Hammam al-Qaimariyya in Damascus is nutty! I was told by the staff at my hotel that there was a nicer hamman in town but they only had 2 women's days that I had missed, while Qaimariyya had daily women's hours.
No English at al-Qaimariyya. I got a "complete" hammam for 200SYP. The front room staff was sort of dismissive, unlike the other people I met in Syria, and even tried to overcharge me 100SYP because they thought I couldn't read Arabic numerals. They had me to disrobe right in the open area where a few other naked women were walking around. Considering the only barrier to the street from here was a curtain, it was...abrupt. I was not given a towel or pestamel or a locker, just threw my clothes to the floor and walked naked to the back. So weird. The scrub/bath was quite rough and the woman sang loudly the whole time. It lasted about 20 minutes. They gave me a pestamel afterwards, finally, but still there was no separate dressing area.
Hammam Yalbougha an-Nasry in Aleppo was 415SYP for the complete hammam. Very pretty hammam. Here there were small curtained changing areas and lockers and you got wooden clogs and a pestamel. There were several steam areas of different strengths, and it was much busier with families than Qaimariyya. It's nice, they all tried to chat with me and some had brought food (yeah...a little strange considering the steam heat but I took it). Scrub was slightly less rough here, lasted about 15 minutes. I was offered a drink after I finally emerged from the steam. Some English spoken here.
My only previous experience was the Hammam Al-Pasha in Amman, which is quite fancy--Western standard I'd say--with an international mix of English-speaking staff, and very relaxing. Massage is a full hour, entirely separate from scrub bath, which is a decent amount of time as well. It's more expensive too, at 15JD...very different experience but I loved them all for their differences!
