Monday 14 November 2011

The essential group tour bonding experience

Going to a hammam in Fez in week one of the tour was definitely a bonding experience. Well at least for the men and then for the women as (luckily!) we were separated.
In the women’s changing room, a local told us not to bother wearing a bikini top as everyone in the hammam only has bikini bottoms on. Half of us insisted leaving them on, however, soon enough, we were all in the same boat as our bikini tops were ripped from us by the ladies who worked there.
One by one, we were pulled away from the safety of the group and given a good scrub with an exfoliating mit. We had to completely let go as we all found ourselves at some point with our heads in a lady’s lap, having our chests scrubbed along with the rest of our body! They poured buckets of water over our heads and pulled our bikini bottoms backward and forward and emptied water in there too!
You could tell they enjoyed their job as they laughed every time they poured a bucket of water on someone’s head. But they also appeared to be quite competitive. The entire time we were in there, the women were shouting at each other and I think I was the cause of one fight. One woman was about to start scrubbing me but then another one started screaming at her and pulled my other arm to get me away from her as she wanted to scrub me herself!

Some girls got their hair washed, and others had to lie on their stomachs and then got one leg and one arm pulled in opposite directions to stretch them out. The men apparently got this too, although they were harsher on the locals, standing on them and pulling everything as hard as they could!

Getting changed back into our clothes at the end was much easier than going in, as by that stage, everyone had seen pretty much everything anyway!

No comments:

Post a Comment