Kamal took a day off from his carpet store to act as our tour guide in Istanbul. We checked out Hagia Sophia, which was a Christian church, converted to a mosque then changed to a museum. Next we saw the beautiful chambers, furniture, clothes and jewels at Topkapi Palace. After a fun and delicious lunch in an authentic (not frequented by tourists) Turkish restaurant, Kamal left Toby at the Erguvan and dropped off Cheryl and me at a real (not frequented by tourists) Turkish bath.
At first we saw it was only men, but luckily we found the women's side because after removing all of our clothing the lady gave us only large dishtowels to cover ourselves. We hung around there for about 90 minutes, pouring hot water all over our bodies, then getting scrubbed, exfoliated and soaped by a somewhat zaftig Turkish woman wearing only red granny-style underpants. It was all fun except for the few minutes of terror when I was laying on the marble covered in suds and the woman was kneading my back, propelling me closer and closer to the edge of the slab. Only my hysterical laughter saved me from soaring off the end.
We had leftovers for dinner in the room, then I went to the local hooka bar to smoke with Kamal and some of his buddies.
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