x0x Wash away cares in Istanbul

	* by:Mike O'Connor

NAKED, save for the distressingly small towel wrapped around my waist, I lay on the marble slab and gazed at the light 
streaming through the domed ceiling as the sweat rolled off me in rivers.

This was a real Turkish bath in Turkey. The Cemberlitas hammam, built in 1584. A minute's walk from Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. 
The large Turkish gentleman confronting me knew but two words of English "sit" and "lie".

I did as ordered and he soaped my body with a sponge, doused me with buckets of warm water and then pummelled and kneaded me 
for 30 minutes, before handing me over to a colleague who massaged me with hands of steel. The pain was excruciating. I wanted 
to cry. Maybe I did, just a little.

After two hours and several more trips to the steam room, I emerged into the bright light of Istanbul feeling mangled but 
undeniably clean.

Istanbul's old city overwhelms the visitor with the wail of sirens, the clanging of tram bells and the crush of locals, 
tourists and hustlers as they jostle for space in this city of about 13 million people which was first settled about 1100BC.

It is undeniably exotic, the old city surrounded by mosques and castles built on a site that has been occupied by the 
Byzantines, Persians, Greeks, Romans and, more lately, the Muslim Ottoman sultans.

It is bordered by the Bosporus, that river-like body of water that connects the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea and the former 
Soviet socialist republics that lie beyond.

The Golden Horn, an inlet of the Bosporus, divides the city and the seven hills that surround it.

If you were to travel by boat downstream from Istanbul, heading down the Bosporus and across the Sea of Marmara, you would 
eventually come to another narrow seaway.

It is one the Allies tried to penetrate in World War I, their failure to do so resulting in the name Gallipoli being writ 
large in Australian military history.

[Read the rest at: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/wash-away-cares-in-istanbul/story-fn6ci05x-1226255250173 ]