Intrepid traveller... Rub-a-dub-dub

We're in Gaziantep, another of the supposedly 'oldest inhabited cities in the world,' and this morning I was scrubbed down by one of it's oldest residents.

At four-foot-nothing and wearing little more than a bra and shorts, my masseuse was otherwise the quintessential Turkish grandmother - albeit armed with a sanding mit, loofah and shampoo. For a country so consumed with covering up, the ladies working at Naib Hamami (Gaziantep's historic bath house built in 1640 at the base of the city's citadel) were all for stripping down.

Speaking no English, they shooed Chloe and I through to a marble changing room (complete with wooden cubicles and the odd Turkish rug), where we donned our bathers and flip flops, and led us by the hand through a doorway fit for hobbits and into the first of our washrooms.

I was sat on a metal stool as grannie doused me in hot water. She then scuttled me across to a large heated stone alter where I was made to lie down like Jesus on the cross, staring up at a ceiling spotted with star-shaped holes. This was apparently for 'quiet time' and to give our pores a chance to really open up... Chloe and I giggled continously enjoying the madness of our latest endeavour. After five minutes - and some static instructions in Turkish - my little lady brought me into the massage room.

The next 45 minutes were truly something. I lay on the marble floor, was scoured to burning point and rubbed and scrubbed in areas previously only visited by boyfriends and waxing ladies. When she straddled my recumbent body kneeding my breasts like dough I knew I was getting the Royal Treatment. Desperate not to start laughing I closed my eyes, but I couldn't quite get over the vigour with which this tiny person was scrubbing me up and down. The clumps of dead skin outlining my body the only reminder of what exactly I was there for.

After the scrub she took to my hair, emptying half the contents of a bottle of Pantene 2-in-1 onto my scalp; the other half she used on my body for the final rub down. Not once skerrick of my body was left uncleansed. I'd reached spa nirvana.

Not for faint hearted... more for those seeking a little bit of crazy: haman is undoubtedly my favourite Turkish experience.

Note: Top image courtesy of I feel it too, Naib Hamami thanks to www.suleymanucar.com