On Public Baths

The people of Ramhknal hold very distinct, and perhaps unique, opinions on the merits of bathing. Unlike our other dearly held beliefs1, these are wholly beneficial. If you come from a culture that considers a layer of grime essential to protecting the pores from 'bad air,' and thus see the practice of bathing as abhorrent and likely to cause disease, it is time for me to disillusion you: you are stupid and wrong.

If you have never engaged in the difficult art of washing your own genitalia, despair not! Even the novice bather is welcome in any of Ramhknal's public baths. Such institutions are numerous and their entry fees are nominal: the Ramhknali beggar is a clean beggar. The largest of these is no doubt the Palace of Soap and Oil, a complex so massive that it qualifies as it's own contrada2. But as even a lesser establishment may bewilder and overwhelm the neophyte in it's complexity, it is my privilege to provide for you a summary of a few of the more common rooms.

Antechamber: Upon paying your fee and entering the bath, you will no doubt wind up here. Remove whatever rags you have the audacity to call clothes, stow them in any available shelf, and proceed about your business, free from the burdensome3 inconvenience of clothing. Remember, gawking at the particular and varied shapes of the hideous or rotund is considered bad form.

Please note that the baths of Ramhknal are not segregated by gender! If you have yet to become acquainted with the biology of the opposite gender, you will soon be forced to. For those looking to become intimately acquainted, I direct you to the Red Tide Contrada, where such services are offered for moderate sums4.

Cold Bath: A brief dip in cold water is known to shock the body into reorganizing its stores of the four essential humors. It is also quite refreshing, and thus this is always a popular room.

Flower Bath: This small room has a continuous rain of flower petals, which accumulate and start to form a thick carpet as the day wears on. For this reason, I recommend visiting it close to sun down.

Food Carts: A recent and unscrupulous addition.  If you're the type who can't get through a bath without Father Hunger clenching his bony hands around your stomach,  a few coins will purchase you a toad on a stick or some other such morsel. Those of us possessing fortitude will proceed with our bathing.

Garden: For those looking for a place of solace and calm, the garden will occasionally provide. At other times it will be full of the shrieks and shouts of running children. Such is life.

Gymnasium: A wide open area, perfect for the pudgy to become athletic and the athletic to strut like peacocks. Occasionally home to sporting competitions, full of sweating men, roaring crowds, and illegal gambling, the last of which is their only redeeming feature.

Hot Bath: Nothing is quite as relaxing as sitting in a hot bath, chatting idly with good friends. A room that needs no recommendation, and is always home to scintillating gossip. As a special service, a large tea ball containing the house blend may be added into the water, infusing it with a relaxing tea. A must at parties and formal occasions.

Incense Room: Here you will find three to five censers arranged in a row, each containing a different incense. You need not concern yourself about the selection; it is determined by the day of the week5. Take two or three minutes to inhale each of them in turn and then move on. Don't hold up the line, or worse yet, inhale them in reverse order.

Library: Those looking to enrich themselves with knowledge will find themselves well furnished in the Library. The books on hand are most often an eclectic mix, determined by the whims of the owner and subtracting any successful thefts. Enterprising scholars, historians, and firebrands are fond of inserting volumes into such libraries, so as to better spread their infectious (and sometimes revolting) ideas. Do not be surprised to find several philosophers angrily defending their positions on the Captan's new tax laws or the morality of eating (entirely hypothetical) intelligent rats6.

Oil Room: Lay down on any of the stone slabs and let the attendants7 decide what oil to anoint you with. In the next room these same attendants shall scrape the oil off of you, using a long, curved piece of metal called a strigil8. Some mild discomfort is to be expected; if the other patrons seem completely at ease while being scraped, it is because we Ramhknali are excellent liars.

Sand Bath: A delightful room with several streams of sand pouring from the ceiling to the floor.  Immerse yourself in the pouring stream of sand and let it scrub away any surface grime. The experience is often likened to standing within an enormous hourglass. For the novice, I recommend red sand: leave white, green, and black to the professionals.

Smoke Bath: Filled with dry air and heated by burning cedar and sandalwood, this room allows the body to reabsorb beneficial impurities. This room tends to leave the occupant smelling like bacon, which any rational man can agree is an excellent idea9.

Steam Bath: Hot and humid, this chamber is for idle conversation and the sweating out of baleful impurities. The heat is generated by an ingenious system of piping hot steam through a hollow space beneath the floor. For this reason, do not jump around in the steam bath: you're liable to punch through the floor and break the room for everybody, not to mention scalding yourself in sensitive places.

Surgery: A more infrequent room to be sure, often found only in highbrow establishments, and located on it's lonesome towards the back. Still, all surgeons in the city must legally practice inside a bath house, so that their clients may properly cleanse themselves before being operated on.

Swimming Pool: A combination cold bath and gymnasium, the swimming pool is used by the aquatically athletic, the lazy gossip, and those learning to not drown. As an aside, this last category will never include sailors: they believe you cannot cheat the sea it's due. Another reason to celebrate the swimming pool.

Toilet: The most essential room in the entire bath house as well as the most common reason for visiting one. For this reason it infallibly located near the entrance of the building. The toilet is a group affair10: stalls offer some privacy, but a healthy conversation continues at all hours.

Public baths can also be rented out for private affairs. In fact, this is expect for formal meetings, especially on matters financial or political. On such occasions it will be the host's responsibility to plan the order of events. The following is a perfectly respectable itinerary:

1. Sand Bath: Request black sand.
2. Oil Massage
3. Cold Bath: Typically the topic of the meeting is introduced here.
4. Incense Room
5. Flower Room: Lilies are considered a traditional, if somewhat uninspired choice.
6. Steam Bath: A good place for serious discussion.
7. Flower Room, the second round.
8. Smoke Bath
9. Cold Bath: Only a quick rinse, as it’s considered poor form to tarry.
10. Hot Bath: Request the tea bath.
11. Swimming Pool: Remember to provide refreshments.
12. Flower Room, the final round.

Finally, a warning: if you are the sort who must pay his own rent, do not take a room above a public bath. I can attest personally that noise goes on at all hours of the night, and that it is impossible to sleep in such circumstances.

1. Such as: There is more dignity in losing a war then in winning it, riots are a basic civil right, and large enough flies occasionally eat spiders. Challenging these beliefs is akin to insulting a Ramhknali's mother.

2. A horrifying memory returns to me of taking a wrong turn and winding up within the maintenance corridors of the Palace. Unable to find my way back, I was forced to subsist entirely on steam and a peculiar brand of orange fungi which had colonized the hot water pipes. I was found, gibbering and emaciated, by one of the contrada guard three days later.

I would later learn that my horrified pleas for help, which could be heard but for which no apparent source could be determined (the pipework dispersing their echoes across the building), were interpreted as the hauntings of a restless ghost. Whether from fear or embarrassment, I have since refused to return to that institution.

3. But often necessary!

4. Depending on your tastes, of course. Those with predilections for the strange and the unusual can fulfill their fantasies for truly tremendous sums. It is rumored that the merchant king Khinzir Fasiq, whose interests included step ladders, group activities, red hot pokers and the occasional dog, enjoyed the privilege of paying over 16,000 jinars for a single session, which typically lasted for the entirety of two weeks.

5. It is here in particular that the medicinal knowledge of Ramhknal is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world. On a Monday, the body is still attempting to reinforce itself from the revels of the weekend; the inhalation of powdered oak helps strengthen the spleen and straighten the spine. On a Thursday, the body is close to exhaustion, so an admixture of lavender and cinnamon helps to rejuvenate the spirit. Since few are gifted in this subtle art, each bath house has it's own expert on staff.

6. At the time of this writing, the consensus seems to be moral, because the rat is a foul creature which plots the downfall of Ramhknal. Still, it is a contentious issue.

7. These fellows should be children from the ages of eight to thirteen; any older and you are most certainly in the wrong sort of establishment.

8. The Captan Ahmaq Waqaha II was murdered in his very own bath by a traitorous attendant with a sharpened strigil. Let this be a lesson to you: employee moral should never be taken lightly.

9. It is not for nothing that the pig is known as the noble animal. Regrettably, dog fondlers are advised to skip this room outright.

10. While in other, less civilized locales the streets are covered in filth, in Ramhknal all unpleasant bodily emissions are sent to a grand series of sewers, to which every bath house is connected to. For this reason the concept of private toilets is entirely foreign to us. As a plus, it has let us do away with the indignity of the chamber pot.