In the women's section of Cemberlitas, the only reminders of modernity are a lightbulb dangling from the ceiling and a plastic sign forbidding women to walk without sandals or without a towel wrapped around their waist. Women of all shapes and ages ignore the sign and lounge on a circular platform that seems to float in the middle of the bath chamber. In place of modern showers are knee-high marble sinks over which women bend and ladle up small buckets of water to rinse their hair. Other traditional baths restrict their opening hours for women. Cemberlitas is open from dawn to midnight.
Women massage women and men scrub men, each in their separate sections of the bath.
The rubdown I received from a corpulent Turkish woman in a black bikini bottom was gentler. On entering the Cemberlitas bath, you undress and store your belongings in a locker, then carry soap and your massage ticket into an austere and beautiful marble chamber. Light streams through a honeycomb of small glass polka dots in the dome above. The reward of a bath may be physical rather than spiritual, but when entering Cemberlitas I find my senses tingling with an almost religious mix of mystery, anticipation and aesthetic pleasure. On my first visit, I laid awkwardly on the heated platform and waited nervously.