Thursday, 16 August 2007

Beitou Hot Spring area, Hell Valley


My mate Chicago Stu is in Thailand for a couple of weeks and I'm doing a bit of housesitting for him. He lives in a part of Taipei famed for it's natural hot springs, Beitou. In fact his hot water supply in the bathroom is natural hotspring water known for it's health giving properties. It's strong sulphurous stuff, apparently with a pH of 1.2 - 1.6, which sounds quite acidic to me. It is definately quite corrosive, the taps and metal fittings in the bathroom are all black and severely corroded, and any shiny new coins you might happen to leave on a table will be black or have turned some funky other colours within a couple of days. There are many Hot Spring hotels and public bath houses in the area, as well as a small steaming kind of lake where the water comes out from the bowels of the earth, an aptly named area called "Hell Valley". Occasionally some drunk decides to jump in for a swim, but as the water is over 90 degrees celsius this proves to be a fatal error.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ow. burney