The promised experience of a lifetime...

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Returning to the resort with full bellies and a fresh supply of water we had a bit of time to relax by the pool, waiting for our "unforgettable turkish bath experience" . I felt rather, holidayish lounging in a bikini on a sun bed by the pool, shaded by a cane sun umbrella followed by a quick dip in the pool, which was warm but rather refreshing. I do feel for all those who may have been blinded during this time, but a girl has to start somewhere!

Running a bit behind schedule, we walked over to the spa area to see if we had inadvertently missed our appointment. The young guy at the reception obviously couldn't understand our twange, so our friend from this morning came out to say he would be 10 more minutes. I couldn't help but notice that he came out clad in nothing more than what looked like a plaid loin cloth which was a little low cut for my liking....a quick sideways glance at Vaughn confirmed my fears were similar to his, but we just smiled politely and said "Thanks, see you soon!"....We returned to the pool, thinking this may be our last moments before a traumatic life changing experience. A few minutes later, our new turkish bath friend found us by the pool and signalled that it was time....

We were shown to a sauna room and told asked if we would like the temperature turned up....obviously this person had not been to the UK in a while, 40 degrees with 85% humidity was a ok with me! We sat in the sauna for 10 minutes contemplating our fate before being shown to another room lined in marble, with a large marble circular slab in the centre of the room. We were told that the walls and slab was heated....once again I don't think they had visited the UK in a while. We were asked to lie down on our backs and two young men, dressed in the same plaid loin cloth we had seen earlier were to attend us. They had little cheeky grins on their faces and did not speak very good english so who knows what we were in for. We just laughed nervously along....

The bath started with large bowls of water being splashed over us, alternated with warm/hot water all over our body, including the face (don't breath in) - the shock of the cold made me scream a bit followed by alot of laughter from Vaughn as well as the same happened to him. Next our hosts slipped on what looked like a cross between an oven mitt and stello pad and began to "scrub" our bodies, starting from the toes working upto behind my ears! My legs were lifted up and thoroughly scrubbed lying across the guys lap... my arms were lifted behind me and scrubbed including my armpits! This was all very...interesting... but they obviously knew what they were doing as they moved through the routine. Once again large bowls of water were poured over us, washing away what ever they scrubbed raw off our skin! Following this, we were asked to roll over onto our front and the process started again, scrubbing from head to toe. I couldn't stop laughing this whole time - particularly nervous laughter as my bikini top was undone and I desperately tried not to slide around or fall off the marble slab!

Periodically throughout this process the guys would stop and pour water over themselves from the Grecian looking basins and taps built into the walls of the room - I suspect this was to wash away any sweat etc from them to stay hygienic throughout the process. Next up was the bubble bath that I had seen in the pictures. They took, what looked like a pillowcase and rubbed soap all over this, then somehow, but some magic swinging action filled the pillowcase with bubbles that were then squeezed out over our bodies. This was repeated until the bubbles covered our entire bodies about 1 metre high! This was followed by a massage/body rub (from head to toe) and weird stretches and shaking by arms and legs trying to make my body do things it just shouldn't do! Then I saw Vaughn's guy stand over him and pull him up by his arms behind him and shake him. As they seems to be following the same routine, I was filled with dread....and yep, sure enough my guy stood over me, grabbed my arms and tried to pull me up....oh there was no way he was going to pull me up and jiggle me all about, I must have felt like a dead weight, cos he tried to pull me up twice with resistance before asking the other guy to come around and help him. So here I had two guys, one on each arm pulling me up and jiggling me...yes this was indeed an experience of a lifetime! More bowls of water to wash the bubbles away. Then we had to turn over....

I had a wee panic for a bit, before my guy started to retie by bikini at the back - the only issue with this is it was a bit like when a guy tried to tie a pony tail in your hair - it is all loose and pretty much serves no purpose...so after making sure things were aligned I begrudgingly rolled over, once more trying desperately not to slip off the slab of marble in my very slippery state. This was followed by more bubbles.....followed by massage/rub from head to toe. We were kinda laughing at the point and the guys took this as an invitation to give Vaughn a bit of an awkward moment when they both ticked his toes and ruffled his hair in a "playful" manner.....I will never forget the look in Vaughn's eyes. Let's just say these guys are very thorough, so even your face is "massaged" and "stretched" into all sorts of a contortive ways. At one point I thought he might have been trying to reduce the size of my head, pity my skull got in the way.

Next we were asked to sit up and hang our legs over the side of the slab. I was "slid" across (by this point I had no control) closer to the basin and more water was poured over my head - now anyone knows that they look like a drowned rat when this happens, but this was not my concern....my concern was the still loose bikini top that was gradually being pulled downwards by each bowl of water poured over me in rapid succession.... following this I was asked to stand where I was towel dried and then it was done!...I looked at Vaughn, who had the same look of "yep, unforgettable experience indeed and I'm glad that's done"...but it was not to be. Clasping our towels around us with the last bit of modesty we could muster thinking we were heading to the changing room, we were shown to a quiet area with two massage tables...after drinking some ice cold water our devoted masseurs returned for round two! Luckily though this was much more relaxing and ended our time at the spa on a good note. At the end of the massage our faces were painted with a mud mask to finish.

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