Mud glorious mud
Beppu is famous for its onsen: mineral hot spring public baths. The town and surrounding area is full of vents spouting hot white clouds of steam from the geothermal outlets.
Our hostel has an onsite onsen which is lovely. You sit naked on a low wooden stool along with other (same sex) bathers, and give yourself a good scrub. You then submerge yourself in the hot mineral water for as long as you can stand the heat. Follow this with more low stool washing.
Today we took it a stage further and went to an open air, mixed gender, hot mudbath in the hills above Beppu. It wasn`t a glamorous spa experience. We entered what looked like a run down old people`s home and separated into the male and female changing areas. First off, we had single sex sulphur water (hot and stinky) soaks. Following the correct protocol was tricky as most of the instructions were in Japanese. H briefly found herself naked in the men`s bathhouse. M grabbed a few minutes in the steam room before we met up in the communal outdoor mudbath. It took M a while to get from the steam room to the mudbath because of the difficult signage and so he had a short spell scampering around the pool for all to see wearing nothing but a wet flannel. Luckily photography wasn`t allowed so we won`t be publishing evidence on the blog.
The mudbath was mixed and naked, but the sexes were separated by a bamboo pole. We could see and speak to each other, but we were not allowed to cross the bamboo line. Modesty was maintained by the muddy waters. These were thick, gloopy and VERY hot at the bottom, and thinner and cooler at the top. We covered our faces in the hot clay mud and soaked for as long as we could stomach the wafting smells of rotten eggs.
