21st December 2019 – Happy Birthday Judith

So Saturday we celebrated Judith’s 74th birthday in Kusadasi, Turkey.

I had booked the morning excursion to the local Haman (Turkish Bath) before we started the trip as Judith’s birthday present. And when we arrived at the bath I booked us each a Turkish massage.

The coach was quite full so we anticipated a wait for our scrub & foam massage in the bath. We started with a sauna and then cooled off in the salt room before joining the queue in the bath sitting around the perimeter waiting our turn.

The bath is a marble room and the marble bath “table” is gently heated. So I lay on the table and first one person scrubs me with warm water and a scrub mitt that acts as an exfoliation treatment. Then next we have a foam massage. The attendant scoops up some soap in a long net bag and swings it to make a large foam ball which is squeezed out on my body. Then they massage it in to my skin. It leaves my skin feeling quite smooth and oily.

Then they take me to one of the basins and faucets along the side of the room and rinses me with warm water. Finally they dry me off and wrap me in towels and I am escorted to the front lobby and waiting area to wait for the masseuse. And the Turkish massage is lovely. The masseuse is Indonesian from Bali which just adds to an exotic experience,

We returned to the ship very relaxed to spend the afternoon onboard and seeing Kusadashi from the ships lounges and deck-side. For dinner I booked us into have an early dinner at The Mistral, one of the specialist dining rooms which was lovely. It has 3 sittings through the evening and our sitting had five tables and four waiting staff. And had we known the chef was sending a small cake for our birthday celebration we would not have ordered individual desserts. Judith cut the small cake in pieces and took it round to the other tables – now eight as the second sitting had started – share it with the other diners.