excerpt 4

Naked in an Onsen

Eventually, we made it to the onsen. There are as many as 3,000 of these hot springs scattered across the country, a result of the churning volcanic activity that takes place underground. The bath’s thermal waters are believed to have a curative effect and they serve as a relaxing sanctuary for many Japanese. At one time, these onsen were an integral part of the social culture but, as we’d also discovered in Turkey, the advent of modern plumbing has considerably lessened the role of community baths.

Initially, I was quite looking forward to this experience. I’d previously been to a Finnish sauna and a Turkish hamam, so I was excited to experience a Japanese onsen. After we arrived, though, it occurred to me that I had no idea what to do once I got inside and that my four traveling companions were all women and were therefore heading to the women’s bath, leaving me to fend for myself among a bunch of naked Japanese men. Hmmm. This is one of those moments, I realized, where it’s actually not a benefit to be the only man traveling with four women.

“It’s not a problem,” said Yumiko. “Just go in and follow what everyone else is doing. Meet us back out here in about an hour.”

Just follow what everyone else is doing. Well, that’s good advice for a sauna, where you merely sit there naked, or maybe run out and jump in cold water once in a while. It’s even OK for a Turkish bath, at least when you have an attendant shepherding you from one station to the next. But there is a ritual to a Japanese bath. A ritual about which I had no clue.

Nevertheless, I gamely walked into the dressing room, ignoring the stares that came with being the only Western male at a bath in the Japanese countryside. I undressed and walked into the next room, trying to ignore looks from a dozen naked local men. (I considered doing a naked version of the chicken dance or the macarena, so they’d really have something to look at, but, well…no.)

In the room adjoining the lockers, there was a row of stools next to some shower heads, with men washing themselves. There were also two tubs, with men soaking in them. Then there was a door leading outside to some hot springs. Two, maybe three, options. I searched my brain, for I knew that somewhere, someplace I had read about Japanese baths. I knew there was an order to the bath, just as there is an order to almost everything in Japanese society. Should I sit at a stool and start scrubbing? Should I lower myself into a hot tub next to one of those men? Should I…Should I…

Punt.

Yes, I cracked under the pressure of the stares. Not to mention the fact that contemplation time is severely limited when you are stark naked in a roomful of strangers. So I walked straight through the room and went outdoors. Except I couldn’t very well stand outside naked for any extended period of time, either, and I still didn’t know whether I could get into the hot springs without committing a social blunder. Soon, though, it became clear that the first thing the men seemed to be doing was washing themselves, and then soaking. Well, that made sense, I supposed.

For future reference, then, proper onsen etiquette is as follows:

Remove all pieces of clothing and put them into the basket or locker that is provided. No swimsuits should be worn.
Walk into the bath in the adjoining room and take along your wash towel. This towel is approximately large enough to cover your elbow and is used by many people as an interesting but not very effective means of covering their pelvic area. The pretense, though, is generally more important than the reality.
Find an empty stool in front of one of the shower heads that comes out of the wall at hip level. Proceed to soap and rinse your body.
Relax for as long as desired inside the tub of hot water, the outdoor hot springs, or both. Remember, the tub is where you relax after you are already clean.
Dry off and get dressed again.

So I went back inside, grabbed a stool, soaped up and rinsed off. Quickly. My ritual duty thus complete, I retreated back to the outdoor serenity of the hot springs. There, I sank into the thermal waters and found a resting spot against a rock.

Once I settled down, the hot springs were perfectly relaxing. A misting rain fell and there was a cool bite to the air that contrasted nicely with the hot water. I sat buried to my neck in the heat and let myself be hypnotized by the rising steam as it faded into a silver-blue sky. Now, I could chuckle over the experience of being naked and confused in a Japanese bath. After all, I mused, these experiences are at the heart of what travel is about.

Excerpted from Two Laps Around the World by Bob Riel