Monastir, Tunisia
As the weather turned cooler during our early days in Monastir, a hammam experience seemed in order to warm up. A hammam is a steam bath of sorts. Men and women go separately, men before prayer time and women during the late afternoon. They come in all levels of luxury, from the simple neighbourhood hammam where the locals go, to the slightly higher end where locals with a little more means go, and on up the scale to those that are in big hotels and resemble western spas. We were interested in the simple neighbourhood hammam, hoping to get the authentic experience.
A new experience for the three of us female cruisers, we googled the hammam etiquette. No photos allowed, for obvious reasons, and a list of items to bring. Essentially the same as one would take to a gym shower - plus a can or cup to pour water. Off we went, with a wee bit of trepidation, to an unmarked door in the medina.
A tiny tiled lobby hid the baths from the street. In mime, we paid 1.500 TD (.75 CDN) and declined a massage for our first experience. We were given two plastic pails each, pink and blue, and an old can and told to strip and store our clothes. Not being sure what the heck to do and being shy North Americans we changed into bathing suits and headed into the back of the building which got darker and darker as we went. An immediate chatter of tens of women met us. Women of all shapes and sizes, stripped to teeny delicate lacy underwear. Next to a hotter second room where most of the women were congregated, chatting, massaging, rubbing and scrubbing each other and finally to a sweltering third room where a few women were sitting. We were told (in mime accompanied by much laughter), to remove our bikini tops, and to fill our pink buckets with scalding water and our blue with cold. We sat on a tiled bench between women not quite knowing what to do next. A woman beside me gesticulated that I should soak my feet in the hot bucket, while slowly a group of women surrounded us - in a noisy cackle of voices and gestures. One threw a bucket of very hot water on me, I screamed in surprise and the two cruisers with me screamed in sympathy. From that point, we were the objects of the women's care - a couple took me and scrubbed my limbs with a sandpapery black mit and soap. The others whisked my companions away to the second room. Several women took turns to douse me with hot - not scalding water - dumped over my head, thrown at my back and chest. The woman sitting beside me continued to ablute - she scraped her feet, rubbed black soap over her body. Finally she took out some black plant like material, rubbing it on her teeth. I asked her what it was with my hands and she offered me some...out of her mouth. I refused. (I later asked a male what it would have been. He said it was probably a tobacco of sorts. Women are not allowed to smoke - either are men but more smoke here than I have seen anywhere else - so they store whatever this replacement is, in their cheek.) Off I went to find my companions. One was being massaged on a tile counter. The other had escaped into the cooler room. The floor was flowing with water - and unfortunately, clumps of hair, nails and other body detritus. Luckily, google had told us to bring flip flops.
Eventually, we learned by watching that you get a pail of scalding hot water and a pail of cool water and mix them. The can is used to dump the water on your body. The women use the rough mitts - either the sand paper variety or a loofah mitt - to scrub their skin and then rinse with the cans of water. No submerging and no shower and no emptying of rinse water into clean pail water. Just tossed pails and cans of water in a sweltering room of steam.
The hammams originated when there was no running water in the home and the outdoor temperature was too hot to heat the water in any case. Now the baths are not as popular, although, on a Saturday, this neighbourhood public hammam sure was. We definitely had to rub shoulders, as the saying goes, to move about in the rooms. The women were having a wonderful time. These women, many of whom only show their faces and hands in public and rarely speak to us, seemed to revel in this all-female, essentially naked, gathering. Better yet they were highly entertained by our interest and had great fun assisting us in the art of the hammam. We left chattering and laughing as much as the women.
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| The hidden door of the second, slightly more upscale hammam. |
As the days shortened and our boats became cooler in January, we decided on trying the next level up, recommended by a local shopkeeper who we had befriended by purchasing some of his items. We were determined to try the massage for an extra $5 CDN. The facilities were slightly brighter, the benches tiled, the rooms smaller with a little more character. There were even showers where you could rinse off. We sat, a little more calm with some knowledge of what to expect. No one paid any attention to us at all. There was some low talking but not the hub bub of chatter from our first experience.
The massage was done in full view of the bathers on a tile counter, already covered with a green slimey olive goo from the last client so that I slid back and forth as the masseuse quickly rubbed me down. This was not the relaxing spa treatment I have treated myself to on occasion at home. Instead, a speedy but thorough affair - I must say, I was on constant alert, muscles tense.
When rinsed, we returned to the reception room, a big open room without furniture of any kind, where women were in various stages of dress, sitting on their towels or against their bags, while drinking a hot, very sweet mint tea and drying off. It is not de rigeur to leave the hammam with wet hair so the women hang out for a while. No blow dryers in sight. We had tea and sat but eventually left with wet hair.
I'm grateful we had the true hammam experience and saw women enjoying themselves in their private, yet public, world. Glad to have done it but I don't think I'll return...until we get to Turkey.
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