by Marcy Gordon
ALLISON J. STEIN
Naked, with a Passport
Staring would be the polite thing to do.
“Madam, is it fine?”
I opened my eyes with some effort, as my entire face, including my eyelashes, were coated in sesame oil.
The young woman was pointing at my ear. She was apparently asking me whether it was okay to massage it.
Well, let’s see. I was in Kerala, India. I’d already stripped naked with this very woman standing not more than three inches from my elbow. I had allowed her to seat me on a chair in the middle of the room, brightly lit by unflattering flourescent lights. She proceeded to pour the aforementioned sesame oil all over my head—the beginnings of a traditional Ayruvedic massage. As she led me to the wooden massage table, I noticed the door was more than slightly ajar; as spa staff and other clients walked past, they peered into the room. I closed my eyes. She got started on the massage proper, which was a very good one. At some point, another woman walked in to the room and joined her—a personnel addition I hadn’t been expecting—and with businesslike head-to-toe strokes, together they left no part of me untouched.
So after all of that, I wasn’t about to fuss over the sanctity of my ear.
“Sure,” I croaked. I was hoping my tone would be casual, easygoing. I cleared my throat, tried again. “Why not,” I squeaked.
She put her fingers shallowly into my ear canal and pulled them out with a small pop. And then she gestured for me to get up, and wrapped her arms around my waist once I was standing, to keep me from falling since my feet were slick. We minced down the hallway towards the shower, I wearing nothing but my oily shine. We passed about a dozen or so women in the hallway—clients also naked, staff in saris. Everyone smiled at me.
I have no idea what expression I had on my face. Because here’s the thing: I’m not someone who is really comfortable with public or even semi-public nudity. I’m not a nudist and have never been to a nude beach, haven’t once considered mooning or streaking. I was not a Girl Gone Wild in college, I don’t even wear very short shorts or extremely low-cut shirts. Slithering around an Ayurvedic center naked in the company of many others did not exactly put me in my happy place. And yet, no one was forcing me to do it. I could have bailed out; and what’s more I certainly would have if I’d been there with anyone I knew, a friend, or—horrors—a colleague.
But the fact of the matter is, if I’m traveling solo and you ask me to strip in the name of an interesting spa experience, say, a Turkish hammam, a Japanese bath, I’ll start to unzip and unbutton. I’ll confess to feeling pride about this tendency of mine. I’ve always considered my willingness to peel off my skivvies at appropriate moments as a my “real traveler” badge of honor, with extra points awarded since it makes me uncomfortable and since it’s not something that I would be willing to do at home.
Which is pretty weird if you think about it. I mean, why should it feel safer to be naked and vulnerable in front of foreign strangers than among friends and familiarity? And yet, it seems a common weirdness. There’s a whole range of semi-public-to-public naked activities that typically occur while traveling that aren’t in the category of sex tourism—spas, clothing-optional beaches, wet t-shirt contests. Many women do seem more willing to expose more of themselves abroad than they do at home. Does travel make it easier for a woman to overcome “the curse of Eve,” i.e., modesty?
It sure seemed like it was for me.
That is, until I visited Baden Baden, Germany. I’d gone to take the waters, as they say, in this historic spa town, and had my pick of the town’s brand new facility, which looked like a YMCA in a really nice neighborhood, or the Friedrichsbad, which is the 133-year-old Irish-Roman bath. Of the half million people who visit the bathing complex each year, only 70,000 visit the older facility, and among these are very, very few Americans. That’s because the Friedrichsbad is nudist: no bathing suits allowed.
Guess which one I picked? It was only after I was handed the wrist-band gizmo to operate my locker that I learned one more piece of critical info: several days a week, the Friedrichsbad is co-ed. And this was one of those days.
Oh.
This was indeed a novelty—all my previous experiences with nudity while traveling have been strictly girls-only. I haven’t been naked in the company of groups that included strange men since the day I was born. Also I’m a married lady. A spa typically poses no challenge to my most important commitment, whereas this situation suggested the possibility of something a bit more outré. I stood in the locker room, hesitating. Could this small town on the edge of the Black Forest, with all its well-manicured gardens, possibly be concealing a bawdy swingers scene … right in this historic landmark? I stood very still and listened. I didn’t hear the telltale buh-buh-baum-chick of porno music. I continued unzipping and unbuttoning and made myself a deal: I’d keep my eyes on the exit and if I heard or saw anything creepy I’d get right out. I went in.
The Friedrichsbad consists of seventeen different stations of saunas, steams and soaks of different temperatures. You are obliged to move through these stations in order. On the wall, maps indicated the direct path, which siphoned you towards the center of the building—a grand, domed rotunda, supported by arches and columns that rise from marble floors. It’s like a museum with the nude sculptures come to life.
I didn’t see many people at the first few stations—this was the middle of a weekday afternoon—but under the rotunda there were about a dozen people, men and women, in the soaking pools. I kept a sharp eye out, but everyone seemed with absolutely no effort to keep their gaze about six inches in front of their toes while walking, and at a fuzzy middle distance when nonchalantly soaking. In fact, when I looked around to see if anyone was looking at any one else, I was the only one with a wandering gaze.
This observation, combined with the warm water and the steam had a soothing effect. My eyelids hovered to half open, and a feeling came over me that I recognized: I was relaxed. I felt a little silly about my internal hysterics in the locker room. You see, I lectured myself, there’s no reason to get so worked up about these things. After a while, I got out of the pool and dripped my way over to the map on the wall to see where I was supposed to go next.
Okay, as a travel writer, even one who is at this very moment practically inviting you to picture her naked, I feel shy about revealing that I had trouble reading the map. I mean, the place is really old, an antique, and it was really hot, and I probably need to be adorned in a certain amount of fabric for my brain to work properly … anyway, I misread the damned map. So it was quite by accident that I learned another critical piece of information: only certain areas of the Friedrichsbad are co-ed.
Which I found out only after I wandered into a male-only area completely naked.
The moment I stepped into the room, I realized that all wasn’t as it should be. I saw wet blonde hair and damp skin, but mostly what I registered were many many many eyes, all staring at me. And then I noticed that their mouths were moving—they were shouting, in German, at me. I understood nothing. I felt rooted to the spot. As I believe all present could confirm, my blush was very widespread.
I commanded my trembling legs to get me the hell out of there. After what seemed like a very long while, but was probably only seconds, they obeyed.
At that moment, all of my pride at being more comfortable with nudity while traveling, any sense that I had of it being a badge of travel honor, evaporated like so much steam. Although I removed all of my clothing in the locker room at the Friedrichsbad, up until the moment I stepped into the male-only area, I was not naked. Yes, I was wearing nothing, but I was also appropriately dressed for the occasion. I was also wearing a suitable outfit in the Ayurvedic spa. There’s nothing particularly brave about blending in, especially when you consider that I only would do it when I was traveling solo—without a friend or a colleague or some other emissary of home, an anchor to my familiar definition of nudity.
So ask me again whethe
r travel can be a cure for a woman’s modesty, and I’ll say yes—but only on a definitional technicality. I’ll take advantage of that technicality in my future travels, but now that I know that I’m only situationally immodest, I’ll proceed with the utmost caution. Of this I’m certain: there’s a nudity taboo out there that I could haplessly violate; somewhere, a variety of Eve’s apple lurks. And I’d really rather not take another bite.
Allison J. Stein is an award-wining writer and essayist. She’s the culinary travel guide for About.com, and writes for Perceptive Travel. She’s contributed to Business Week, Glamour, Men’s Journal, New York Magazine, World Hum, Yankee and Yoga Journal among other publications. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.
SYLVIE DOWNES
The Nakuru Scam
Beware of men bearing lug nuts.
“Right. Left. Right and right again. Straight on.” One of the Kenyans shouted directions.
The jeep was careering through a maze of alleyways.
“Right.” We lurched round a bend into a rutted lane, barely the width of the vehicle. A high, barred gate loomed ahead and the jeep screeched to a halt. One of the two Kenyans riding outside, leapt down and opened it. My husband drove through and the African closed the gate behind with a sickening thud. Within minutes the three Kenyans had removed the front wheels of the jeep and we were stranded, our vehicle immobilized, in an African township.
It had seemed a good idea at the time: to hire a jeep in Nairobi and then drive up country to Nakuru National Park to see the flamingos. The jeep was a bit dodgy. No oil registered on the dipstick. There was no water in any of the battery cells but nothing major went wrong until we reached the dusty outskirts of the town of Nakuru. As my husband negotiated a narrow rutted road seething with traffic, he suddenly noticed that there was too much play in the steering. The market stalls piled high with fruit and vegetables by the side of the road, only added to his difficulties. So did the pedestrians weaving in and out of the rusting lorries and jam-packed buses and the mangy dogs nosing rotting refuse in the gutters. Suddenly three Africans ran out in front of the jeep.
My husband slowed and before we could do anything to stop them, the men had clambered aboard.
“The ball joints on your track rod ends have gone,” shouted the only one that could speak English. “But we can get it fixed.”
Dazed, confused, disorientated, my husband turned the jeep. Once we had left the main road, we found ourselves in a maze of twisting alleyways.
“Right! Left. Right and right again. Straight on.”
The lanes and alleys became narrower and narrower, until the final passage in this interminable labyrinth was barely the width of the jeep. Through a blur of shimmering heat, I was vaguely aware of tin roofed huts, tall black fences, piles of rusting machinery and rolls of barbed wire. Suddenly we were facing a high, barred gate. One of the men leapt out of the jeep and opened it. My husband drove through. The gate was slammed and locked behind us.
Once behind closed gates inside the compound, Joe, the English speaking Kenyan explained that he would need to go to a maintenance depot to buy the spare parts that were required to repair our vehicle.
“You will have to come with me, to pay,” he explained to my husband, who nodded and before I could say, ‘What about me?’ The pair had disappeared.
I was left with the two non-English speaking “mechanics” who both lay down under the jeep and promptly went to sleep. As I tried to huddle into the shade of one of the tinned roofed buildings that surrounded the compound, first one then two, then more and more children began to filter out from doorways and passages. The youngest, barely three, snotty nosed and wearing only a grubby white tee shirt was clutching the hand of a gangling youth of about fifteen. All the children were bare foot, the boys dressed in frayed shorts, the girls in brightly colored shifts. White teeth gleaming in shining black faces they appeared indifferent to the heat, which lay, a thick blanket on the unmoving air.
The oldest boy spoke: “What do you do mama?”
“Teach,” I said nervously. The smile on the boy’s face faded.
“Music,” I offered.
“Sing a song,” he ordered, the smile restored.
I’m a music teacher by trade and used to performing to children so I sang, “Sun Arise,” the Aborigine song that Rolf Harris popularized. It went down well. I followed with: “When you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.” The children applauded wildly and joined in the actions. Dizzy with success, I was just launching into “I’m a little teapot” (I taught infants for a bit), when my husband and Joe returned with the spare parts.
My husband looked at me like they do, so I stopped singing and told the children that it was their turn now. They needed no second asking. There was a swift consultation. Within seconds all the children were singing and in three-part harmony. Then they began to dance. The mechanics woke up and joined in as did various women who had drifted out of the adjoining houses. I was enchanted and very impressed. Music it seems crosses all boundaries. Still singing, the mechanics accomplished the repair and then they reinstalled the wheels. The “repair” was accomplished, the wheels set back in place and the gates reopened. Joe agreed to guide us back onto the road that led to the National Park.
It was time to say “Goodbye” to the children. The oldest boy shook my hand. I wanted to give him a present and searched my bag frantically but found only a biro.
“Sorry. That’s all I have.”
“It is enough,’ he said with great dignity.”
We saw the flamingos. They were magnificent but an anticlimax after the children. Anyway, still unsure whether we had been conned or not we set off back to our hotel. On the road that lead out of road we had the answer. Three Africans leapt out from the side of the road. They pointed to the front of the car. One shouted,
“Your track rods are broke.”
We drove on.
Slyvie Downes’s articles have been published in the travel magazines Italy, Times Educational Supplement, Music Education, and Mslexia. Her short stories and an anthology of poetry Signals in the Dark, and a comic novel Changing Places have also been published.
JENNIFER MASSONI
Embedded in the Boot
A traveler finds herself hobbled by circumstance.
The sliding glass doors at the Italian First Aid Room welcome and release the local Livornese with respective emergencies, most comparable to mine. The more severe cases are expedited through the waiting room to the back of the hospital, which is cut off by another set of rubber-rimmed doors I am waiting to walk through for an x-ray. Or hobble through, rather. A tenderness in my left foot has throbbed from an annoying hint back home in San Francisco to a sharp, localized spike of pain upon arrival in phonetically delightful Castiglioncello (rhymes with limoncello).
This Tuscan seaside town is also where my mother and I have rented a little apartment thirty yards from the edge of the Tyrrhenian Sea so she may immerse herself in language lessons and I may attempt sculpture and watercolor classes (even though any artistic “talent” last surfaced in time for the third grade art fair). But what if a visit to the Provence of our ancestors will entice its return? We are also taking a respite from my mother’s second divorce and my impulsive departure from a pre-pre-revenue Internet company that was—I’ll go with “mismanaged.” What else would an Italian mother-daughter duo do, but cash in their frequent flyer miles and answer an ad for a two-week Tuscan escape from it all?
But now I fear I have a stress fracture from training for a half-marathon, which I registered for in a fit of self-discipline. The suspicious metatarsal is warm to the touch, swelling before my eyes, and I can’t successfully stand on tiptoe. We are at the hospital in the first place thanks to the generosity of my mother’s soon-to-be Italian instructor, Valentina. She sports a pair of leather, fur-lined high-tops, and she tells me where to find them in town. That is, if we ever get out of here and if I can ever again place my foot on the ground withou
t wincing. For now we cram into hard plastic seats, the concave shape of which stopped being comfortable on hour number three; we’re now approaching seven. Si, sette ore, which I can pronounce thanks to Valentina’s impromptu day-long language lesson. I also memorize io sono paziente: I am patient.
While I’m being patient, my mind zooms to what will surely become a trip spent with a foot casted in a plastic boot in the very country famous for its uncanny resemblance to, of all things, a boot. When I am finally wheeled in for the x-ray, my foot is positioned on the cold table and zapped with a quick buzz of radiation in all of ten seconds. Much to my relief, my foot is non fratturato, and my boot-shaped fantasies dissipate. However, this marks the end of the diagnosis. I keep the x-ray for my first Italian souvenir, pay my 20-euro fee, and leave with instructions to ice and elevate.
Two days later, my mother and I greet the day from our balcony and its decadent views of the blue-gray sea that crowns Castiglioncello’s scattered treetops. Despite the beauty surrounding us, I miss running. Daily exertion clears my brain of its anxious loops and an elevated heart rate acts as a full-body cleanser.
“Well, the sea is right there,” my mother says.
Perfect! I will become an open-water swimmer! Right after I revive my inner artist.
My Austrian art teacher, Christian, is a sculptor and painter of some European renown. For my first lesson, I cross the gravel driveway outside the apartment, walk through the small grove of olive trees, and emerge. The sea is vast and audible, capable of astonishing the air right out of my lungs. The promenade weaves into view on the right, and I can eye the path my mother walks to her school. But my lessons are right here at the rim of the country where my great-grandparents were born, and I feel I’ve won a lottery I didn’t know I had entered.