Splash. Splash. Two wild monkeys dive into a hotspring next to me in the beautiful mountains of Jigokudani. The English translation of this place is Hell's valley, and somehow I do not have any burning desires to leave from here. This feels more like paradise than hell. A monkey-heaven.
Four hours ago I was still sitting on a metro on the Yamanote line heading towards Tokyo station. Then I got teleported by the Shinkansen to Nagano, on the other side of the island. A large group of very young school children rushed past me to take a group photo in front of the 1998 Winter Olympics banner. I caught a glimpse of their smiles, uniforms and small yellow hats before boarding the personal train to Yudanaka.
Finally there I was, feeling a little bit abandoned in a small rural train station. Faint music playing from the station speakers, an old man sitting on a bench and a dog running somwhere, maybe on a quest for new bone. My quest for the day was to visit the famous bathing Macaque. There were no English signs to point me in the right direction but as soon as I walked out from the station there was an arrow and the head of a monkey above it pointing towards a mountain. So I started walking.
I walked past many traditional Japanese houses, in the valley of Yokoyu river.The ground was rising below my feet till I reached a height of 850 meters and I spotted my very first Japanese hot spring on a steep cliff, spitting out boiling hot water onto the surface of the earth.Yes, it looked like the empire of Hades for at least a moment.
I went through a house where I could've taken a nice warm bath in the onsen, but I was too eager to see the famed snow monkeys in their spa resort which is probably better than Bath, Karlovy Vary and Baden Baden put all together (prime spa resorts in Europe). They feel so good and dozed off, that they do not pay any attention to me. And all this for the price of an admission ticket.
My new furry friends really didn't seem bothered at all. Monkey mums were carefully cleaning their babies, whilst monkey uncles and monkey dads had a long nap on the side of the pool. Aaah, the life! The sound of silence and a few other atmospheric sounds: scratch,scratch - splash - yawn.
These Macaques are capable to endure even -15 degrees Celsius, but it's easy like this if they're socializing in the hot bathing water all day long.
I must say evolution is no joke. They are the living proof. I suppose a couple of decades ago they must've seen a bunch of hippies snowball fighting and soaking themselves in the springs and they must've decided that swimming and snowball fighting is a good idea and they've been doing them ever since. There might be scientific proof for their behaviour, but I think ultimately it's just good old fashioned fun.Something we, humans manage to lose sometimes. This is why I envied my furry mammal counterparts, simultaneously I was in awe and I couldn't stop taking photos of them. They are my greatest photo models so far. It's a pity I'm not going to see them on Fashion Tv.
