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Budapest baths are surprising experience Posted
July 27, 2004
By TARLIKA NUNEZ BUDAPEST-- Thinking of bathing in Budapest? You might want to think twice. “Oh, we have to go the baths, see the Opera House and go to Fisherman’s Bastion for the view,” my friend informed me as our train screeched to a stop at Budapest’s main train station.
Thousand and thousands of visitors flock to Budapest’s thermal baths each year for a chance to soak in the “thermal waters,” just as the Romans did centuries ago. I was one of the thousands of visitors intrigued by the “healing water” that everyone says is a must try. “Gellért Baths,” said the concierge of my hotel. “It’s the finest in town, renowned for making you feel as if you were bathing in a cathedral.” I don’t know what kind of cathedrals he’s frequented throughout his years, but this sure didn’t resemble the ones I’ve been to. What’s bizarre is that the Lonely Planet Hungary guidebook said the same thing. Okay, so maybe the lobby, filled with crowds of overeager tourists and aged Hungarian women in search for a cure for their arthritis, resembled a somewhat dinky cathedral. But the recollection of the wonderful statues, mosaic tiling and stained glass of the lobby, fade away as you enter the gender-separate bathhouses that resembles a women’s locker room at retirement complex.. Before I get into what I saw, let me first prepare you for the unexpected and confusing how-to-procedures of bathing at one of these local Hungarian hotspots. After waiting in line for a measly 30 minutes, you will find yourself standing in front of what I can only describe as a movie ticket counter, ordering “one bath please,” from a Hungarian woman who speaks no English. She only points at a sign that reads. 2,400 Forints (Ft.) bath include towel
“One massage, too, please,” I said to the woman as she took my money. She handed us (my friend and I) a plastic card that almost looked like a credit card. We looked at each other and silently agreed to follow the swarm of other bathing enthusiasts through a turnstileas if we were entering some kind of amusement park. Before we knew it, we found ourselves staring at a mob of naked elderly women thinking that we must have got lost along the way. “You go here,” the attendant said as she shoved us in what they call a locker (what we would call an undersized room, more resembling a Port-A-Potty). We opted on wearing our bathing suits even after seeing all the naked bodies and despite the fact that it would label a big fat “tourist” sign on our forehead. We threw the whole idea of “fitting in” out the window after realizing we were the only women gravity hadn’t got the best of, besides the occasional tourist, who looked a bit lost. As my friend and I walked into the large-communal bathing area hand in hand, I tried to assure her that these “healing waters,” though they may look a bit questionable, are, in realty, used to treat a variety of illnesses from spinal disorders to arthritis. As we stepped in, noticing all the brown specks in the water I tried to reassure her, as well as myself, that this healing water contained, among other minerals, sodium, calcium-magnesium and sulphate-chloride. And that the water, which gushes from the Buda Hills of the Great Plain, is clean and circulated on a regular basis, according to the lonely planet.
She was, may I say a little apprehensive especially considering the grime and muck that lined the diluted swimming pool water. We were in and out, the way you used to bathe when your mom forced you clean up. There were three baths one marked 38 degrees Celsius, one at 36 C and the other at 18 C. The idea is to bath and relax in the hot one and then jump directly into the cool one, to give you’re a body, a somewhat shocking sensation … and boy does it. The hot one was more like your cold bath water as opposed to a hot spring topped with the dense mist you see glowing off a Jacuzzi, (what I imagined it to be). “Okay, we did, we did it … now what are we supposed to feel better, or healed?” my friend who was recovering from a mild flu asked. As I stood there watching an old lady soak her hurting knee under the waterfall, that dispensed the healing mineral water into the baths, I was curious to whether or not this water actually helped. When all of sudden a thick-brawny lady came to us, in her deep Czech accent and said, “you next.” (meaning the massages). We were escorted into a large concrete room, what appeared to be a cellar of some sort. Ringing lyrics of Jay Z and Destiny Child, the room was scattered with over a dozen massage tables ornamented with naked women’s bodies, no sheet, no walls; complete and udder company. “Drop sheet,” she said to us. We looked at each other and knew, there was no turning back. Just as we had dropped our sheet and were diving face first into the table, in an attempt to cover the front portion of our naked bodies, she said. “No, you look up.” “Oh, goodness, she wants me to lie but-naked, spread-out like a dead person at the morgue,” I thought to myself as I adjusted my cold and shivering body to face the ceiling. At that point, there was a moment where we made complete eye contact, where I know she was thinking; stupid tourist.
It was clear the only people getting massages were the tourists, lying there scared to death to open their eyes, afraid to spot the scary Hungarian lady staring straight at there spread eagle bodies. It was the longest half hour of my life. I was counting the seconds to when I could get up and run out of there, as if I was ‘running from the bulls’ in Spain. Twenty-nine fifty five, fifty six, oh thank god, please be done, I thought to myself, as her finale was to beat me to a living pulp with her fists As soon as I saw my friend there was a mutual understanding, that I owed her big time for not letting her turn around when we were first entering the lobby of this “sanctuary.” We quietly got dressed and left the Gellért baths that day, transformed women. Some kind of raw and youthful innocence had been stripped from us and we would never fail to remember our “baths in Budapest.”
Gellért Baths H-1118 Budapest, Kelenhegyi út 2-4 Telephone: + 36-1/466 6166 How to get there: The Gellért baths are located in the centre of the city, on the Buda side of the Szabadság Bridge. Take trams no. 18, 19, 47, 49
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