The average onsen in Beppu costs a $1 to get into and features an often incredibly hot pool in a room. Japanese bathers sit on little stools and scrub themselves clean. The first Onsen I visited had an alternative soaking experience. They outfit you in a robe and you enter a large room full of black sand. They dig a hole for you a little like a shallow grave which you lie down in. They then bury you leaving only your head sticking out. The hot sands do feel a little suffocating but overall the experience was very therapeutic.
Onsen are not restricted to Beppu. They are everywhere. My first experience was with Mizuho. As all the baths are segregated so I went guided by her boyfriend who doesn,t speak a word of English. A modern Onsen has multiple seated showers along the walls. You sit on a stool and scrub and wash before dipping in the hot pools. Some places have multiple temperature pools while others have sulfur, salt or iron bathes. Other places have hot tube style jets or even electric baths were a current is run through the water. At its source the current is painful but at a safe distance it feels therapeutic. I sat in one with the current caressing my spine. It felt like hands were wrapped and tugging at the base of my spine. This particular Onsen had a tv in the sauna and a tv above the outdoor hot pool so that bathers wouldn]t miss their favourite shows. My first hot spring experience ended with an icecream float (I had no idea what I had ordered) in the Onsen restaurant while we waited for Mizuho to finish her bath.
Some towns have free hot foot baths while others have geysers which erupt every hour. Others have hot water fountains while the country side has bubbling lakes or mud pools and steaming peaks.
Japan certainly is a magical place.
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Tyson Brooks
In India -
http://tysonwrites.blogspot.com/
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