Stripped to my underwear, I follow the fat lady through an old short wooden door into the sauna room where everyone (all women) is sweating, hot, dripping. Beautiful old tiles line the floor, the walls, and the thick curved ceiling has holes small and deep enough to allow light and ventilation but to prevent any unwanted attention. I’ve entered a hammam, which most of you might know by the name of Turkish bath, or, think of a spa.

I get my own sink, a low marble stone basin, filled with the hot water I’d been craving all week (maybe I’m becoming a pansy but cold showers every morning was getting to me). I dunk myself with a couple cups of water and then I’m motioned over to lie flat on the stone floor (very comfortable). She begins to scrub me down like I’ve never been scrubbed before. Piles of skin come off – I feel dirty although I know I’m not – and she exclaims something in Arabic that must have been like

“Girlfriend – what is this mess? Get yo’self to a hammam more often, look at your skin!” after which she gives me a toothy smile.

I’m pretty good with this kind of thing, but I’m still a little shocked by the intimacy. Two women in front of me are doing the same thing to each other, and I hear them asking something loudly to the woman serving me. If only I knew what they were saying at the time.

Next, I get my feet scrubbed, and an oily massage, and some (locally made) olive based (beyond organic) soap to wash everything off. My skin is soft like its never been before, and I smell delicious. I’m pretty relaxed up to this point. I take a towel and head into their chill out lounge (which is actually the welcome-and-exit room). I casually ask how old the place is, because it looks exactly the same as a hammam I visited in Lebanon the week before in the Betadine Palace. The answer? 850 years old. My jaw drops. This bathhouse is older than colonial America.

I sit down, start to dry, jaw still open, and ask for Zurahat tea, which is a type of wildflower. It’s yummy. Things are perfect. I’m in heaven.

And then a fight breaks out.

I had noticed in the back of my mind that the air of the place seemed a bit strange… the ladies were all talking loudly to each other, but I really can’t understand mostly anything except the occasional word so I wasn’t paying any attention. Plus my guard wasn’t up – I had just had it beat out of me. But at some point I clued in when the manager of the hammam grabbed the shoes of a couple of girls and threw them on the wet floor. This provoked an immediate reaction from one of the said girls, who were still naked, to throw herself at the manager and try to hit her. The whole thing escalated in seconds and both (almost naked) women were being restrained by other women and were yelling at the top of their lungs.

Myself mostly undressed I quickly throw my clothes on, retrieve my shoes and high-tail it across the room as the fight was migrating my way within seconds. Big breasts were swinging, high voices were shrieking, and I really honestly thought the naked girl was going to punch the manager. The space was small, I didn’t want any trouble in case police got involved, so I beat it. Plus, I really didn’t know what was going on.

Later I learned that the girls were Moroccan, and to the insistence of the manager and everyone translating the story to me, they were prostitutes. They got upset when they saw me getting better treatment and argued with the manager, whom I imagine, must have insulted them hence the intense reactions from both sides. I really don’t know what the story is in the end, nor which side to take as its unclear whether they were actually badly treated or not, wether they had an attitude problem or not, or wether the manager was badly stereotyping them or not. Who knows.

In any case, this started off my tour of Syria with a bang. More stories to come in a flash.