A hamam involves being covered in mud by a woman in Birkenstocks and then having her wash it off you.
These poor people's bad luck was my comedy gold, as I spent a very merry evening repeating the phrase, "So, what you're saying is… Mos def-initely won't be coming?" The Sunday was all about the hamam, so we left our resentful-looking baby with a very experienced sitter for the day.
Additional services include a 45-minute hamam treatment for around £27, and a cooking masterclass, including lunch, for £47.
The hamam was a glowing jewel of candles and deep baths filled with scented oils.
"You are trying to catch me out," he says suspiciously.When I finally get back to the hotel that evening, I decide to try out the hotel hamam, or Turkish bath.
And in eastern Anatolia there are towns where the teeming crowds on the mid-day streets seem to be made up exclusively of men.The hamam and the coffee-houseWith the migration of families from villages to large towns, "family conflicts have increased," says Aytekin Sir, a professor at the Dicle University faculty of medicine in Diyarbakir.
Anthropologists explain that traditional Turkish villages were organised into "male spaces"—such as the coffee-house and the mosque and "female spaces"—such as the hamam (Turkish bath) and the public laundry, where women could get together.As Turkish villagers migrated to the cities and living standards rose, the tasks of washing and cooking were transferred to the home.
And then it is 9pm and the hamam is closing.
Husreff-Bey also built the medrese (madrasah), a Muslim school of theology; the Imaret, a free kitchen for the poor; and the hamam, public baths.
Among these were Qurʾānic schools (medrese), baths (hamam) for purification, hostels and kitchens for the poor (imaret), and tombs for royalty and distinguished persons.
