I'd been treking in Eastern Turkey and ended up in a rather beautiful large town called Van, famous for carpets and swimming cats. Exhausted and looking for a bath house I asked directions from some local urchins and they promptly led me to one. It was a staggeringly beautiful building, all marble, granite and mosaic so after the warm and hot rooms I was scrubbed, stretched, pummelled and wrapped up by the masseurs and ready for a shave. The barber didn't use anything special of note, Arko in a mug, a shavette (I think), alum and boar. I was in a relaxing half trance during most of the shave but was awoken by the pungent smell of lemon EDT being splashed on my chops, no stinging just lemon acidity evaporating up my nostrils. Arko really makes sense in a bath house. After a few rubs of alum here and there I touched my face, from a week's worth of growth I was now buttery smooth. It was a great shave, I knew it because I couldn't help smiling while faceturbating.
The urchin's were waiting for me outside all this time, what did they want I'd already given them a tip? They asked if I would care to visit their English class but could it be a scam? Nah, these kids spoke some English where it wasn't even the second language. I went with the flow and so ended up spending a very pleasant hour or so answering questions from their English class only to be later invited to have dinner with the teacher. Great I thought she was a Turkish honey, unfortunately her father was not, lovely meal though.