çağmur

The mud baths!
Originally uploaded by ccarlstead

I’ve learned a new word in Turkish – çağmur – which means mud. And no, it is not because of all the rain we’ve had this year (I’m thrilled the sun has begun to put in a steady appearance). Curious? Mom and I were too. One of the things advertised by our hotel in Pamukkale as an excursion was a trip to the mud bath. Mud bath? What does that mean? Pretty much what it sounds like. We were taken out to a small facility (currently being redone as the tourist season approaches) which consisted of an outdoor thermal pool, an outdoor mud pool, a natural sauna (think of a room covered by cedar planks with a water pipe constantly pumping out water at roughly 50˚C), and the mud baths. In a back room there are eight rectangles laid out in two rows of four. When you request a mud bath the attendant goes in and mixes the mud with hot water, scoops it to the sides of the “tub” and once you lay back with your head resting on the edge proceeds to cover you up to your neck. It was hot and heavy but not as slimy as I had expected. Definitely one of those cleanse by sweating experiences. After rinsing off (with some help to extract myself) in a hot shower (I’m not sure this place has any cold water at all!) we applied a mud mask from the outdoor pool and then jumped back into the thermal pool. Ouch! That stings the sunburn worse than when we went in at the beginning. Clearly the mud bath did something. Whatever it was we were there long enough we should have gotten all the health benefits the minerals there could bring. [A note of caution: if you do go to the mud baths here make sure you get the attendant to leave the door open in the mud bath room, otherwise you’ll come very close to melting!]