What to bring:
- plastic bucket
- mat or stool (to sit on at the hammam)
- shampoo
- soap
- sabon beldi (brown olive oil soap, paste form, you can get a fist sized portion for about 2 dirhams)
- very rough scrubby mitt (called a “kiss”)
- mitt for regular soap
- razor
- towel
- extra pair of underwear
- flip-flops
- plastic bag for clothes
- scarf for head (after hammam)
Optional items:
- henna
- ghassoul (reddish brown clay, comes in small sacks, dry chunky bits)
Step 1 – Find a good hammam
Ask neighbors and friends if they know of any nice hammams in the area, and what’s the best day/time to go. You’ll hear a range of opinions, which should steer you away from dirty/expensive/crowded hammams.
Step 2 – Buy materials for hammam
You can buy sabon beldi, scrubby mitts, and other accoutrements at the hammam itself, but they’re marked way up. Get all your stuff at the souk before you go.
Step 3 – Arrive at hammam
Sometimes, there are separate entrances for men and women. Find the right one, and go to the man at the window to pay. It’s normally about 10 dirham for entry.
Head inside, and the first room you see should be one with benches around the walls. Strip down to your skivvies (just bottoms, unless you’re shy/cold, then you can leave a tank top on if you like), put all your clothes in the plastic sack, and hand it to the woman behind the desk. Make sure you give her 1-2 dirham. She may/may not give you a ticket/tag in receipt, don’t worry if she doesn’t – after all you didn’t bring any valuables, right?
This is also the time to arrange for a scrubbing – men sometimes get massages, but women normally only have scrubbings with the kiss. If this leaves you disappointed, don’t worry – your limbs will be twisted every which way during the scrubbings, like a Gumby doll. If you don’t know the words for scrubbing etc…, don’t worry, just make scrubby motions on your arm, and they’ll get it.
Continued next time….
Jeni
May 8, 2006 at 6:23 pm
Lili, thanks for demystifying this process – I have never had the guts to do the “real thing”. I, instead, do the diva thing and go to a Frenchie version of hammam in Paris
. There you do get the massage with your gommage, with argan oil even!
Cat In Rabat
May 14, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Rock on! I was hoping that you’d post this.
When you’re back in Rabat, we MUST go!
barbara
May 16, 2006 at 10:28 am
Hi!
I just found you blog by chance yesterday. We saw each other for about 2 seconds when I was walking around oudayas with Jill (I guess you know her from Thorn tree) some saturday, I think it was the 4th, in March.
Anyhow, I really like your blog and this post about the hammam is great. Which hammam in Rabat do you go to? My favorite one is in a little alley in the old medina not far from the kasbah.
Morocco Time » Sabon Beldi
October 15, 2006 at 9:39 pm
[...] I spoke about this soap once before, when talking about a trip to the hammam. Here are a few other essential facts about it. [...]
Laura
January 17, 2007 at 7:26 am
Hi!
I’ve just moved to Rabat and I wanted to ask you if you know some nice Hamman near Hassan?
Kathy
January 29, 2007 at 4:58 pm
I forget what it’s called but there is a kind of shampoo you buy by weight, at the same place you buy sabon beldi. It’s not pretty and it doesn’t smell like lemon essence but it makes your hair really shiny.
BerberMan
February 1, 2007 at 3:06 pm
it’s called ghassoul…good hammam and read fatima mernissi before you go. Dkhoul lhammam machi bhal khroujou!