My search for The Best Bath in Japan II

Great Baths of Japan - Kurokawa Onsen - Shinmeikan

Far inland, in the mountainous regions around Mount Aso (the largest volcanic caldera in the world), there are a few small villages that take full advantage of the natural geothermal activity. Unlike the neon-trash onsen towns like Beppu on the East coast, all cheap bars and tourist traps, they are quiet, green, and exist for only one purpose - onsen.

And these onsen are special. Travelling with my girlfriend, we splashed out on a night of luxury in a fancy ryokan called 奥の湯 (Okunoyu - roughly, 'the hot water deep inside'). I normally tour on a budget - hostels and cheap hotels etc etc. But this place actually sent a van down to pick us up from the coach stop. And carried our luggage upstairs for us. And served us dinner in our room. Not used to such things...

Well, the star attraction of this ryokan was the steaming rotemburo, built from rough rocks on the edge of a cool, flowing, tree-lined river. We sat and soaked, listened to the running water, looked at the trees. There's actually not a lot you can do in a bath. Which is perhaps their greatest advantage over Outside-Bath Life.

And that is how our lives divided for our 24hours in Kurokawa Onsen. Intense periods of In-Bath Living, followed by recuperative periods of Outside-Bath Existence, necessary to unprune your skin and cool your core body temperature to below 60 Celsius.

But a further novelty bath awaited us. The Shinmeikan Ryokan is extremely popular, but going at lunchtime allowed us to avoid the crowds and have it to ourselves. This place put the normal Rotemburo experience right on its head (not that the Rotemburo experience is ever that normal). Rather than go indoors to get changed, before proceeding naked to the great outdoors, here you got naked outside, before heading inside. Lacking the usual ryokan dressing gowns, the trip to the onsen necessitated a naked scamper along the pathway (this photo was taken from the (extremely public) street, across the river).

Once you walked through the dark, imposing entrance, you find yourself in a steam-filled, ill-lit tunnel. Your clothes are getting damp from standing in a hot cloud, and your skin starts to sweat from the heat. Jeans and T-shirt stuffed into a wicker basket, and you step into the bath and begin to wade, half-blind, hoping not to trend on anyone or anything. Not sure on the etiquette for holding your arms out before you when blind in a bath...

And so we sat, fortunately alone. In a bath. In a cave. By a river. In Japan.

I'd particularly recommend this to mid-bath singers - great acoustics in a cave.

Even I sang. And that really doesn't happen everyday.


N.B. As with previous Best-Bath-Hunt post, I'd always opt for the rubber duck over the camera as a bath-time plaything. And so, appreciations to the internet for its copyright-free bounty (ie not my pictures).