Last weekend I was immersed in steaming waters, staring out over a mountainous valley filled with humid rain, and a river hung in swollen clouds. I was dreaming deeply to the sounds of rumbling thunder, and it brought me to thinking about my first Taiwanese bathhouse outings. For those who don’t know, Taiwan is rife in fault lines; apart from the customary earthquakes, they bless the landscape in steaming natural waters, which were built into bathhouses by the Japanese during their fifty year occupation. Each weekend thousands of people venture to these springs, to bathe and unwind in their healing properties – some springs even claim to cure cancer! Most bathhouses have separate sides for men and women, and it is required that you bathe naked, sporting only a plastic shower-cap. After many, many weekends of decadent indulgence, I now raise one sleepy eye when a curious observer comes up to stare intently at my backside, before publicly commenting on the strange and curvaceous beauty of my figure. I am now A SEASONED HOTSPRINGER! … But it has been a rocky road to liberation!
The first hot spring I visited was Xin-Beitou’s public bathhouse, with Miss Canada. We had both been in Taiwan for a less than a month, and this day marked the first of our many adventures. The public bathhouse requires swim costumes at all times, is unisex, and overseen by an angry man with a very loud whistle. Shortly after we entered the complex a piercing WHIIISSSSSTLE cut through the air – Miss Canada had snapped a photograph. Our next obvious mistake was prancing around in bikinis, when every other female patron wore a full piece, skirted costume with a matching cap. This didn’t cause any whistling … from Mr Angry anyway. Then another shrill WHIIIIIIIIIISSSSSTLE because my hair had touched the water, and another, WHIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSTLE, because we sat in front of a sign that probably said: CAREFUL! HOT WATER! Then in a final, perturbed gesture it rolled in like a godless storm: WHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIII SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTLLLE!!!!!!!! We had sat on the edge of a pool, dangling our feet in the water – a definitive gesture of defiant disrespect! By this time we were pretty unnerved, confounded, and on edge enough to make a speedy exit. I was not entirely discouraged though – however, my next visit may have had that effect had the waters not been so divine, and my desire to pass away my weekends gratifyingly naked not so overwhelming.
My next outing was with a group of Chinese and Taiwanese women. Included in the group was a seriously obese and misguided woman with a penchant for harassing foreign women. After a five minute conversation about nothing, she followed me into a pool and promptly mounted me for a ‘piggy back’. It is not an exaggeration or embellishment when I say Miss Piggy weighed over a hundred kilos. All I could feel were the massive rolls of breast and flesh pressing down on me, and her giant bush giving me a rash on the back, as I collapsed under the pressure and started gulping water. Deep in the bubbling springs, I started getting flashing images of my gravestone. DECEASED (26 years of age) – drowned by a colossal, naked, Taiwanese mermaid, with a bush the size of a small shrub. Miss Piggy did a good job of traumatising me, but also began me along the path of realisation that being naked in the Taiwanese bathhouse is not enough. To become a seasoned hotspringer, you also need to: frolic openly like a child, comment brazenly on other women’s flaws and assets, salt scrub and wash your friends’ bodies, and give butt-naked belly-dance instruction!
The first hot spring I visited was Xin-Beitou’s public bathhouse, with Miss Canada. We had both been in Taiwan for a less than a month, and this day marked the first of our many adventures. The public bathhouse requires swim costumes at all times, is unisex, and overseen by an angry man with a very loud whistle. Shortly after we entered the complex a piercing WHIIISSSSSTLE cut through the air – Miss Canada had snapped a photograph. Our next obvious mistake was prancing around in bikinis, when every other female patron wore a full piece, skirted costume with a matching cap. This didn’t cause any whistling … from Mr Angry anyway. Then another shrill WHIIIIIIIIIISSSSSTLE because my hair had touched the water, and another, WHIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSTLE, because we sat in front of a sign that probably said: CAREFUL! HOT WATER! Then in a final, perturbed gesture it rolled in like a godless storm: WHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIII SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTLLLE!!!!!!!! We had sat on the edge of a pool, dangling our feet in the water – a definitive gesture of defiant disrespect! By this time we were pretty unnerved, confounded, and on edge enough to make a speedy exit. I was not entirely discouraged though – however, my next visit may have had that effect had the waters not been so divine, and my desire to pass away my weekends gratifyingly naked not so overwhelming.
My next outing was with a group of Chinese and Taiwanese women. Included in the group was a seriously obese and misguided woman with a penchant for harassing foreign women. After a five minute conversation about nothing, she followed me into a pool and promptly mounted me for a ‘piggy back’. It is not an exaggeration or embellishment when I say Miss Piggy weighed over a hundred kilos. All I could feel were the massive rolls of breast and flesh pressing down on me, and her giant bush giving me a rash on the back, as I collapsed under the pressure and started gulping water. Deep in the bubbling springs, I started getting flashing images of my gravestone. DECEASED (26 years of age) – drowned by a colossal, naked, Taiwanese mermaid, with a bush the size of a small shrub. Miss Piggy did a good job of traumatising me, but also began me along the path of realisation that being naked in the Taiwanese bathhouse is not enough. To become a seasoned hotspringer, you also need to: frolic openly like a child, comment brazenly on other women’s flaws and assets, salt scrub and wash your friends’ bodies, and give butt-naked belly-dance instruction!
.feet soaking outside xinbeitou's public springs
.outside at alley 44 ready for a ride to wulai
.the view from wulai springs
.hotspringing at kenting
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