Ain't No Mountain High Enough

We are now in Central Anatolia and I spent half the day climbing the rocky slopes of Amasya, a 3,000 year old city along the Yesilirmak River. The cliffs above the town are home to an old Ottoman Palace, decaying hamams (Turkish baths) and the tombs of various Pontus kings, among other ancient sites. It was to these sites we ascended following a filling lunch and a quick tour of a 19th century wooden house on the river. As we Americans rose higher and higher up through the mountain side, no rails to assist us, we began to drop off one by one with words like “I’ll just wait here for you go come back through.” Yours truly made it to the tippy-top along with a couple of other brave souls. The coup was to simply say you’d done it, because there wasn’t much to see of the caves and ruins up there. But the view was spectacular.

We left sweet little Amasya in route to Tokat. It was dark when we arrived. Our hotel was a sharp contrast to the one we’d enjoyed for two nights in Ankara, which I figured out immediately upon noticing the large bottled water display in the lobby. We had read in the guidebook that the hotel had a hamam, so three of us decided to work in a visit before dinner. We all emerged in the hallway about the same time wearing swimsuits and paper slippers courtesy of the hotel. We had to tell the receptionist we wanted to visit the hamam because “sometimes it gets crowded down there.” She summoned a man from the back, who ran ahead of us down the dark, marble stairs into the basement. We followed him as fast as we could in the paper shoes, losing one on the steps every now and then, but upon arriving in the basement had no idea where we were going because it was pitch black. Then a light switched on in one corner. He motioned us through a heavy wood door into a marble room with old-style Turkish fountains and a big slab of marble in the middle. But there was no person to wash and massage, and no soap to do it yourself. Hmmmm. And there was no steam or no heat at all for that matter. So we dropped that idea and went over to the sauna (past the tiny, stone cold pool) and I stepped through the door and into the darkness searching for a switch. When I found it, nothing happened. Broken. We disappointedly walked toward the door, past two exercise cycles bought on clearance in Kazakhstan. So much for a little relaxation before dinner. And we learned later that the entire hamam was “broken.”

The upside to this hotel: excellent food and a very comfortable bed.

And the shower in my room served the purpose of the hamam.