Hamam-a-jama!

"Everything but the bikini" she barked pointing at my nether regions. I was standing in a cold damp room that was covered in sterile white tile feeling quite vulnerable.  It took me a second to process the translation, but then slowly I began removing my shirt. Apparently it was not fast enough for her because she jumped in and starting pulling it off of my torso.  Then she yanked my shorts down leaving only my boxer shorts - aka my "bikini".  

The she I am referring to, I would later find out, was a woman named "Katie" - although I suspect that may be her "stage name" - and she was my masseuse in the hamam in our riad (kind of a traditional Moroccan house, but with more of a hotel feel).  A hamam, which is often inacurrately called a "Turkish Bath" by Westerners, is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Muslim world which, in turn, adopted it from the Roman bath houses.

This was not my first hamam experience.  When Francesca and I traveled the world together 15 years ago, I treated myself to a hammam in Instabul on my 40th birthday.  However, unlike this riad experience, the one in Istanbul was not a hotel hamam catering to tourists, but rather a locals only affair where the masseur spoke no English.  And the person doing the hamaming wasn't an young-ish female, but a giantic bull of a man with biceps for days and a resting angry face.  

While I was sweating myself silly, lying on a molten hot marble slab - along with several other patrons - I could hear screams coming from the private side rooms where, supposedly, massages were taking place. I was a little terrified, I'm not gonna lie.  However, none of the other patrons appeared to be concerned so I tried to keep calm.  But as I started to finally relax a bit I noticed that I was now alone in the huge waiting room. One by one every single patron had quietly left the room.  

And then it happened, a huge giant of a man - who was apparently my hammam guy - came lumbering into the room. He wore no shirt, was bald and had a thick handlebar mustache looking like something out of central casting for a 1920s barbel weight lifter down at Coney Island.  

He started grunting at me.  I eventually understood that he wanted me to follow him to the private room.  While my mind said "aw hell naw!" my body started moving to follow him. I was brusquely asked - although it seemed more of a requirement at the time - to lie on the narrow concrete slab. Then, over the next 30 minutes he proceeded to massage the heck out of me with his gigantic man hands.  There was no friendly chit chat like you get with the masseuses in the Thai massage salons in New York, just some grunts as massive hands roll back fat. At times I would audibly yell out after a particularly strong stroke and I realized that I was now the one causing fear for the next person waiting alone in the main room - although, I suspect all the locals knew the drill. 

There were times when my unfriendly giant would forcefully run his massage hand up my inner thigh making contact with my man parts and I would be lying if the thought didn't cross my mind that his massage might come with an (un)happy ending. But it turned out he was all business and this was just part of the thoroughness of the massage.  

CUT TO: 15 years later on a similar slab in a much smaller room with a much smaller masseuse.  Katie was getting a little too close for comfort there at times as well, but I figured it was all in the name of thoroughness. 

Traditionally the hammam is not a massage parlor, it's for bathing/washing the body. The actual massage, I suspect, may have been something added to entice the tourists to have the hamam experience.  It does feel a litle strange to have a strange woman bathing me as if I was a baby.  Holding my arms up so she can scrub under my arm pits, gettin' up in there to clean my butt crack, etc.  But at the end of it, I can't deny that I was very clean and the massage was a nice reward for enduring the humiliation of standing in a hot room with a total stranger wearing only my bikini.