Oh, It Hurts So Good!

"East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet"...Rudyard Kipling

Note...all pictures here taken off the internet, as they don't allow cameras in the hamam. 

This was worth the whole trip over. It would have been just fine to fly the 16 hours to Istanbul, done this, and fly back. It was one of the most awesome experiences of my traveling life. What was it?  A real Turkish bath and massage in an historic Hamam. Rudyard Kipling, eat your heart out. 

We might never have thought about it if it wasn't for good old Rick Steves. Years ago, when we became contributing members to KQED, our gift was a bunch of Rick Steves Europe DVDs. One of these is about Istanbul. This episode starts with Rick getting a sudsy bath at a Hamam. It looked so wonderful I told Amy that we just had to do this. 

There is one down by the Hagia Sofya, but they wanted $100 just for the bath. But another one, not too far from our hotel, charges only $60 for your sudsy bath plus an oil massage. The hamam is called Cemberlitas Hamami and it was built in 1584, deep in the Ottoman Empire. These places were originally for the rich and famous; sultans, potentates and other hoiti toitis would come here and get there private bath, scrub and massage by their own attendant. Now, anyone with $40 or so can have the same experience. 

You come off the busy street and go down a flight of stairs to a common waiting area. There are nice benches, the cashier, a little souvenir stand and a place to buy drinks. You pay for what you want, Amy and I got the bath, scrub and an oil massage, then men and women go their separate ways. 

The men go up a flight of stairs and are shown a small private room. You undress to your birthday suit and are given a towel to wrap around yourself and a pair of slippers, not nearly big enough if you wear a size 12 like me.  You are given a key to the room and some plastic tickets for your scrub and massage. Then you come back down to the common room, and walk across it to the door to the mens' bath, hoping that your towel doesn't undo itself as you are parading in front of several female tourists. 

You are shown another door and then walk into the hamam itself. Oh, what a sight!  It's a huge, domed room, all made of marble. It's about 100 feet across and 30 feet high. The light is all natural, coming from many holes in the dome. In the center of the room is a huge round marble table, about 50 feet across. It is slightly angled from the center so that all the water that is poured on it flows off onto the floor and then into a drainage system. Around the sides, attached to the walls, are about 20 big marble water basins with cold and hot water spigots that you can turn on and off. 

The room is a big sauna. The marble floor and table are heated and it is hot and humid in the room.You are told to lie on the big marble table and relax for 15 minutes or so before your scrub. This is so your skin will soften before your scrub. So you just lie there. During my first visit, there were a few other men, both locals and tourists. One Turkish guy, a big, burly, hairy dude, was getting his scrub while I waited. He was screaming in pain. His attendant just laughed and went deeper (the scrub is a bit of a wash/massage combination). The big burly Turk screamed again. His attendant laughed again and said, in Turkish, what I assumed was "Shut up and take it like a man". During a brief pause in his scrub, Mr Burly Turk looked at me and I thought he was going to cry. Maybe all those stories you hear about Turkish baths were true, your attendant would walk on you, beat you with his fists, make you scream in pain. Was it time to worry?  No, just relax. That's what Rick Steves would do. 

Finally, my scrubber showed up. He said his name was Ahmet and showed me a badge with the number 9. This, I was sure, was so I would know who to tip later on. Ahmet told me to lie on my back and put my head on the back of a brass bowl. These bowls were all over the marble table. 

When I paid, I was given a little box with a hand scrubber inside. Ahmet put the scrubber on his hand and started rubbing my legs. Not too deep, just a nice scrub up and down the leg. Then a little harder, but still, no where near any pain level. I started to relax. After a minute or two, he did the other leg. Then my torso, arms, neck and face. He told me to turn over and scrubbed all over my back. All the while, you are still wearing the towel around your waist, so there is only so far up your legs they will go. With all this scrubbing, I could just feel the exfoliation taking place. This was awesome!  

Ahmet told me to lie on my back again. He brought over this huge copper bowl filled withsoap suds. He dipped a towel in it in such a way that he caught a huge a amount of suds. He then poured them over my legs and started scrubbing again. Soon, all the front part of my body was covered in soap suds as Ahmet continued to rub the soap all over. He then had me walk over to one of the marble wash basins and sit down next to it. More washing and scrubbing. He then took one of the brass bowls and dipped it in the marble basin, filled with cold water, and repeatedly poured the water over my head and body until all the soap was gone. 

At this point, he guided me by hand into another room, which had more of the wash basins, but was not hot and humid. He sat me down and started washing me again, this time concentrating on my hair and arms. More rinsing with the cold water and I was done. Oh wow!  I felt totally calm and relaxed and there was no pain at all. I had a feeling he went easy on me because I was a tourist. But my masseur would have no such feeling about that. 

I was then given a clean towel for my waist and led into another room with a few massage tables. I lay face down, my face in a hole in the table. My masseur, Mehmet (badge #33!), poured oil on my legs and started to do the massage. Again, like the scrub, he massaged up and down the leg, kind of deep, but not too bad. In fact, it felt damned good. Up and down he went, deeper and deeper. Oh, I could get used to this. But then he went a little deeper in the calf...oh, I felt that one. Then he took his thumb and pressured up and down the calf. Yikes!  I felt that one!  Up and down with the thumb pressure...ouch!  That hurt. Then up to my neck and shoulders. Deep he went in the shoulder blades and found lots of points where my muscles were knotted up. Apparently, he felt it was his job to unknot them. With his thumb, he went up and down the edge of both shoulder blades, deeper and deeper. Now I knew how Mr Burly Turk felt. It took all my will power not to scream at the top of my lungs. Deeper and deeper until finally the knots in the muscles seemed to relax a bit. At long last Mehmet felt he had done enough and went on to my back and arms. I started to relax, the pain quickly going away. 

Mehmet now indicated that I was to turn over on my back (none of these guys speak much english, just the words, turn, sit, over).  Again he started with the legs, and this didn't hurt at all.  When he was done with the legs, up to the torso he went. More oil was poured over my chest and a fairly deep massage. Up and down the arms, then to the hands, pinching hard the piece of skin between thumb and forefinger. Oooohhh....that hurt a bit. Then the fingers, stretching each out until the knuckles cracked. Hhhmmmmmmm.....not too bad, that!  Then he went to the neck and head and after a total of about 20 minutes he was done. He indicated where the showers were and that, after I showered and got all the oil off, I could spend as much time back in the hamam room as I wanted. 

So that's what I did. Amy and I decided to meet back up in the common room after about one and a half hours, so that gave me about 20 minutes to hang out in the big domed hamam, where you can just lie on the big marble slab or sit by one of the marble basins and pour water over yourself. 

Rudyard Kipling famously wrote that that the east was the east and the west was the west and never could they come together culturally. Well, I'm not sure Mr Kipling ever experienced a hamam, or he might have thought differently. The twain certainly met for me. 

Day to day impressions of Malta

I came to Malta because of a wonderful woman, Therese, who had moved to Caifornia at a time of diaspora for  many Maltans in the 1960s when the British left and people were unsure of jobs.  I loved her warmth, her lilting singing accent (people don't say Malta they say Maaaalllta, people don't say "hold" they say "hollllld-e"h, her beauty (Maltese have distinguished faces, olive skin, a beautiful wave in the hair...).  She praised Malta especially after she returned home after her husband died and then she did go home and she passed on,  but she left me with a message about Malta that haunted me. 

Although we saw many different aspects of Malta, --  its fascinating history, its geographic beauty, its overbuilt density in many places, its touristification in some ways in how its oldest most beautiful centers are totally cleaned up and almost ghost towns as far as local people living there at night -- and let's not forget the amazing food and fireworks -- the thing I enjoyed most for sure was meeting and talking with Maltese and Gozitan people and looking at their children.  There are a lot of faces here since it's clear that the racial mix does contain Phoenician, Greek, Sicilian, North African Arabic (like Tunisian), Norman (from all those aristocratic and, ahem, celibate Knights and priests), Ottoman.... But nearly everyone has a proud Arabic/roman profile and pronounced brows. So beautiful. Not cute but beautiful.  And the wavy hair that gets tamed in lots of women and shaved in lots of men is beautiful. Golden tight waves and highlights in nearly every Maltese girl I saw.  Gozitan people look way darker more Sicilian... in general.

I think in most cases unless you go hang out in no hurry at a festa or at close of day on a quiet beach, you might not meet and talk to as many locals as we got to, because much of Malta is tourist service but they are in no way eager to chat just anybody up. There is a little bit of reserve and lots of dignity which is great.  People are very very fond of and proud of their islands and a lot of them announce that these are the safest best islands on earth (even though, Malta being so crowded, there are a few opportunities for evildoers).   People talk about a particular creepy family tragedy that happened in the 1960s as if it were yesterday, there are apparently so few gruesome crimes here. That's nice!  

Yesterday evening our last in Malta I'd been thinking about how reserved Gozitans seemed to be.. Then of course as we were swimming with our stuff on a ledge and I was complaining of the cold a nice dark haired woman in her sixties became our friend, joining our earlier friendships with Daniel the Roman, Ron Zammit as in Dammit, and Charlie from Luqa.  Herminia who got renamed Amy by her Canadian husband's mother lived from 1965 to 2009 in Toronto and is so happy to be back in Gozo again.  As we sat on the warm wet rock in the fading sunset we talked about their adventures swimming in and under the cliffs... Their love of Malta... The craziness of world politics... What are we going to do about the refugees to make it all work well.. Isn't the U.S. crazy not to have had national healthcare way before this... Etc etc ... Within half an hour we felt like good friends and parted with a kiss and embrace.

I think this happens to us more when we are hanging out in places away from the high density tourist swimming places and tourist spots.  We had a good connect with Daniel of Roman's Den because we were choosing, deliberately, to eat in Rabat rather than within the city gates of Mdina.... Accidentally met Ron because we were in rarely touristed Zurrieq.... Had a great connect with twinkly-eyed Charlie because he couldn't figure out why we'd be at the festa in Sanglea. When people are curious about why you got "right here" that's when they will open up.  In a high density tourist center they KNOW all too well why you are here. 

Malta isn't tourist Heaven by any means, the temperature is hot, the cruise ship volume is awful.  the somewhat limited number of places tourists should "be" packs people together and its very populated and development has been super encouraged so there are way too many ugly half finished semi-high rise buildings around.  But we sure had a good time.

And some advice:   Don't drive... as long as you have a little patience it's easy and so cheap to get around on the buses,  and walk,  it's fantastic actually ... 2 euros gets you unlimited bus transfers In a two hour period and buses are so great for people watching. And driving is SO awful.  

Despite occasional waits for buses, there is always something to check out while waiting and the timing of buses and bus/ferry connections is really smart. If it weren't for the too-many-cars problem that keeps Maltese traffic time to an average of 25 mph it'd be great.  

During our rainstorm. On the bus up from the ferry to the central town, Victoria, two sandal clad Australians one dark haired were clearly lost, and it seemed like they were trying to find out how to get to a farmhouse they'd rented, and had missed their stop. So a nice older local woman started helping them, and what do you know?  The young woman was coming to meet a long lost auntie she'd never met...  But the older local woman knew her parents, all about them!  Suddenly the young woman starts talking shyly and then more boldly as it turns out the woman is the perfect contact and has all the details in where she needs to go to connect.  Was so great to be listening in on the two catching up with three decades of family gossip or so at least it seemed. 

Another piece of advice:  don't over order!  Maltese love to eat so portions are good... And also perhaps since the  Arabic and Mediterranean tradition is to welcome people with food, restaurant meals have lots of freebies.... Complimentary appetizers... Complimentary after dinner limoncello 

More later... Boarding plane Istanbul... 

Gorgeous Gozo

"In the first place, you can't see anything from a car; you've got to get out of the goddammed contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thorn bush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail you'll see something, maybe.  Probably not."...Edward Abbey, 'Desert Solitaire' 

For the last few days we have been on the island of Gozo (pronounced Goat-zo here), a short 45 minute ferry ride north of Malta. Gozo is tiny; only about 10 by 6 miles. It is much less crowded than Malta; there are only about 30,000 Gozitans. It has a much richer landscape, as there is a lot more topsoil here. Farming terraces dot the landscape everywhere. While it is currently not the farming season and most of these terraces are bare, there are a lot of vineyards here producing wonderful wines, both white and red. 

We are in the little seaside village of Xlendi. While there are still a few fishing boats in town, by far the main industry is tourism and many hotels and restaurants are on the waterfront.  Just after we arrived and had checked into our hotel, a HUGE thunderstorm struck. There was flooding everwhere and the bay turned brown from all the dirt washed into it. One of the main streets was a virtual river that flowed into the bay. About a half hour after the storm stopped, crews in bulldozers, backhoes and dump trucks moved in and cleaned it up. 

Gozo is well known for its hiking paths. There are paths that go all around the island. We took three of them, covering much of the western part of the island. 

Wednesday afternoon, we went south. The path from town is at first a well paved path, but soon turns into a deep ravine and becomes dirt, with rock staircases climbing the cliffs along the bay. At one point there is an old tower, built by the Knights of Malta in the 16th Century to protect the island from Muslin corsairs. It sits on ancient sandstone, laid down 22 million years ago. You can see thousands of fossils in the sandstone of different sea shells. Further down the path, you come to some farming terraces, each with a little building that acts as a bird blind. The Maltese are serious bird hunters and are so skilled that they actually killed off the famous Maltese Falcon, which is extinct. The authorities are supposedly clamping down on the hunters, but we heard constant gun shots as we were hiking. That made us a bit nervous. 

The old tower...

Some of the bird blinds...

Walking back to town, we went below the tower on the sandstone. Everywhere you looked, there were sea shell fossils. There were also some old carved salt ponds, where the sea water washes up, evaporates, and just the salt is left. I have no idea how old these are. 

Sea shell fossil...

Carved salt ponds

Now about the food!  The food in Malta is excellent. But in Gozo, especially here in Xlendi, it's especially tasty. There are many restaurants that line the harbor. We ate at "The Boat House" twice. For lunch, we had stuffed mushrooms with shrimp, a plate of fried octopus and a delicious and rich fish soup. For dinner, we had a risotto with four cheeses and mushrooms and a spaghetti with seafood, including mussels, prawns and calamari. Oh my!

Thursday morning we took a hike in the opposite direction to Dwerja Bay. According to a hiking book we have, you can walk up a staircase next to the bay and go up the rock face of a 500 foot high cliff. Well, that didn't work as it is very steep and slippery. So we went to the back of town and went up the less steep part of the hill.  That sent us through some serious brambles and thorny brush, but up we went, over stone walls and farming terraces. The views were great, but the going was pretty hard. After about an hour of this, we passed by a little house with four dogs barking at us, but lucky for us not the biting kind. 

We finally made it to a road, travelled mostly by large dump trucks carrying loads of rock. Going over the hill we found out why. There are a couple of large quarries here, with huge, straight walls cut into the yellow limestone. 

We found a path off the road that took us down to Dwerja Bay. It's very beautiful, with a huge rock, called Fungus Rock. A plant grows on this rock that supposedly has great medicinal qualities and was used by the Knights of Malta in their hospitals. 

The wind was blowing hard and the sea was very rough. As we came over the hill to where we were to take a bus up to the capitol town of Victoria, there were hundreds of people milling around this huge natural rock arch. What he heck?  I wasn't expecting anyone here, but there were many tour buses and lots of cars. Turns out this is the Azure Window and is listed in Lonely Planet as the number one thing to see in Malta. 

So now we took the bus to the ruins of Ggantija, a temple built over 5,600 years ago. This is the oldest free standing structure in the world. In the world!  There is a nice museum here with objects found at the site. No one knows who the people were who built it, as with the other old sites in Malta. Until a century or so ago, it was thought that an ancient race of giants had to have built it, as so many of the stones used for the walls are huge. Thus the name, Ggantija. 

Some old graffiti...

View from the site...

In Search of Cart Ruts

Friday morning started out with a few bus rides around the island. First, we went to Ta Pinu church, which is a huge church out in he countryside. The Virgin Mary is all over the place and inside there are many paintings dedicated to her for one miraculous event or another. So here Amy has called her Our Lady of Perpetual Miraculosity. We then bused down to the bustling resort town of Marsalforn, which was once a nice fishing village but is now the biggest resort town in Gozo. Lots of little boats, beach umbrellas and pot bellied tourists. We didn't stop. 

For our Friday hike, we started from the wonderful little cove of Mgaar Ix Xini. There is a tiny beach here and a nice restaurant serving fresh fish. So fresh, that the menu is a chalkboard that they write on everyday the available fresh fish. Unfortunately, they don't take credit cards and we only had 30€ on us, so we had to split a nice grilled sea bream. 

The hike went up around the gorgeous little inlet, where we had nice views of the islands of Camino and Malta. You could also see the ferrys going across the Gozo Channel. It was here, in is very inlet of Ix Xini in the 1550s, that Algerian corsairs kidnapped about 5,000 Gozitans and took them to the slave markets. After this, the Knights of Malta built many towers that still dot the coast. Today, instead of corsairs, there are luxury yachts that come to this beautiful place. 

We saw on our map of Gozo, that there was an ancient burial temple and some of those mysterious cart ruts at the top of one of the hills. So we headed up the trail, clearly marked by little red dots and arrows. The trail was pretty good and the views from the cliff tops was spectacular. 

We continued to where it looked like, on the map, the cart ruts should be. We both looked all over the place wherever the limestone was bare. After half an hour, I found this...

One darned cart rut, without a twin. The mystery of the cart ruts continues. 

But near a ravine, not too far from here, we did find the burial site, or what may have been a burial site. A few large stones showed that the ancients had been here. 

Looking for cart ruts...

Ancient site...

Well at least we found this. 

We continued to the town of Sannat and asked for directions to Xlendi from an old man. He said to go down to the church, turn left and continue on the road. Well, this eventually led us to some fields with large stone walls which was obviously not the correct way. Yikes!  Asking a farmer where to go, as he was the first person we met who didn't speak english. But eventually, we found the road to Xlendi. 

Descending to our beautiful bay, we had had a nice, although difficult 4 hour hike over hill and dale, through farmers' fields and through the garrigue of Gozo. But we ended in civilization and went straight to the gelateria. What a perfect ending. 

Kudos to my adventurous wife, Amy, for discovering these trails and leading me around the hills of Gozo. We saw much more than just the beaches and tourist spots, hiking on trails for hours and hours without seeing another tourist. We may not have found our cart ruts, but the adventure is one I'll remember forever.