Heavenly Bodies (down at the Spa)

Heavenly Bodies (down at the Spa)
Hungary

Being fished out of the swimming pool by a large mustachioed man in a shell suit made up my mind for me. I did not have a swimming cap. This meant I was a criminal, having broken the tough laws of the Luckacs baths. I was forced into it. It was time to try a new experience in skin wrinkling sensations.

Soaking wet after my five stroke swim, I looked hopeless, a stranger in a strange swimming pool. I had already confused myself on the getting changed part of the affair, and now I was lost and cold in a Hungarian health complex, surrounded by an interesting selection of bodies and elements.

All the guidebooks recommend one to visit the baths. “One has to go to the thermal baths in Budapest. It is a truly Hungarian experience”. I was already taken aback by the swimming pools. They were very typical of what one imagined the old Eastern Europe to be like, fierce women contorting their faces in a show of strength as another length is completed. To complement these women and their swimming costumes are the men, all looking like fictional Russian dictators that haunted my Raymond Briggs eighties childhood, only in the pool they are wearing yellow swimming caps.

Having successfully navigated my way towards the thermal spa, I shivered along the tiled corridors past nurses with big hands waiting to break my bones in a Turkish massage. The plastic doors in front of me were pushed aside to reveal a steamy room. I could see little but steam and as I walked past a sign that had “50-70°C” on it, I fearfully began to notice the bright complexion of people’s faces through the steam. The first pool became visible, at a heat of 36 degrees, it sounded pleasant, and the people looked towards me as a newcomer to their steamy community. All the faces around me were as red as a rising sun with droplets of sweat gushing from foreheads back into the water that I was about to sit in.

Stepping in to the first path, my cautious toes dancing on the steamy surface. I allowed my body to sink in with a sigh as the warm water caressed my cold body. As I began to sweat and take on the appearance of the people with whom I was sharing the bath, I continued my observations of the Hungarian physique.

I had been to a cinema in Hungary and all the trailers before the movie were for sportswear, I had noticed an abundance of shell suits and trainers in Budapest but had not had the chance to see whether these people were really fit in the flesh. The older people were generally bulky but the younger people were all incredibly well toned and athletic looking. I then became self-conscious of my skin and bones and slunk down lower into the water to meditate on why the youth of Great Britain were not only ugly but also extremely unfit. What makes a nation handsome and superfit? Or are the British too wrapped up in concepts of ‘cool’ to merit an attempt at health.

As these thoughts plagued my mind, I decided it was time to head for the hotter 40°C bath. This was three steps from my current bath, but set off the main corridor in an alcove with a tiled dome ceiling. The pool was round and had a small fountain, allowing ice cold water into the spa. The temperature in the spa was unbelievable, as it was in an enclosed space there was nowhere for the heat to escape and when I first sat down in the boiling pond, I became paranoid about my heart failing. This was not a good thing considering my fainting phobia.

After spending two minutes in this bath it was time to jump into the ice bath to let my heart return to shape. How could this possibly be healthy, putting one’s body into extreme temperatures for two hours? Still, I was determined to make the most out of this experience and headed for the steam room before emerging 45 seconds later coughing in front of bemused Hungarians whilst I grumbled to myself about the dangers of changing body temperatures rapidly.

Leaving the baths an hour later with reddened skin, and a very relaxed mood, I emerged from the thermal spa’s to realise that again I was lost, wet and had to find my changing room and it’s attendant in this massive health complex. Striding past athletic blonde amazon women and old men being escorted by nurses, I eventually found my way back, glad that I had not walked in to the lunatic asylum part of the health complex that I was convinced must exist somewhere deep inside in this huge tiled structure.

Wandering out, fully clothed, I sat down on the hard bench outside the complex, rolled up a cigarette, and savoured what had been a most Eastern European experience.

The author can be contacted at padixon@fastmail.fm.

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