You might think with the weather heating up that fewer people would be heading up the hills to take a dip in hot springs. You'd be wrong. This past weekend parking lots were full at hot spring hotels in Taipei County's Jinshan and neighboring Wanli.
You might also think that recent news reports regarding poor water quality at various hot springs in Beitou and Yangmingshan would keep people away from the pools. You'd be wrong again. Though the reports have slowed the bath business in those areas to little more than a trickle, Jinshan and Wanli seem unaffected. In fact, the reports may have been a boon for the north coast's hot springs hotels.
"We go to the hot springs most every weekend," said one bather at a hotel in Jinshan, who gave his name as Wu. "We usually go to Beitou. But with all the news of bad water, we decided to drive to Jinshan. I'm glad we did! It's actually nicer here."
For many people like Wu and his wife, a jaunt to one of Taiwan's many hot springs is the perfect end to a stress-filled week. And Jinshan and Wanli, crowning Taiwan's northern coast, offer more than therapeutic thermal springs -- although the springs themselves can be enough to occupy a weekend.
Few other activities put us in contact with the elements more than a hot spring bath, which can center us and focus our attention for a brief but important moment on our health: "What is causing those little aches?" you might find yourself asking, or "is my digestion good enough?" "What is sulfur, anyway? And why do I want to bathe in the smell of rotten eggs?"
The answer to that last one is particularly pertinent to anyone interested in visiting the hot springs in Wanli and Jinshan since many of these pools have a mild sulfur content. The springs at Changchun Valley Hot Springs Hotel, among the nicest of the area's hot spring hotels, have a mild sulfur content, but the odor is far from overpowering and sometimes even undetectable.
The sulfur colors the water shades of yellow or a milky white and is said to have therapeutic effects such as helping relieve asthma, rheumatism and shoulder, back and neck pains (though most any hot bath would), as well as treating gynecological problems. Cold sufferers might also find relief in sulfuric steam's ability to hydrolyze mucus.
But even if your only ailment is a long work week, the hot springs in Wanli and Jinshan can be just the cure. And just as Wu and his wife said, hot-springing can be a relaxing and rejuvenating weekend getaway. And with Jinshan only an hour away by bus, the focus is on the relaxing and rejuvenating, not the getting-away.
In fact, as was evident by the ebb and flow of cars at Changchun Valley Hot Springs Hotel in the hills outside Jinshan this past weekend, the preferred time of day to take a dip was in the morning. The hotel's parking lot was half filled with cars late Friday night and nearly empty by 2am, but filled with cars again just six hours later.
"The morning is the best time to enjoy the hot springs," Wu said. "It is the best way, I think, to start a day. And now that it's warmer, it's just too hot to get in the water in the afternoon hours."
Not that anyone is complaining. An afternoon excursion into Jinshan Township can make a weekend getaway feel like a mini-vacation. The town's Jinbaoli Old Street is lined with local vendors hawking amazingly fresh seafood and the town's local specialty, sweet potatoes, as well as a variety of shops cobbling sandals made to order.
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