Taking a Bath in Public

Budapest is a city that is apparently known for their bath houses. The city is a geothermal hot spot with a low water table which has made it a popular location for natural baths for centuries. Today, Seth and I took the plunge. We visited the Szechenyi Bath House, which has a good mix of tourists and locals. When you enter a bath house there is a whole procedure that one has to follow, so we tread lightly as Seth and I exchanged puzzled looks and the workers gave us grunts while pointing us in the right direction. Luckily the staff spoke enough English to help us along, but the bath house, being the labyrinth that it is, still managed to get us lost. The entire facility is indoors with narrow hallways and closed doors with signs on them. Since we could not read the signs we hesitated to open doors, fearing we might land ourselves in the womens locker room. This would be fine if we lived in a world where everyone looked like Phoebe Cates when they left a body of water, but the sad reality is that ninety-nine percent of the folk there were doing us all a favor by being clothed.

After several wrong turns, a few grunt-points from workers, and many, many hesitant door-openings, we found a pool. Now that we had found the pool, we had to make sure it was the right one. There is a procedure where you are to go from the hottest pool, to a cold pool, then to a tepid pool. There are also saunas that you could go into. We went into the first pool we saw, which was the tepid pool. Swing and a miss. We sat for a second, acting like we intended to be there, then got up and made our way to the "humid" sauna. This room was 130 degrees and you could not even see your hand in front of you with how much steam was in there. It was intense. It hurt to breath.

Seth and I didn't really follow procedure due to the language barrier and the fact that every time we turned a corner there was a new pool. We just ended up hanging out in each pool, eventually making our way outside where they had the fun pools. There was a tide pool that pushed you along in a circle. Grown men and children alike all giggled as the water pushed them along. The craziest room in the whole place was the hot, dry sauna. It was between 180 and 215 degrees in this room. As soon as we walked in the sweat just poured out of us. It was absolutely ridiculous how hot it was in there. When we left that sauna we jumped straight into a 55 degree pool. My body is still tingling from the shock. The baths are unbelievably relaxing and a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon. Im still not sure why they call them "baths" though. After sitting in a body of water with hundreds of complete stranges for hours, soaking in each others filth I hardly felt clean. By the way, the pics are of the "Heroes Square" which is right near the bath house. I didn't feel like being a creepy tourist with a camera around my neck in the pool, so I left the camera in the locker.