Buried alive...

  Beppu, Japan
Saturday, April 28, 2007

The final stop on my tour around Kyushu was Beppu, a place whose name always reminds me of Michael Greco for some reason. I`m not sure how well acquainted the Japanese are with Eastenders though, and to them it`s probably more famous for its hot springs, and as a place to `escape.` Certainly up there with Blackpool in the tackyness stakes, it is however a nice place in a beautiful location...and there`s not a chav or stag do to be seen!

I didn`t arrive until late on Wednesday night after a lengthy journey along the coast, but I immediately did the obligatory `wander` to get my bearings, which didn`t take long as it`s a fairly small place. I`d found a Guest House on the internet that was ridiculously cheap with dorm beds for a measly six pounds a night, although I splurged on a single room that was a princely ten pounds a night. I was quite surprised when the place turned out to be superb, in a perfect location and very spacious...

It should be obvious by now that I`m a glutten for a ropeway when the weather`s nice, and as these two factors combined perfectly the next morning, I went ahead and boarded one to the summit of Mount Tsurumi. It offered great views on the steep ascent, though it probably went too high in the end as it was a little hazey at the top. Still it was worth doing, and made me appreciate what a fine setting Beppu had...

After mooching around town for a bit and getting some lunch, I caught a bus to one of the town`s much-hyped `hells.` There are nine in total, each one with its own `personality,` although I had no intention of visiting them all. The `blood pond,` or Chi-no-ike Jigoku, looked interesting though because of its striking colour, so I decided to take a look. It was heavily commercialised as you had to walk through a huge souvenir shop to get to it, but it turned out to be reasonably impressive, and there were hardly any other tourists there...at least in the beginning! Soon afterwards, a Japanese tour group arrived complete with leader and her beloved loud speaker - you could pay about 3500 Yen for a guided tour like this, calling in at all nine Jigoku. After much deliberation, and a couple of sleepless nights, I finally decided against it...

Back in the town centre, it was a lovely evening, so I went for a walk around Beppu-koen. The sun was slowly setting behind the mountains, so when I spotted the futuristic Global Tower overlooking the trees...well, I`m sure you can guess what happened next! I couldn`t resist, and for the sake of a quid, I got the elevator up to its viewing platform at 100m, which was a pretty hairraising place to be since it just jutted out of the tower, with nothing underneath supporting it. Anyway the views surpassed the ones from the ropeway, and since noone else was up there, it was another nice experience a la Nagasaki....

When I was in Kagoshima, I`d planned on doing a day trip to Ibusuki for a suna-yu (sand bath) but it was a bit too far to travel, and when I found out that Beppu was the other place in Japan where it was possible, there was no need anyway. So on Friday morning, I got the bus to the `Beppu Beach Sand Bath` where I was to pay somebody to bury me in hot sand!

The attendant spoke no English whatsoever, but I eventually established the correct procedure, and headed off to the changing room, where I got undressed and put on my yukata (like a thin dressing gown). I then trundled outside to be greeted by a row of shallow graves and four grave diggers, three of whom actually looked a bit malicious, whereas one was an absolute stunner. Thankfully I got her, although as I laid down and she adjusted my legs and feet into position, all I could think about were the two huge blisters on the end of my toes!

It was a strange sensation having a girl stand over you with a shovel, but as the hot heavy sand gradually engulfed my body, I started to feel really relaxed, especially with the sound of the waves in the background (we`ll not mention the sound of children shouting or the main road parallel to the beach). I closed my eyes and could have drifted off, until the girl whispered to me after fifteen minutes, asking if I wanted to get up. "Five more minutes" was my reply, a phrase usually heard when my alarm goes off in the morning...

I genuinely felt relaxed afterwards, although a quick glance around gave me a shock when I saw numerous elderly people motionless, buried up to their neck in sand...for a split second, I thought I was in a makeshift morgue!

A quick shower and a soak in the bath followed, before I headed off to Kannawa to go to another `hell.` This one, known as the Umi Jigoku, was in a picturesque location at the foot of the mountains, and set in an attractive garden. There was a lot more steam coming from the pool here, not surprising since its temperature was 90 degrees celcius, and I enjoyed walking around the gardens, although I decided against visiting any of the others. Certainly all of my guidebooks are unforgiving about the conditions of some of them, with one `hell` having a crocodile theme where the crocs are kept in really miserable conditions, and I didn`t particularly want to see that.

I spent the rest of the day just mooching around...I think that the sand bath relaxed me too much! Having said that, I was quite happy taking it easy, as I knew full well that I had a very early start the next morning as I headed for Shikoku...