Kangal Balikli Kaplijasi

Kangal Balıklı Kaplıca near Sivas in eastern Anatolia is one of the world's most unusual and fascinating thermal experiences — a spa where thousands of small fish, Garra rufa (Doctor Fish), naturally inhabit the 36°C bicarbonate spring pools and gently attend to the skin of bathers, providing a uniquely biological form of bathing. This fish bathing, practised at Kangal for centuries, has long been associated with skin comfort, and the spa is classified as a natural tourism centre by the Turkish government. The experience of immersion in warm water while hundreds of small fish attend to one's skin is genuinely distinctive. The remote location in the Anatolian heartland adds to the sense of discovering something entirely original.