Hot Springs: Local Taipei Style

Millennium Hot Springs, Beitou, Taiwan
(photo credit: taipeitravel.net)

Whoever created the glossy brochure that enticed us to visit Beitou, a lovely village-now-engulfed-by-Taipei, home to numerous hot springs resorts and interesting folklore about witches steaming away in the deep valley, they failed to mention that most tourist sites are closed on Mondays. Thus eager but unknowing, we left for Beitou via the Taipei city train system, ready for a Monday of walking and soaking and folklore education and...oh.  Maybe not.  Arg.  Well, we still  managed to have an adventure.


The MRT line to Beitou has only one stop: thus, the train and the station are specially decorated to promote the local attractions, which was a little creepy.

Certainly eye-catching....

This interesting display was on the train platform.  The naked bald guys in a tub were, well, kind of creepy.

Elisabeth was NOT impressed with the naked guys climbing the wall in the station.

As we started walking through town, following signs to all the sites I'd researched, and as we slowly realized none of the tourist attractions were open, we came across a little hole in the wall between the sidewalk and the  river.  Although it's a public establishment, Millennium Hot Springs was not on any of the city maps or the glossy brochure. Hmm. Nick, being far too adventurous for our good, went into the tiny place to ask about prices. Next thing we knew, he had whisked us inside for only $6 (USD, total, for the 4 of us).  But, strangely, we were still outside, standing atop a winding staircase leading down to several rock-surrounded pools filled with.... Oh my. What had we done? The kids nearly vomited with panic: they did NOT want to join this serene, co-ed group of elderly Taiwanese wearing very little clothing indeed.

To make matters more challenging, David and Nick were not allowed to wear their knee-length swim trunks.  Nope: spandex was the only allowed material, and the tiny on-site store sold a range of sizes that "fit" them if we here intend "fit" to mean "quite snugly accommodated their persons."  Though the men's Suits of Shame were not bikini-style speedos, they certainly left less to the imagination than, say, biking shorts.  David entered a horrified stupor and I vowed not to look below anyone's face.

The six smallish pools were cooler on the left/lower side and hotter on the higher/right side.  I read online that the ph of the water here is about 2, which is comparable to lemon juice.  And stomach acid.
(Photo credit: theoccasionaltraveller.com)

Another perspective, with the stairs descending from the entrance, swimwear shop, and bathrooms.
(photo credit: eng.taiwan.net.tw)

I was not joking about the towels on heads. Or the minimal swimwear for men.
Note: all the women wore one-piece suits.
(detail from above photo)

After finally getting the children unstuck from their paralysis at the top of the stairway, Elisabeth and I went elected to change in the bathroom near us rather than stand in line down by the private changing booths. This was a mistake.  We entered the bathroom, which had 3 sinks and 3 stalls with traditional squat toilets (basically, porcelain holes in the floor).  A perfectly naked 70+ year-old woman stood at the end sink, bending over to wash her hair.  At this sight, Elisabeth raced into a stall and tried valiantly to change into her suit without stepping into the toilet or dropping her clothing into it.  I decided to brave the sink area for my own changing area while the woman applied lotion and carried out other bodily ministrations while I focused on donning my own rarely-worn swimsuit without falling over or dropping my clothing into the puddles. The nice naked lady greeted me with "nǐ haǒ" (pronounced "knee-hah-oo") and I nǐ haǒ'd her right back.  Either I impressed her with my pronunciation and she was smiling with me, or I had called her a donkey cake or something and she was smiling at me.  She was in no hurry to cover herself and I was, frankly, amazed at her body.To be sure, some particular items no longer lived in the same zip codes they once did, but she was beautiful nonetheless.  American culture has surely done us a disservice by limiting its images of bodies to a tiny part of the age span.

But I digress.  So Elisabeth and I were suited up and wore cute cotton wrap-around skirts to keep our thighs from blinding the hapless natives as we descended the half billion stairs. And stares (at least in our own minds).  Perhaps no one else was thinking of Duchamp's "Nude Descending A Staircase" but that's surely how I felt.  We found Nick and David, already in a pool, and learned the procedures from them.

First, one needed to rinse off with a cold shower alongside the pools, which provide the pool residents with a nice preview of what's coming into the springs with them.  (Some men seemed to have forgotten that these were quite public, co-ed showers and they chose to cleanse parts that should have been covered by spandex.  I am still working to erase those images from my gentle mind.)

Next, we had to pick a pool from the available six, which had varying temperatures from lukewarm to blistering. Then we used a plastic dipper to scoop water from the chosen pool, dump over our feet to clean the grit off, and then clamber over the thick rock walls to plop into the pool itself.  I quickly realized that our skirts would need to come off: these were apparently cotton-free pools.  Happily, many locals wore wet washcloths on their heads, so Elisabeth and I folded our skirts into squares and followed suit.  I am certain that we looked completely ridiculous.

Anyway, we tried out a few of the pools (one was 95 degrees Celsius, which is hot enough to boil the white off rice), and after an hour of soaking and breathing in the mild green sulfur fumes, I felt fantastic.  I could get addicted to this: my joints, having started doing the Arthritis Ache this year, felt really good, and I was utterly relaxed and energized at the same time.  Folks certainly looked at us during our soaks, but at no point did we feel judged for our size or appearance or feel like sexual objects.  It was completely different than, say, the public pool at home.  (One man admiringly said to Elisabeth, "So white!" and I was so, so grateful to be in a place that doesn't value tanned skin. Ahhh....)

David afterwards.  If looks could kill....

After the hot springs we walked through town admiring the river views, plant and animal life, and doing some people watching.  It was a joyous day, even without the opportunities apparently available every other day of the week.

I don't know what these are, but it's January and for my entire life, January = cold.
I love Taiwan.

Lovely tree roots along the river wall.

A heron trying to nap along the river.

A happy Buddha, perhaps just out of the hot springs himself.

Most of the Taiwanese were dressed for a late fall in Iowa, but this shop owner was enjoying the 70-degree weather
as much as we were.

P.S. A few days after posting this, I had a sudden, horrible question come to mind.  What if the washcloths-on-head practice at this hot springs was just bald men's attempts to avoid sunburn?  I was so self-conscious and focused on keeping Elisabeth calm that I didn't look carefully at who did and didn't wear the washcloth. Which possibly means that when Elisabeth and I wore our folded wrap-arounds on our heads, trying to fit in to the local culture , we looked even MORE foolish than I thought. oh oh oh...