Mmmm, yum yum. I'm eating leftovers from an Indian restaurant (the only one I think.) It's really a great place: classy, tasty, and well decorated, but it's pricey, especially by Hungarian standards. For example, the vegetarian Hari Krishna restaurant cost about 1500 Hungarian Forint, which is about $8, for a large plate with some variety and a lassi drink. There are of course much cheaper, fast food type options. At Kashmir, it came to about $20. But hey, I'm still enjoying the leftovers!
Back to the hot baths: I shall briefly outline the three times I went there:
First time: I was bored and wanted to check it out. The building is beyond huge, and very complex, like a maze. So it took me a while to find my way around. The receptionists were thrilled at my attempts to communicate in Hungarian, but there was luckily one girl who was able to eventually clear a few things up in English for me. By some miracle, I didn't walk into the women's change room or stroll casually into a public area while nude. (I've done that before - I remember a mother with her little children who almost fainted!) They have four huge pools, with domed cathedral ceilings, in a circle around two small central tubs. The little ones would hold about 15 - 20 people each I suppose. One is the hottest, at 40°C, and the other is the coldest, at 20°C. The huge ones around them fit dozens of people each, and have various temperatures in between. No photos possible, sorry. Nothing eventful happened that morning. I arrived around 9 or 10 am, and soaked a lot, got all wrinkly, and left before 1 pm, when it costs a lot more. I don't know when they open in the morning, but from that time until 1 pm it's 1050 forint, or about $5!
Second time: right next door is another huge complex called the Aquaticum. It's one of the tram stops, just past downtown on the way to the university. This place is more expensive and more for families. It's like a giant indoor water-park, but with a bunch of bubbly hot tubs too. And if you pass through this water-park, on the inside, you will end up in the sauna area. On the Hungarian National Hot Bath Cultural Day (I'm serious) it was half price for entry. AND they had a special "sauna seance". (It's actually a lot easier for me to spell that in Hungarian now!) No, we weren't calling spirits down into the sauna to sweat with us, as fun as that would be, but they use this term instead as a "sitting" or "session".
Yep, that's right, I did the salt and honey scrub! Note the ridiculous price, which may as well be free: 500 Ft or about $2.50. Sweet! (and salty!)
After paying and entering, I got lost in the complex, naturally. Sadly I arrived at the sauna area a bit late and wasn't allowed to interrupt the first session: the chamomile aroma-therapy sweat fest (my translation.) But in the end I was glad I missed it, since I barely survived the other two!
Everyone is given a bed sheet to wear, girls and boys! and the sauna is laid out with sheets to sit on too. Then you sweat for about 10 minutes. I was worried with my high blood pressure - which by the way is under control now with some mild drugs - since it was a bit crowded and I sat on a higher teer. It got sooo hot, and then the crazy girls running the show would frantically whip a towel around near the ceiling to bring the hot air down. Then on top of that, they would fan each person, one at a time, which heats you up even more. There was a lot of talk I didn't follow at all. Probably just important safety procedures.
Then they passed around bowls of what looked like table salt. And we proceeded to scrub the salt all over our skin. I felt a little bad for the girls since they couldn't scrub their middle sections with the sheets hiding their upper and lower parts, and the innocuous midriff between. My hands were headed for my face when a kind bilingual girl translated that scrubbing the face with salt was a bad idea; just because of our eyes I suppose. Then more sweating. Then out to shower and dunk in a cold water pool. Very cold water pool! We were still wearing only the sheets.
Some people, including me, got a new sheet to wear. Then they called us back in after a few minutes for part two: exactly the same procedure but this time with honey. I thought it'd be a sticky mess, right? But with all the sweat and sheets, it wasn't. More sweat, ridiculous heat, towel waving, etc. Then out to shower and cold dunk, and the seance is over.
I hope it didn't make me look 10 years younger. The Hungarians smoke and drink a lot, and eat a lot of meat. So they usually guess my age at about 25 years old. After all this seancey stuff, I didn't really want to look 15!
Third time: this morning. A couple of days ago I felt like I must have sleep walked all night moving stoves and fridges, since I woke with a really bad kink in my neck. The next night it kept me up and it was just getting worse. Well, finally I had a legitimate excuse to go to the magic murky hot baths! One nice feature they have are a couple different waterfalls, which felt like dozens of warm fingers working on my back and neck. Mmmmm, so soothing. I arrived a bit late this time, at 10:30 am and asked, in fine Hungarian, what would happen if by the time I showered and dressed, I exited at 1:05 pm. "Nothing!" said the receptionists, cheerily. After 1pm, according to the price list, it's 1.5x the morning cost of $5.
So I circulated through the various pools and alternated super hot and super cold for my neck, and snuggled in between a couple really old ladies to catch a bit of the massaging waterfall. At 10 to 1pm I scrambled out, with my neck feeling much better, to the shower area. By the time I got dressed and out to the front desk where you turn in your wristband microchip, it was 1:13pm. "Rendben?" I said. ("It's in order?") She responded, no, you need to pay, and pointed at the clock. I became agitated and reminded her of my question earlier, and she said (all in Hungarian), it's not 5 after, it's a quarter after. So I had to pay the afternoon price. If I wasn't all showered and getting tired of all the soaking, I would have gone back in for a couple hours. I paid the different, and muttered a few phrases like, this is crazy, I can't believe it, etc. I wanted to say, I'll never come back to this place! But there isn't much competition, so I knew that wouldn't be true, I'm definitely going back.
Now friends, before you get too envious, consider this quotation from the Baha'i writings:
"O Son of Earth! Know, verily, the heart wherein the least remnant of envy yet lingers, shall never attain My everlasting dominion, nor inhale the sweet savors of holiness breathing from My kingdom of sanctity."
Would you feel better if I said the washrooms weren't that nice?
Cool - get it?! LOL
ReplyDeleteThinking of you guy!