The New York Times
March 21, 2010
By ANDREW JACOBS
THERE is nothing quite as bracing as the smell of rotten eggs in the morning. The odor, which courses through the lobby and rooms of some of the finest hotels on Taiwan’s northern end, is a telltale indication that you’ve arrived in hot spring country — a lush and mountainous region that forms the island’s volcanic belly.
Its therapeutic allure dates back a century, when Japanese soldiers wounded in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 took solace in the sulfurous waters that burble forth, above the tectonic collision of the Eurasian and Philippine Sea plates. These days, workaday refugees from the mercantile bustle of Taipei, the island’s capital, flock here to soak away ailments real and imagined.
The Taiwanese swear by its healing powers. “If you have athlete’s foot, you will be cured. If you have aches and pains, they will disappear,” said Lin Tai Shan, a tea shop owner, as he slipped into a steaming eddy at Bayen, one of 400 hot springs scattered across Taiwan. “If you spend time in these waters, you will not need psychotherapy.”
While hot springs are found throughout Taiwan, the quickest way to sample the waters is at Beitou, a mere half-hour subway ride from central Taipei, which was built by the Japanese during the 50 years they colonized Taiwan. Poised on the outer edge of the capital’s sprawl and hugging the foot of Yangmingshan National Park, Beitou provides a lively base to explore both the urban and rural permutations of the hot spring culture.
A dozen hotels line Guangming Road, a serpentine byway that carries travelers from the hum of downtown Beitou to the cicada-filled buzz of the forested hills. The Broadway Hotel is typical, a bland high-rise offering simple rooms in two styles: Japanese (tatami mat sleeping) or with conventional raised beds.
Most rooms feature oversize tubs with faucets that spew out the stinky, sulfurous elixir that draws throngs of Taiwanese in the chilly winter months. Nicer hotels also have sex-segregated communal baths where day-trippers and the more gregarious can mingle in large pools. Nudity is the norm.
But Beitou’s main event is the municipal bath, an outdoor collection of cascading basins, lined with dark mountain schist, that form the civic heart of town. Open until 10 p.m. and with a democratic entry fee of 40 Taiwan dollars, or $1.23 at 32 Taiwan dollars to the U.S. dollar, the scene is multigenerational, and fully clothed, with families hopping among pools that range from skin-scalding to teeth-chattering. r.htmlbulk_copper_and_fiber.html more …
