Experienced travelers claim: want to get to know the country more closely - go to a local bath. Combine, so to speak, enjoyable with useful. However, you can "sweat" and in absentia - after reading this article. Here you can find all the most interesting things about baths of different nations of the world.
JAPAN: SUCCESS TO THERMAL ORIGINS.
Japanese baths are not for every gaijin (that is, an alien) in the teeth. So you, for example, can get into the water, the temperature of which is 50 degrees Celsius? And for the Japanese it is, especially in cold winter weather, the first means to relax and rest.
This pleasure is called "onsen" - open baths built on thermal springs, which are very numerous in Japan. Next to the sources are built special hotels-rekany, where on weekends the whole company gathers - to relieve the fatigue accumulated over the sweating week and to talk in plenty. The last point, by the way, is especially important, because the whole process of communication in Japan is strictly regulated, and onsen is perhaps the only place where people forget about ranks. The boss and subordinates sit naked in one bath and communicate without any ceremony.
The thermal water smells of hydrogen sulphide, looks muddy and dirty, but the Japanese so believe in its healing power that they treat psoriasis, joint diseases, and nervous disorders. There are oncens and in large cities - with imported water. In the bath, the average Japanese man walks several times a week - including lunch breaks. For fans in stores, "dry onsen" is sold. You pour out the powder from the sachet into the tub - and the water becomes turbid and starts to smell with hydrogen sulfide. Not a day without onsen!
NORWAY: UNDER THE NORTHERN LIGHTS.
Northern Norwegians have a popular format for holding corporate parties in the midst of winter. Employees are brought to the fjords, where on the shore are installed huge wooden barrels with water. They are heated with the help of stoves, which are dug under them. By the beginning of the party, the water in them is hot and ready for a comfortable dive. As a seed you will first ride on dogs, feed with the strongest Lapland broth, pour on a small - and then you can start diving. If you're lucky, it's on this night that the polar lights will be shown.
Now appeared and modernized versions of baths - metal, with electric heating and even a removable radio tape recorder. The procedure is very popular with foreigners - for example, in skiers and snowboarders (Norway is a popular place for skiing). Your obedient servant observed on the Lafoten islands, as in the baths installed directly under the windows of the hotel-restaurant, a whole platoon of Frenchmen chanting "Marseillaise" splashed. The guys married one of their friends and, without hampering themselves, came to Norway to a bachelor party. And, you must agree, what would it be for parting with a bachelor life - without a bath?
FINLAND: SMOKE OVEN.
It is believed that the main difference between a Finnish sauna and a Russian bath is dry air. But the Finns themselves say that the air in the sauna is wet, but about the dryness it is a version for Russian tourists trying to park the park in a steam room, splashing from the scoop to the stones with electric heating (which is something to be done, traditional steam is not everywhere). That's for such enthusiasts and invented that the sauna should be dry - to do without a short circuit.
In general, the bath culture in the Finns is developed in a way that we never dreamed of. Even in large cities like Helsinki, houses (albeit old buildings) have been preserved, each entrance has a separate sauna. The schedule of visits for residents of individual apartments is scheduled for a week, plus there are general days. When the sauna is heated, a pleasant aroma of sawdust and haze is crawling along the street. Going to the steam room before work is a sweet thing. Everything is extremely convenient and clean, up to disposable towels, which are placed on the shelves before sitting down. Hygiene first!
The most advanced users choose the traditional "black" or smoke sauna. The inside of such "natural" steam rooms is black with soot, but they never stand idle - it is believed that this is where the particularly aromatic, "bitter-sweet" couples are produced. A soot, in the end, then falsely washed away.
TUNISIA: MASSAGE FROM WOMEN.
Here, tourists are not only led to look at the ruins of the Roman baths, but also actually to the active bath are called. Tunisian baths are very similar to the Turkish hammam. Everywhere tile-marble, which can not but rejoice the champions of hygiene (all sorts of fungi in heat and high humidity especially like to settle on wood).
Girls to the left, boys to the right - no joint steam rooms. First, wrapped in towels, visitors sweat profusely. Then, steamed and razomlevshie, fall into the tenacious hands of the bathhouse attendant (bath attendants), which with the help of a special glove kese from camel hair makes a soap massage. Kese - a thing quite tough, and therefore gives the effect of light peeling. Then the body is coated with a strange greenish mixture of clay and algae. The mask is washed off after 15 minutes, and everything, you can go to the waiting room to drink herbal tea - chamomile, for example. He, by the way, restores the water balance, spoiled stay in the steam room.
CHINA: HONEY AND MILK.
Experienced people say that Chinese baths are like SPA, only in Asian manner. The Chinese approach to steam rooms fascinates - that's where the space and scope (if, of course, you are in the right authentic place). It's not even a bath, but a whole complex where people wash, soar, relax and even sleep.
There is both a dry and wet steam room (temperature, however, according to our ideas, children's - not above 80 ° C). The Chinese, putting cold towels on their heads, sweat and play go. In the jacuzzi boils almost boiling water, close to the pools with ice water, pink petals, herbal infusions, etc. Masseur severely but gently peels you with a tight sponge, and then pours milk with honey and again sends it to the steam room - so that everything is absorbed. They say that with regular use, the skin becomes like a child. Add here a session of Chinese massage - and life, we can say, begins anew.
But that is not all. After the steam room, everyone is given disposable gowns and you can go to the restaurant on the next floor or go straight to the relax zone where they play chess, read newspapers, watch movies and even shoot arrows. If you are in such a bliss that you can not think about leaving, stay overnight in a special guest room. Many people do this and how we understand them!