the bath is ready. would he have been a eunuch a few hundred years ago? he certainly looks the part, a hyperactive man with a huge belly. i'm excited and nervous as i have never been inside an oriental bath before, and the people who told me about their experience either loved it or hated it. No help from them, i have to judge for myself. i climb up to the upholstered benches on the gallery lining the lobby. from up here i have a great view of the hall, the fountain in the centre, clients in white towels reclining on the benches opposite, employees stacking towels, sheets, wooden flip flops. everyone seems to know what they are doing, except me.

my other group members appear. the concierge-eunuch asks us to get changed and hands everyone a checked sheet, but i hold mine up triumphantly. i'm a good client who came early and is now ahead of the group! we retreat behind a decidedly see-through curtain to change and wonder how this goes with arabic modesty. we are also provided each with a soap bar and a black, scratchy goat head hair loofa, and with a pair of the wooden flip flops i noticed earlier. those together with the sheet do not add to a chic look nor make they walking on the smooth floor easy.

we enter into the belly of the hammam. a maze of wet passageways leads us to an atrium. from there we follow our tour guide into the steam room. we sit down and relax. so far, it's very much like your average european sauna. i'm enjoying it. we chat a lot to hide our nervousness and maybe a bit of embarrassment as we are sitting there naked and sweaty. after about ten minutes of intense steam, my finger tips are crumpled, my pores must be wide open for sure, and we are called into the bath. we walk rather timidly, which has largely to do with the very slippery tiled floor under our very awkward flip flops.

here we are in the hot bath. two rather fleshed out ladies are sitting on the wet slabs, dressed in what looks like black wet lingerie, a basin of water between them. this is the moment of truth. i am called by one of the ladies, she smiles a gap-toothed smile and i fear the worst. i get down on my bum between her legs. she takes the loofa and soap off me, takes water out of the basin with a bowl and quickly poures it over my head. as i'm spitting i make a mental note to keep my eyes and mouth closed at all times while i'm in here. she soaps me up like my mum did when i was... 4, until my body looks white and bubbly. then i'm being scrubbed down from head to toe with the loofa as if i was a dirty frying pan. the olive oil soap is used as shampoo, and i regret not bringing a conditioner. i'll never be able to comb my hair again. my bath mistress raises both my arms to scrub all my bits properly, and i just start laughing hard. ticklish! she rubs my belly, and with a diabolical and mildly disgusted look presents to me the loofa which has gone from dark to white. *too much dirt*, she compliments me. am i the filthiest client she ever had?, i wonder.

the first wash is finished, and the lady pushes me down until i lie flat on my back. on the wet tiles, she shoves me over to her colleague as if i was a slimy fish on a work top. i am not used to being manhandled by women, or anyone for that matter, and put up some resistance. so mistress number 2 gets down to business. she kneels beside me, pins my arms firmly to the sides of my body, and starts massaging my neck. that's nice. actually, it's very very good. all those long bus rides, bad beds, the heat, and the a/c aches are being rubbed away. i'm turning on my front, she continues the massage. when she reaches my feet, i'm tickled again and cannot help laughing out loud. there is definitely an echo. i tickle the lady's sides in retaliation, she laughes and gives me a kiss on both cheeks. i wish this part of the treatment would never stop, but i realise that the kiss was the sign for me that the wash is finished. the two ladies wrap me up in a white, fluffy towel, hand me my flip flops, and let me go.

i catch up with the other girls in the atrium. hot and sweaty, but clean, we look for a way to cool us down. there is no cold pool in a hammam, but we find a basin with lukewarm water that feels cold to us. we take off the towels, grab a bowl each, and start splashing the water over each other. it's great fun playing with the girls. finally, we get back into towels and flip flops, and make our way back to the dry entrance hall. tea, perfume and shisha are waiting for us.

i feel clean, refreshed and very very relaxed.

wet hair

a modern syrian wisdom has it that women who appear in public with wet hair have just had sex. i learnt this after a week of leaving our hotels with freshly washed hair to keep cool in the heat.

oh the power of local knowledge.

now back in damascus, here's a quick rewind of places i have visited over the past 2 weeks: beirut - sidon - tyre - the chouf mountains, with emir fakhreddine's castle - byblos, great fish restaurants! - tripoli, with a sweet little souq that has excellent fresh falafel shawarmas - bcharre, maronite country full of idols, monasteries and hermits in the lebanon mountain range, but horribly slow internet - baalbek, hezbollah's souvenir shop - damascus, where part of my family is from - latakia, boring resort by the med sea - ugarit, where the first alphabet and more excitingly the first music score were found (who won the eurovision?) - aleppo, where i had my first hamam and shisha experiences - deir ezzom, near the iraqi border, but that stop is a bit of a blur - palmyra, hail zenobia, queen of the desert! - damascus, and i can now say that i have, for the first time, *returned* to a place in the middle east.

in the souq of damascus

i enter the famous maze of damascus souq through a row of stalls selling hardware. metal chains, lether straps, rope... this must be the bondage souq. better not linger for too long! out into the hot streets surrounding the citatel and the walls of this oldest city of mankind. past the ecological gardens - syria is trying to catch up with the environmentally correct west... but no, the water is still poured into the streets for cooling as if the barada river was still a mighty stream and not a dry, dirty bed.
i turn left and am in the middle of el-hamidiyeh. the huge arched roof covering the long main street is punctured by bullet holes from the french war. the holes now add to ventilation and light up the dust in the air. the rows of shops are endless. what do i want to buy? damast, isn't that what everyone has to buy in damascus? past stalls full of headdresses and gelabiyas. don't have use for them. a new side street - this must be the silk souq. harir harir, madam, very good quality. i want a damast table cloth. of course, i have the finest, top quality for you. aha, do you have one the size of my arm span? yes, madam. that's not silk though! no, madam, it's better, 100 percent polyester. polyester?! shukran, ma'asalaama. the next store is bound to have damast. but i'll have a shawarma first, feeling a bit peckish. yummy, and so cheap, only 25p... a car in this narrow street?! a truck! how are they ever getting anywhere without killing people or getting stuck... mmh, what's this smell? cardamom surely, rows of it, and bags of coffee, and paprika, rose petals... i'm in spice row! couldn't possibly buyanything here, but the smell is intoxicating. i'm in a different time, when things felt and smelt and tasted so much stronger, brighter, fresher... i can see a minaret at the end of this street, must be the umayyad mosque, it's such a beautiful building, majestic, the centre of the universe as it is the centre of the old souq. like an oasis of quiet, rest, you know what time it is when the muezzin calls for prayer, and that's all that matters. is there a word for stress in arabic?... i must be in the gold souq now, going by all the jeweller's in this street. most shops here are closed, it's sunday today and the gold shopkeepers are mostly christian... i couldn't afford real gold anyway, not even in damascus. silver, maybe, that's as cheap as copper at the moment. aha - the perfume oil souq is open. damascus rose... a fresh, exotic scent like 1001 nights. or 1001 women in the harem. i have to have damascus rose. some essential oil please. try this, madam, jasmine... mmh, very strong. or white musk, madam? shukran, just the rose oil please. what's this sound? a bird? oh yes, a nightingale in a cage above the shop! poor bird... but back to business. 150 syrian pounds for a small bottle please, madam. do you have rose water? yes, one bottle? one bottle, and the perfume oil. i'll give you 200 for both. 200? madam, that's not enough, all good quality oil. i know, so you get 200 for both and that's my last offer. ok, madam, for you, 200. shukran. afwan. have a good day, welcome to syria...

our group

in case you wondered where in bcharre, north lebanon, maronite country, i find an internet pc - i'm sitting in a dusty cafe with a 56k or slower connection. ahmad the cafe owner has made me some great mint tea. i won't be able to upload pics, so will tell you some stories instead. let me introduce some characters in our travel group. there's kevin, a somewhat shady figure who worked for the mod in syria for some years, now lives in california and is always ahead of the group to catch the perfect photo. then there's frances, who spent her childhood in tripoli, is now back for the first time in 45 or so years and does not recognise a thing for all the recent developments in the city. she is very disappointed. the oldest couple in the group are david and his wife, who have lived in afghansitan as archaeologists before they retired. david is helping out as tour guide, because he knows the history of the middle east inside out. he led us through the monastery st anthony along with a french-only speaking monk. we were lucky the monk spoke at all, as this is a popular silent retreat. the entire qadisha is full of past and present hermitages. as a tip for you? the token american on the tour is ginny, who happily tells every soldier in the streets that she is from massachusetts in the us, and *marhaba*. i view her as a security risk and have tried to stop her from being so open. and then there is our gay couple, derek and rodney from liverpool, both in their fifties but still with a swing in the hips. ymca!

politics

enough already! i hear you cry. back to the palestinians for a second. enough has been said about them, and i feel very ambiguously about their situation. as does everyone, and that's part of the problem. the palestinians came to lebanon after the 1948 war as refugees, and they have kept that status ever since. they were armed by the lebanese in the 1970s to get them to fight as highly motivated cannon fodder against the israelis. they did, but afterwards refused to hand the weapons back, eventually turning them against the lebanese government when they sought peace. and the lesson? never give guns to people you think you can control, because you cannot predict what they will do with them. today the palestinians are not wanted by any country in the middle east, they have no rights, no wealth, but they do have arms. politics of course does not stop with the palestinians, the christians, too, have been fighting everyone and amongst themselves. will political fighting ever stop in a region so fraught with issues and so vital for many economies? we enjoyed the beach in byblos, had great seafood, a fabulous chateau kefraya, and forgot about fighting and wars until we passed the next army checkpoint.

yallabina!

i am in the lebanon. met my colleague on the plane, as you do, and sat next to the swedish ambassador to jordan. he invited me to his residence in amman when i'm in the area. i accepted! insh-allah i will make it. into the hustle and bustle of beirut. a cosmopolitan city that is desperate to leave the war behind and become the glamorous meeting point of east and west it once was. you see newly restored buildings beside ruins with bullet holes. the scars from the war are very visible still. yet everyone enjoys life, the cafe scene is massive, and the number of serene headscarves is considerably lower than on the edgware road, london. miniskirts and bling rule! compared to cairo, beirut is so much more wealthy. you can drive new cars apparently, and big ones, too, people walk on the pavements. i have my first shawarma and nana mint tea first thing on monday. delicious. and the fruit juices go down so well in the early summer heat. we see phoenician ruins, learn about cipolino, the romans, byzantines and ottomans in no particular order, while holding our noses into the sun. the palestinian refugee camp is pointed out from the bus, we are happy to pass it quickly.

2 more weeks

i'm getting ready and nervous for my tour of the middle east. this journey will take me to lebanon, syria, jordan and hopefully israel, and it will unite me for the first time with my family *over there*.
beware of this girl:


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